They say that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but no one bothered telling Earth Motorcycles that. The Slovakian custom shop has just built an elegant and somewhat alluring café racer out of the most unlikely donor; a Yamaha Virago.
It’s not that Yamaha Virago café racers are uncommon—they’re just really hard to get right. In stock trim, the Virago boasts one of the most awkward layouts in modern motorcycling. So it takes a shrewd approach, and a little left-field thinking, to massage it into shape.
Earth Motorcycles circumnavigated those challenges, by choosing to highlight an unusual aspect of the oddball Virago. This build is all about what attracted Earth’s founder, Vlado Dinga, to the bike in the first place—its motor.…