Summer in Siberia – KrikMoto’s Honda CB400

In a shed far far away
We get requests from all over the world to write posts about builds.
Never ever before did we get an email all the way from Siberia though!

Nikita (no not the one from Elton John!), the owner of KrikMoto reached out to us via Instagram and presented us with the Honda he had produced as a first project.
The idea had been maturing in the brain of our new Russian friend during the last four years. It was about two years ago he decided to just go for it and got himself the 1993 Honda CB400 Super Four.

Step 1: buy a bike
Acquiring the bike set him back $ 1.000 to start with.
Hm, whilst on the subject of starting, the bike proved to be in pretty poor condition when he got it. This meant major work had to be done before he could even start working on the customization of his caféracer.

If you live in a part of the world which has a climate as harsh as in his homeland you are not easily scared by minor setbacks. You just roll up your sleeves and get to it.
The only thing Nikita was working from was the clear picture in his mind of how the bike should turn out in the end. But even that picture became slightly blurry at times, as he was struggling to get to grips with technical issues along the way.

Built not bought
He did not even steer away from creating many elements from scratch including the seat. For this particular part he had to call in some outside help as his mother had forgotten to teach him how to work the sewing machine.

Some of the other chores he sank his teeth into were exercises such as modifying the intake system by replacing the airbox with four K&N air filters with zero resistance, changing the subframe, replacing the dashboard, side shields and rear suspension.
As his father did not forget to initiate him into the secrets of welding, Nikita also took it upon him to produce a new exhaust system. Not bad for a first project.

First love
In answer to our question what he likes most about the bike he smilingly answers: “Everything”. Continuing: “Perhaps this is because it is the firstborn”.
Fortunately for him the managed to sell the bike quickly and is sure its new owner is now a happy man riding around the Tundra’s in far away Siberia. Unfortunately for us there was not enough time to provide a decent set of pictures, so we have to do with the few which were sent to us.

To make up for the minimal selection he did send us a tasteful video though.

Onwards and upwards!
Still we feel this is enough to anxiously await news of a next project. We have seen some snapshots of interesting things to come.
Closing off with the Russian builder’s famous last words about his motivation to start building:
“When riding a bike, you should savour the feeling of the ride. If you are fortunate enough to be riding a custom bike the feeling multiplies!”

Builder details:
Builder: KrikMoto – Nikita
email: krikunov_n@mail.ru
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