Every visitor to Mid Life Cycles is blown away by Sammy* the CB100.  Ace builder Darren Brown has produced a bike that's more mascot than motorcycle, more art than machine, more Honda CR than CB... and it runs as well as it looks.

Darren's attention to detail is amazing, from the switchgear and mounts to the shiny brass fuel petcock, and from the custom made clip-ons to the neat bum-stop seat (to quote our American friends.. not that it's likely to accommodate the typical American bum). And that tank is a work of art in itself.

When we unloaded it we couldn't wait to start the little beast and give it a short run. Turn on the fuel, a little choke on the new carby, flick the switch and a lazy swing on the kickstarter... There was an immediate and eager "brrappp" from that beautiful alloy muffler, a few moments of fast idle, then a blip on the throttle to unleash all the rampaging horses.

Hmmm, definitely an open-face helmet sort of bike... T-shirt and shortie gloves will do for this first quick run.  The standard speedo sitting proud of the tip yoke and behind the very period headlight offers a couple of warning lights, and some sweeping arcs terminating in each of the five gear-numbers.  So, 1-2-3-4-5 and an optimistic 75mph maximum... that's about 120 km/h, so this is a true Ton-up cafe racer!

Swing onto the street and run Sammy up through the gears, could he actually have more power than my first bike, a Honda S90? Surely not, that S90 was the world's fastest (or maybe just the noisiest) sub-125cc bike ever built... We did a quick turn out front of Maranello Motorsport, just to show those Ferrari guys a thing or two, then back up the street.  Yes, all five gears present and correct and Sam proves man enough to haul my ageing arse back to the shop.

Now our Saturday mornings are complete - Sammy sits out front and is a total traffic-stopper and jaw-dropper.  There's sure to be an accident in the near future, as passing cars slow down and drivers and passengers point and wave, forgetting that some of the through-traffic treats our local street as a speed-unlimited run-up to the freeway.

Out back we're building bigger bikes, and they might even be better bikes (they'll certainly be faster), but for sheer wow-factor, Sammy is hard to beat.

So now we'll build a limited run of Sammy replicas.  Well, not really - he's too special to replicate, but there'll be some siblings done to special order.  Please form an orderly queue.

*We're not really into naming our bikes, but if you're allowed to be politically incorrect for a moment, think small, black and a showman, and you'll get the idea.