Just wondering what the comparison on these 2 are race wise, same engine class... Rockers vs. Hooligans

Cafe racers originated in the 50s and 60s in the UK.  They were the tuner-bike crotch rockets of their day.  The term "cafe racer" is sort of a nostalgic thing, applied to a bike that might have been built last week, and might a pretty decent hot rod, but is configured more like the skinny lightweight bikes of 50 years ago cut down to race from one cafe to another.

Most Japanese middleweight crotch rockets will STOMP on most cafe racers because the Japs build them as darn-near state-of-the-art racebikes that are legal to ride on the street.

That don't matter none to a cafe racer dude, because he built something simple, lightweight, and hot rodded in one form or another.  Hopefully it handles real well, has a quirky personality, and uses its 40 to 60 hp pretty well.

One thing cool about cafe racers is that you can do that transformation on just about anything.  I've seen cafe racers that were originally Honda CB125s.  I've also seen them with big Harley engines.

Let's be honest, one of today's 600cc full bore KawaondaSaki repli-racer (you can name your favorite brand) with a 20 year old kid on it that can actually ride the durn thing to capacity around turns will kick the butt of anything you can build from older stock parts.

It ain't the bikes any more, nobody can ride them to their full capacity any more without killing themselves.

Much less us .... we ride our Grandma sickles up to capacity and can still skunk many better bikes up in them there twisty mountains.   One dude on a Ducati needs to slink on home in Fontana road shame and not hang around the Dragon cafe in his colorful leathers talking about his Italian hot rod -- he was skunked on the way up the mountain by Grandpa on an old silver Grandmaw sickle and he knows it ...  forever !!

I rode this truxton once... 900cc cafe, race replica. Very smooth pull, fast and fun to ride, seat comfort aside, that sucked   Anyhow, few months later I sat on a 900 Fireblade, same road, same attitude... And once it went past 5000rpm (easy) - I felt like in StarTracks when they "engage warp five". Bike felt soo light and easy to handle... Really, two different worlds. The blade was much faster, if you're nuts enough to open it up, as oldfeller said.

Though it would be cool to see a ryca build with a vintage race fairing mocked up sort of like theses

http://www.airtech-streamlining.com/hondaz/cr4501967teamhansen.htm