Hybrid Honda

Mounties, bears, the maple leaf: all things that spring to mind when Canada is mentioned. CB400F specials do not but, if Rick Denoon’s is anything to go by, Canada might have to rethink its national emblem.

It’s our right as British citizens to moan and complain about whatever we see fit. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that, as a nation, we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy about something. Even our hobbies, the things we profess to enjoy most of all, often give us reason to complain, and motorcycling is by no means excluded. Bad weather, half-witted car drivers, road tax, extortionate insurance, rising petrol prices, cost of spares… no one else has it this bad, do they?
Rick Denoon hails from Canada – Winnipeg, to be precise – and is the proud owner and, indeed, creator of the fine CB400 special you see before you. But I’ll get on to that in a moment. Listening to Rick talk about what our cousins over the pond have to put up with certainly made me realise things aren’t that bad for us, really. I’ll let him explain…

“Motorcycling in our area of the country has always been a fringe activity because of the extremely long and cold winters, but it has really taken a hit in the last 20 years. “Riders in the USA were having trouble with the government trying to introduce legislation to mandate all kinds of safety restrictions on bikes: where and when they could be ridden, restricted horsepower outputs and so on. I remember reading an article in one of the US magazines stating that now the government hadn’t been successful passing laws restricting motorcycles, to watch out for the insurance industry doing the dirty work for them. By raising their rates to astronomical levels, insurance companies would be able to control, and ultimately reduce, the growth of the sport by making it too expensive for new riders. At the time, I remember thinking ‘what is this guy smoking?’ but, as time has passed, I have witnessed this exact process happening here in Canada.”

Canada has a public insurance system, so you have no choice but to buy from the state. As a result, the state controls the price of premiums and, even though motorcycle-unfriendly legislation may not get past the pressure groups, the government can set premiums to the level they see fit. The result is that it is becoming increasingly costly to run a motorcycle in Canada. Third party-only cover for Rick’s CB400F is more than $1000 this year and set to keep rising.
This hike in premiums has effectively eliminated the casual rider. It is just too costly to insure a bike and have it sit the garage, only to take the occasional ride, so a huge number of bikes have been shoved to the back of garages, or shipped over to Europe to take advantage of the lucrative restoration culture, making it rather difficult to find classic machinery at all, let alone the spares to restore or maintain one.
Nevertheless, a dedicated following are keeping the scene alive, Rick included. As a youngster he was first inspired to ride by his father, who dispatched Nortons and Guzzis during WWII. Rick struck a deal with his father and set about cutting lawns to raise half the purchase price of an off-road machine. Money-in-hand, the pair took delivery of a brand-new 1976 Honda XR75 and Rick proceeded to ‘ride the wheels off it’ for the next 12 months.


The XR was the first in a succession of Hondas for Rick; a CB360T came next, followed by a 1978 CB550K and then a 1980 CB750F.
It was round about this time he developed the urge for a CB400: “In 1981 I was a 17-year-old kid riding a new CB750F. I had read magazine articles of Kaz Yoshima’s development and racing exploits of the CB400F. With visions of a 13,000rpm giant-killer in my head, I began the search for a CB400F project bike.”

A suitable machine came by way of a friend of a friend. Said owner had clipped a truck coming head-on in his lane and flipped the bike end-over-end in to a ditch. Needless to say, the CB was in slightly less-than-mint condition and Rick set about assessing the extent of the damage: “Knowing then what I know now, the bike I ended up buying would have been my last choice. Maxim number one in bike building: No matter how much you plan on modifying the bike, start out with the best example you can afford. I paid $150 for the bike, and no sooner had it stripped in the garage than I realized that I would immediately have to replace the frame, triple clamps and forks to get the bike roadworthy. Along with a fried rectifier, the replacement costs of these components brought my ‘investment’ up to around $600 – about what a nice example would have set me back, and I was still left with a cosmetic pile of junk that had bent fenders, signals, tank, and cracked side covers.”

Rick got the CB roadworthy and, over the next 10 years, rode it various forms, using seats, fairings and other bits and bobs acquired along the way, but he still wasn’t satisfied – maxim number two: Decide what you want to do and do it, rather than settling for something you don’t really want.
A chance visit to a breaker a few years later – 1995, to be precise – led to the purchase of a rolling VF500 chassis and, over the course of that summer, Rick set about grafting the wheels, brakes, swing arm and suspension unit on to the CB’s frame.
At the same time he acquired an NS400 fairing, Fox adjustable shock absorber and seat unit from a YZF750. The bike acquired its present paint job and, once it was bolted together, Rick switched a number plate to it from another bike, so he could see what it was like on the road. Then he popped it in the garage after the day’s ride and there it stayed for four years, untouched....

Classic Motorcycle Mechanics April 2005 edition

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