Taverne’s Hornet Queen is One Fiendish Honda CB600F

Let’s set things straight; the folks over at Taverne Motorcycle aren’t exactly amateurs when it comes to customizing two-wheelers of all shapes and sizes. Back in 2015, the workshop was co-founded by Florian Taverne and Christophe Kling near Marseille, on the southern coast of France.

One thing’s for sure, these fellows don’t like wasting time. Over the course of their brief history, these gifted moto-surgeons have stacked up over 30 one-off masterpieces that’ll have just about any rider awe-struck.

TM’s portfolio boasts some truly fascinating works of mechanical art, such as a Kawasaki ZRX1200-based beauty, a staggering Triumph Sprint 900 and one outlandish Suzuki Bandit 1200TM, to name a few. Should you want to delight your eyes with a healthy dose of custom goodness, their marvels can be admired on Taverne’s social media profiles. But first, let’s see what they’ve managed to achieve with this rad Honda CB600F Hornet.

To give you a better idea as to how far this creation has come, we’ll start by having a quick look at what the original machine was made of. Look, I’ll have to point out the obvious and say the CB600F is a genuine showstopper in every sense of the word. It is brought to life by a vicious liquid-cooled inline-four leviathan, with a total of 16 valves and a generous displacement of 599cc.

At 12,000 revs, the DOHC powerplant is good for up to 97 hp, accompanied by a solid torque output of 48 pound-feet (65 Nm) at 10,000 rpm. A six-speed transmission is tasked with handing this force over to a chain final drive. Ultimately, the Hornet is blessed with a top speed of 140 mph (225 kph) and will gladly run the quarter mile in 11.7 seconds.

Suspension duties are handled by 41 mm (1.61 inches) telescopic forks at the front, coupled with a fully-adjustable monoshock at the rear. In terms of stopping power, dual 296 mm brake rotors and two-pston calipers are found up front, joined by a single 220 mm disc and a one-piston caliper on the opposite end.

As to Taverne Motorcycle’s majestic conversion, this build was completed in no more than three months. To improve the suspension’s performance, the Frenchmen kicked things off by swapping the stock forks out with a Buell XB12’s module.

Next, they proceeded to install an unconventional perimeter disc brake on the new front wheel, which is an XB12’s unit as well. Additionally, the rotor wears top-grade Beringer components, while the wheel is hugged by a custom fender.

At the front, you will find a v-rod headlight nested inside a hand-crafted alloy housing, as well as LSL handlebars and a Daytona Asura gauge cluster. On the other hand, the Taverne duo retained the bike’s stock foot pegs and fuel tank.

A fresh leather saddle was upholstered in-house and the standard side panels were removed to make room for TM’s very own alloy counterparts. Besides a rear lighting package from Kellerman, we also notice a skeletal tail section that incorporates a stainless-steel muffler. Last but not least, the rear wheel was enveloped in laser-cut aluminum covers that do a great job at making the whole thing stand out.

Right, now that we’ve come to the end of this project’s story, I’d encourage you to pay Taverne Motorcycle a visit on their Instagram or Facebook pages. This Honda CB600F Hornet is just one of many spectacular exploits!