Pimping my Super Cub.

Now that I have the Yamaha XJR400R pretty well sorted and running nicely, it was time to turn my attention back to the Super Cub. The Cub has been doing daily duty as my transportation and recreational motorcycle. The recent work on the XJR, the increasingly dropping outside temps and lack of daylight have kept me from the paint removal project leaving the Cub looking like a stray mongrel. I decided one random day off to pour a little love on the workhorse of my motorcycle stable. Scroll on to see what I did.

One of the first things I did to the cub to make it a bit more functional was to take the top box off the XJR and put it on the Cub. At one point I contemplated getting a second mounting plate so that I could have the box on either bike depending on what kind of ride I was doing. I did find one from the company that made the box itself. It was almost as much as the box and plate combo I got from the local Up Garage. Since the Cub has a reputation in Japan as being an old man's bike (I fit that description most times) or a business bike, most of the modifications you see are those that make the bike more functional on a daily basis. That is the theme of this post and adding the top box went a long way of making the bike a very functional ride.

One of the ways I enjoy the Cub is to go out and get lost in the maze of minor roads that make up most of the thoroughfares of my city. Some of these roads are very narrow and quite frequently only one way. They often wind in and around various hills and valleys making for a good variety of riding. I will usually start on a few roads I know and then take a few random turns until I get somewhere familiar or find myself completely lost. The next mod I did was to get this Amazon accessory bar for my Ram Mount smart phone holder. It mounts at various angles under the mirror stem and cost less than $10 USD. I added the power port I took off the XJR since it was going to be sold off anyway. Now I can pull out my phone and use my maps to get back home when the ride is done.

I made a post on my Instagram page showing the recent morning riding temps. Nowadays, single digit Celsius temps are my commuting norm. With the XJR I have the option of turning on my heated gloves. An option I have taken advantage of several times this season already. I am pretty sure that the Cub's electrical system would give up the ghost pretty quickly if I tried wiring in the heated gloves. A cheap alternative is these bar mittens. I picked these up for $15 USD at the local hardware store. I was looking forward to them, but was also a bit skeptical that they'd work. The left side was great and went right on the bike. The right side was a different story. The mitten kept interfering with the throttle return. I did a little trimming which improved things, but I wasn't comfortable that the mitten wouldn't malfunction at an inopportune time. Ultimately I didn't use them on the Cub. I did however put them on my bicycle. They should work well on the pedal bike if I ever rode it any more...

This next modification was just a lucky find. When I bought the Cub from the junkyard it was in an interesting state. Aside from the beige house paint and black leg shield, it included a Honda Little Cub front emblem cover. The Little Cub is a version of the Cub with 14" wheels instead of the 17" wheels of the Super Cub series and a couple of other minor mods to make the bike more appealing to shorter riders. Dropping the wheel size brings the whole chassis down by 1.5" which could make the difference between riding or not for some people. The Little Cub's cover didn't fit with the fender and leg shield. I found this one at the local Up Garage and snatched it up. With the Plasma Yellow body color, it really should also be yellow, but for $10 USD I won't complain.

Well the winter holidays are over and I'm back at work. I want to work on the bikes, but it is still pretty cold and dark by the time I get home from work. I want to take off some more of the ugly beige paint on the Cub. I also want to do some work with the fuel system and replace a few sketchy hoses and clamps. The Cub and the XJR also need a bath, but washing a bike when the temps are hovering around the freezing point isn't that appealing. The pandemic situation has limited my activities once again, but I will try to get out and ride both bikes as much as I can. Hopefully you too can get out and ride. If you can, ride safe friends!

Mat