OLLIE’S ODDJOBS
If you want a motorcycle with too much power, next to no suspension, no lights and lousy brakes, you’d buy a 1920s flat-tanker, right? Our man Ollie uncovers a more modern option…
If you want a motorcycle with too much power, next to no suspension, no lights and lousy brakes, you’d buy a 1920s flat-tanker, right? Our man Ollie uncovers a more modern option…
There’s a growing band of unhinged, usually young, mechanical geniuses who have taken upon themselves the task of hacking about the most popular motor vehicle in history, the Honda Super Cub. The Super Cub has been in production since 1958, and over 100 million have been produced. Honda mucked about with the concept a little, using the engine in monkey bikes and recently a very flash model appeared with a 125cc engine, alloy wheels and all manner of gee-gaws.
The original Cub has been widely copied, both as a concept and as a direct rip-off. And there’s been a trend for young Antipodeans to ride Aussie Post Office surplus off-road CT110 versions around the world. But it’s only recently that the Super Cub has become a custom builder’s target bike. Turn up at any show these days and you’ll see a goodly scattering of the things, some more practical than others. A C90 with the wheels from a Volkswagen Caddy pick-up truck managed to look impressive and, at the same time, unrideable. That’s not to say it was necessarily unrideable, it just looked it. And I used to own an MZ ES250, so I know all about apparently unrideable motorcycles.
In theory it should be easy to get started in the arcane world of Cub customising. Just rip off the plastic bodywork, spray the rest of the bike matt black and you’ve got an instant
custom. In theory. And as anyone who has ever tried to restore or customise a motorcycle knows, it really isn’t as simple as that.
Rob McInally’s C70, ‘Stock-ish’, was originally that traditional barn find, comprising a rusty blue relic with a now sought-after Craven period top box. Like many a Cub, it refused to die of neglect. ‘It had stood for 10 years. At least,’ he says. After a bit of tweaking he’s ended up with about as basic a motorcycle as you can get, with wheels, engine and frame.
Oh, and nitrous oxide injection. Tiddler special builders Devon Custom Cubs did a lot of the work. Dave Dyer did the frame stretching modifications, while Jeff Houghton did most of the build. The pressed steel monocoque chassis, with the engine below the central spine, causes all kinds of issues if you want to do anything special to it. The wheels are far too narrow for anything close to performance handling, so it needed fatter tyres. And because of the pressed steel construction of the front end and rear subframe, it was not just a question of slapping on fatter yokes and bigger wheels, as you might with a conventional motorcycle.
Instead Devon Custom Cubs took the original forks and split them down the middle, widened them by an inch or so with plates and braces, and welded the forks back together. The rear subframe got the same treatment, being split and a steel plate welded into place to make space for the fatter back wheel. The 17-inch rims came from a Chinese-made Pulse Adrenaline trail bike and were laced into the original hubs, various spacers were introduced, and a pair of road bike tyres were popped on which give the thing a bit of presence.
The rise of China as a manufacturer of tiny custom bike exotica means that the internet is awash with weird and wonderful bits and bobs. From mounting plates that allow you to fit a Cub engine into a BMX bicycle, to electric motor kits that replace the little Cub’s bulletproof engine with something less smoky, all you could possibly want is just a few weeks away by air mail. One suspects that parts are even easier to get from China than they were when you contacted a seller through Exchange and Mart or Motorcycle, Scooter and Three-Wheeler Mechanics and paid a small fortune for COD.
This abundance of far-eastern alloy nonsense came in handy when sourcing the rest of the bits needed to build Stock-ish. There’s twin SIE (who?) air shocks at the back, possibly designed for a monkey bike, which provide a modicum of bump absorption.
There’s an off-the-shelf exhaust can and a quick action throttle and a pair of ‘probably’ Renthal bars. The box section swinging arm is another unbranded and extended item. To replace Honda’s little 70cc powerplant, Stockish was given a punchier 125cc unit from a Lifan pit bike. There’s a dinky little oil cooler plumbed into the cylinder head and a basic very Mikuni-copy carb mounted sideways.
As the original pit bike didn’t need lights there’s no electrical system, other than a generator to provide the sparks. Which means the C70 also ended up with no lights at all, and a daytime MoT. This does tend to cramp Rob’s style. As the nights draw in the little bike must be home earlier and earlier to avoid being caught out after dark, though Rob didn’t report any issues with over-enthusiastic law-enforcement officers questioning the Cub’s legality. Presumably Weston-superMare’s police have more important things to worry about in their hotbed of lawless iniquity than lightless Hondas…
The sole instrument is an oil pressure gauge, which you can’t see because it’s hidden by the rider’s right leg, and there’s an off-the-shelf seat.
After a few months of riding the Cub round, Rob decided it needed something to make it stand out a bit more. And what better way to make an impression than by fitting a nitrous oxide injection kit?
The chequer-plate side panels that filled the gaps left by the electrical system had big holes cut in them and a nitrous tank inserted therein. This was connected in the simplest way possible with a pipe taking the laughing gas plumbed into the air intake. It’s controlled by a push button on the left-hand bar, which opens a valve on the bottle, and requires a bravery not many possess to push it. Top speed without the nitrous enabled is 45-50mph – approximately, as there’s no speedometer. With nitrous the top speed is arrrrgggh!
Rob’s machine was awarded the Bike of The Night prize at our local gathering, beating the factory customs, Harleys and sports bikes that make up most of the numbers. As a winner, it was included in the competition for Bike Of The Year. He didn’t win. Instead that trophy went to a modern Indian Scout fitted with tractor tyres. It takes all sorts…