Custom motorcycle builders often get requests for machines that either replicate or, at the very least, draw inspiration from ones that they’ve built before. But what happens when a customer likes one of your previous projects, and then deviates from the source material with a totally different donor bike?
That’s the challenge that Cowboy’s Company faced recently. Five years ago, the Taiwanese custom shop built a custom Kawasaki ER-6F with a quirky brat vibe that turned the base bike’s idiosyncrasies into features. Their latest client wanted something in the same vein—but this time, the canvas was a Kymco K-Rider 400.
Sold predominantly in Asia, the Kymco K-Rider is a 399 cc commuter with modern, aggressive styling. But lurking below the edgy plastics are a trellis frame with some interesting curves, an asymmetrical swingarm, and a parallel-twin motor—similar to the ingredients of the Kawasaki ER-6F.
That’s because the two bikes are vaguely related. Thanks to a collaboration between Kymco and Kawasaki, the K-Rider got its engine and some of its engineering from the ER-6’s little sibling, the Kawasaki ER-4N. It’s far from a carbon copy, but the DNA is evident.
Those similarities worked in Cowboy’s Company’s favor—as did the fact that the bike had already been disassembled when they got their hands on it. (Its owner had started working on it himself, but had to shelve the project when work got busy.)
With the skeleton of the K-Rider on their workbench, the Cowboy’s team immediately noted that its frame and swingarm were remarkably elegant for a bike of this ilk. The first step was to fabricate a new, leveled subframe with enough space for a two-up seat. Cowboy’s went a step further, adding a neat pillion grab handle that can double up as a tie-down point for luggage.
Next, the team cut up the OEM fuel tank. Retaining just the floor and fuel pump, they fabricated a new reservoir with a sculpted design that suits the bike’s revised silhouette, without sacrificing capacity.
The fenders are handmade pieces, too, as are the brackets that hold them in place. The headlight is housed in a custom nacelle, while the taillight is tucked under a chromed hood, styled after the fender-mounted turn signals you see on vintage cars.
The K-Rider is littered with small one-off details. Chromed plates fill in the front frame triangles, while also holding a pair of turn signals. Further back, liquid-like chromed parts cover the gaps under the seat, with a matching guard floating above the rear shock on the right-hand side.
Cowboy’s also modified and repositioned the foot controls for a more comfortable ride, and built a bracket to hold an Apple CarPlay-enabled dashboard that’s also linked to rear- and forward-facing cameras. Low-slung bars, fresh grips and mirrors, a Rough Crafts gas cap, and Continental TKC80 tires complete the setup.
The Kymco’s alluring paint job is a tribute to the Chinese Year of the Snake, which not only occurred while the bike was being built last year, but also coincides with the owner’s birth year. The serpentine details include the airbrushed scales on the sides of the fuel tank, a ghosted snake graphic up top, and a snake head cleverly worked into the ‘C’ of the Cowboy’s logo.
According to the Cowboy’s crew, the K-Rider isn’t nearly as popular as the brand’s other small-capacity commuter bikes in Taiwan. But with bold custom examples like this one, that could change.
Cowboy’s Chopper Facebook | Instagram | Images by Bart Kang
