Our feature bike No Jokes is aptly named as it’s a serious custom in all respects. It’s loaded with some of the highest quality V-twin parts available in Russia and Yuri’s aggressive design definitely sets it apart from other builders. No Jokes is armed with a 113” Ultima engine breathing through a good old American S&S Super G carb while exhaling through a YSC exhaust and should produce enough firepower to lead any May Day Parade through Red Square. A RevTech 6-speed RSD tranny spins the Wicked Image Nightmare 18” rear wheel with a fat 280mm Metzeler protecting it. Stopping rotation as needed is YSC’s own 4-piston disc clamping on the drive pulley with a YSC caliper grabbing a single disc mounted on another Nightmare/Metzeler combo up front.

The backbone of this bike is Yuri’s pride and joy with a YSC-built frame raked 40-degrees and tubing that stylishly goes wherever it wants to. Air suspension out back tames the winter worn streets of Moscow while Yuri made his own fork up front. It’s not like there’s a chopper shop on every corner for parts, so Yuri makes whatever he has to from scratch as needed. Bodywork is extremely well done and can stand with the best in the world for quality and design. The lines of the tank are on a constant move in every direction and flow back continuously to the tip of the pointed fender creating a well for the blended-in YSC-made seat and covers up the connecting pivot of the rakish tubular swingarm which mirrors the arc of the pipes. Since this bike was made with the idea of actually spending time on the pavement, Yuri insisted on a front tire-hugging fender that looks just right and extends low enough to keep street crap from peppering the striking chin spoiler/oil tank combo. YSC covered it all in a multi-color/multi-graphic paintjob that looks colorfully conservative from ten feet away, but gets interestingly complex the closer you get. Pictures don’t begin to convey its beauty.

Yuri built a set of Z-bars, which mimic the downtube’s sharply angled pointiness on a set of risers that sprout from behind that one-off grimacing headlight. If you were trundling along Moscow’s Arbat Street in your 1983 Lada Riva (which was a Russian-built version of a Fiat 124) minding your own business on the way to get some vodka and this insanely aggressive headlight filled your rear view mirror, you’d have to pull over immediately and continue your fright by the side of the road.

Custom American V-Twin-style bikes are not just a western phenomena like they once were, but have been embraced world-wide. Yuri Shif’s customs can stand proudly on their own two wheels anywhere the sound of a 45-degree V-twin is appreciated.