There’s a certain kind of poetry to the idea of a BMX Cub—it almost seems like a glorious modern interpretation of the early days of motorcycling. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like—you take a BMX bike, and then you power it with a Cub (or Cub-clone) single-cylinder engine. It’s apparently a pretty popular construction in Indonesia. Enggal Modified is a customizer who’s particularly good at building bikes in this style.
What do you do when you get good at something, though? You look for new challenges, and that’s exactly what Enggal appears to have done. One day, he asked himself what would happen if he stuck a Kawasaki Ninja 250 SL engine into a BMX build? Obviously, the heavier and more powerful powerplant meant that some serious additional modifications needed to be made. Some people wouldn’t even want to go down that rabbit hole—but Enggal dove right in and figured out how to make it work.
The frame, of course, had to be built and reinforced specifically to support the weight of that engine. It’s liquid-cooled, so there’s also a teeny, tiny radiator that draws your eye at the front of the bike. It was also clearly in need of a real motorcycle-style suspension, so Enggal took an upside-down front fork from a Suzuki GSX750 and used it on the front, along with a motocross rear shock off a Kawasaki KLX in the rear.
It’s such a tidy, bonkers build, and the more you look at it, the more you find little things to appreciate. Disc brakes provide stopping power, and Shinko Big Block tires keep it capable and fun riding on trails. That little 250cc Ninja engine is good for nearly 30 horsepower at 10,000 rpm—and even though the finished bike clearly weighs more than a stock BMX bike, it’s obviously not as heavy as a Ninja 250. The power-to-weight ratio must be kind of nuts.
If you’re wondering how it handles, you can see a bit of it in this video. The spoken parts are in Indonesian, but there’s some very nicely recorded riding footage, so you can get an idea of how well it handles ripping up a trail. It looks incredibly fun, nimble, and responsive—and of course, it sounds amazing.
Although Enggal said he built this for himself, he also said that he had offers to buy this one-off build practically as soon as he posted it on Instagram. It’s not at all difficult to understand why, particularly after you see, hear, and witness video of how it rides.
Gallery: BMX Bulldog Custom Build by Enggal Modified
