No , they have not returned . And since they hadn ’ t actually gone anywhere , they really have no place from whence to return . Café racers have simply ceased to exist . Still , some people are making a digital name for themselves by leeching off the borrowed glory a very unique and never-to-be-seen again motorcycling subculture that existed in England in the late 60s and early 70s . Groups of young blokes would ride their British motorcycles to a “ caff ” – one of the most famous was the Ace Café – where they would drink tea , play rock ’ n ’ roll on the jukebox , and shoot the shit about their motorcycles . Now and again , two of them would be moved to race each other through the often damp , cobblestoned streets of London . If there was no-one to race , a bloke would put a record on the jukebox , jump on his bike and ride a predetermined course in an effort to be back before the record had finished playing . Many of them would seek to break the old imperial “ ton ”, or 160km / h in our money , and become a “ Ton-Up Boy ”. Which was no mean feat on shitty old Nortons , Beezas , and Triumphs . So , in order to make their bikes go faster , the blokes would strip them down to their bare bones , fit clip-on-style handlebars and homemade rear-sets , and set off to find café glory or a good surgeon . Once a year , many of them would travel to Brighton Beach and spend an afternoon beating the crap out of dandies on scooters , as seen in the movie Quadrophenia . Rockers ( the blokes on bikes ) versus Mods ( the blokes on scooters ) was the subject of many horrified headlines . So , that ’ s kind of like a basic primer on the café racer culture that died out with the advent of the Japanese superbikes like the Honda 750-Four . It is by no means complete , and like any subculture , is a lot richer and more varied than I have space to go into . Still , this unique and now extinct paradigm has now been appropriated by those man-buncrowned shit-weasels , whom you might recognise as Hipsters . To look briefly at any of their dreary websites , you would think they are the inheritors of something worthwhile . But they ’ re not . And for one simple reason . Café racing was all about riding the bikes . And it ’ s not about riding motorcycles for these clowns . It never has been . It ’ s about food , and music , and fashion . It ’ s about raising money for charity . It ’ s about exhaust-wrap and badly resurrecting dreary old two-wheeled shitboxes , since none of them would know a Paul Smart Ducati from a soy latte . At a recent International Festival of Speed ( back when it was the Barry Sheene Festival of Speed ) the new promoters , bearded girl-jean-wearing bravos to a man , were asking who Agostini , Schwantz and Spencer were . So , they don ’ t ride ( not really , and not far , hard , or crazy ), and they know dick-all about our gods