He owns three Super Cubs. And they’re all coolly modified. We asked the owner, Kaikichi, about it!

Cafe Cub Meeting in Aoyama wins popularity poll for 10 consecutive years!

The Cafe Cub Meeting in Aoyama will be held for the 27th time in 2024. The Welcome Plaza on the first floor of Honda’s headquarters building will be open to the public, and the sight of Super Cubs filling the area around the building has become a familiar sight for fans. However, with demolition work to rebuild the headquarters building set to begin in 2025, this long-running meeting may be the last.

This event was organized by organizers who wanted to provide a forum for discussing the Super Cub as a culture and disseminate information. As you know, the Super Cub is now fully recognized as a fan bike, and customization culture has become very popular. This event was also a major player in this. And when you think of someone who has continued to participate in Cafe Cub meetings and won the fan vote for an amazing 10 years in a row, you could say that he is one of the people who has really made the Cub popular. That person is Kaikichi, who we will introduce today.

I spoke to Kaikichi-san in the past when I was interviewing him for Moto Champ magazine, and since then I’ve seen him almost every year at the Cafe Cub Meeting. During that time he has customized three Cubs, and all three have placed highly in popularity polls. The JA44 he is riding in the photo above won first place in the popularity poll for 2023, and it’s no surprise that it’s finished to the highest standard. So why has Kaikichi become so obsessed with Cubs?

It was this orange C50 that sparked his love affair with Cubs. Kaikichi works at a parts design company, and one of his colleagues bought a new C50. After riding it for a few years, he decided to switch to a Super Cub 110, the JA10. When Kaikichi heard the trade-in price for the C50, he asked if he could sell it to him for the same price, and he readily agreed. And that was how the Super Cub came into his hands, and that was the beginning of it all.

He designs parts for a living, so he loves tinkering with machines. He also has a garage at home stocked with machine tools and welding machines to make parts, so if he has the desire to customize something, he’ll make it himself. If a Super Cub were handed over to someone like him, he’d be compelled to customize it. The first thing that stands out is the style. The headlights have been given a makeover with LED lights installed in a homemade cover. He also shortened the handlebars by cutting them apart from the inside of the turn signal position. The pipes that will be re-welded are bent downwards. The missing turn signals have been installed on top of the leg shield. He also installed a small meter visor that he made himself from a bracket.

Since the engine will be tuned, it is essential to reinforce the body. For this reason, an X-shaped subframe was made from iron pipes. This was achieved through the highly difficult technique of welding two pieces together while heating and bending them. In addition to increasing power and reinforcing the frame, the front and rear suspension were also changed. Of particular note is the front fork, which is now a telescopic type rather than the C50’s original bottom link type. The fork itself is from a Honda Dio, but the problem is the stem, which cannot be attached to the Cub as is. Therefore, the fork was installed using a stem made by an acquaintance, and the surrounding body panels were made by hand to complete the bike. Brackets were also made so that the original drum brakes can be used.

The bright orange body was also completely painted in the owner’s garage. The two-component urethane paint was sprayed on with a gun, resulting in a truly stunning finish. Although some areas are showing signs of deterioration as it has been about 10 years since it was made, it is hard to believe that it was the work of an amateur. The seats were also changed to match the body color. They were made into midi seats that are longer, but they were not simply used as is. The skin was peeled off and the thickness of the sponge inside was changed. The skin was then reupholstered after being left to a thick layer.

The engine has been upgraded to 110cc using a Minimoto kit. The carburetor used is a YD28, which gives it a completely different level of power compared to the stock one. To counter this, an oil cooler was added, but it ended up cooling the engine too much. So I decided to try removing it, and it turned out that the oil cooler was unnecessary after all. So I left the oil cooler pipe (the red part in the photo) that I had removed from the head and used it as an oil cooler.

Of course, he also paid particular attention to the exhaust system, making it himself. He wanted to increase not only the power at high speeds but also the torque at low speeds, so he created an exhaust pipe with a sub-chamber. His aim was a success, and the engine ended up with a truly torquey engine.

Not only the exhaust pipes but also the mufflers are noteworthy. The dual silencers, which have two outlets from the connection point with the exhaust pipes that extend to near the swingarm, are LASER slip-on products for other motorcycles with large displacements. They had to be modified to fit with the homemade exhaust pipes, but it was surprising how seamless it looked. The silencer stays were also homemade and are fixed with a frame inside the side cover. It’s a very detailed piece. We plan to introduce the remaining two motorcycles in succession.