The CB1100 Community Forum

So here it is, my First Road Trip Review of my '17 EX. This type of roadie is largely why I bought this bike, figuring she'd be my touring bike, my casual-rides bike, and my two-up bike, leaving the XSR900 to be my Go Be A Moron bike.

While this will largely remain the plan, things are no longer quite what they seemed.

Cutting to the chase, I discovered four mini-issues with the CB during this trip, only one of which is likely to become a permanent issue for me...

First off, compared to the bolt-upright XSR (due to the bar risers I added), the CB's seating position places me in a semi-sporting slouch, with my legs folded beneath me, my lower back somewhat arched. Yes, 'slouch,' not 'crouch.' It's not like a sportbike, with low bars enforcing an exaggerated forward lean. Nope, in this case the bars are obviously fairly high, but they're just low enough and far enough away that I slouch to reach them.

I first realized this during my return trip to the dealer, when I had my heated grips installed. It's a long freeway slog to get there, and by the time I'd hit the 680 freeway I noticed that my lower back was a bit sore. I never get lower-back soreness on any bike. This was a first for me. I also noticed that simply sitting upright and straightening my back (the XSR's riding position) alleviated the soreness.

So, for this entire trip I made sure to move around in the saddle, and I sat straight and tall every so often. By the end of the trip, I really wasn't thinking about it any longer. I'd gotten used to it.

So, not a problem. The XSR is actually the more comfortable freeway bike for me, which wasn't the plan, but there it is. The CB's mirrors are way better, and so is its seat. In terms of motor buzz and smoothness, I'd say the CB is probably a hair smoother, largely because I tend to average around 70 mph on the CB, vs 75 mph on the XSR, which puts the CB right in her sixth-gear wheelhouse. Certainly the XSR's pegs vibrate more, and the mirrors blur up badly at those speeds.

Eh, it's close. Overall, I'll say the CB is smoother, and the XSR's seating position is more comfortable. Weighing it all out, the overall comfort between the two is about equal.

Next, I noticed that no matter how low I seemed to run the tank, at least according to the trip computer, I was never able to add more than 3.8 gallons at the pump. At one point the thing said I only had twelve miles of fuel remaining, so I figured I must have used something like 4.2 gallons, considering this bike has a 4.44-gallon tank.

Nope. She only accepted 3.8 gallons. The trip computer said I'd averaged 46 mpg on that tank. Another fill-up accepted 3.6 gallons, after 160 miles, for a 44 mpg average.

So, two things there. One, I'd like to be able to use the entire tank. Two, I was only able to get mickey-style gas mileage during one particularly leisurely stretch through the Napa Wine Country, when my trip computer said I'd averaged 53 mpg.

In any case, I'm going a lot further per tank on this one than I am on the XSR, despite both trip computers telling me I typically average 46 mpg, so I'm good with the fuel mileage and overall tank range.

The third thing was the brakes; namely, the way they kept squealing whenever I'd roll slowly to a stop. By the end of the trip, however, the squealing seemed to have vanished. I'll keep an ear on that issue.

The fourth and final issue is something that I'll get to in a bit here.

So, it was right about this time...



...that I came up with the idea that this was a Magical Mystery Tour. That picture was taken just past the bridge on Spanish Flats Rd at Lake Berryessa, where the Zodiak Killer claimed his first few victims. All during my ride through Spanish Flats Rd around Lake Berryessa, I kept asking myself, Why the CB, instead of the T120? Why do you like this one more than the Triumph?

The answer came to me when I passed a real-live VW hippy van festooned with painted flowers and all the usual '60s artwork. This thing was reeking of pot, and the people in the van were obviously having a good ol' time, just tooling around the lake in their throwback time machine while listening to The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour. I realized that for me, retro means the '60s, but maybe the '70s even more so, since I was born in '64. Growing up in SoCal in the '70s, it was nothing but Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Beatles, Stones, The Doors, and, towards the end of the decade and on into the early '80s, Van Halen. That's what all my older brothers' friends listened to, and they were the people who got me into music. Those guys were all into Hondas and Kawis and Suzukis, not Triumphs.

In fact, SoCal in the '70s and early '80s seemed entirely bereft of Bonnevilles. It was nothing but CBs, and various KZ Kawis, and GS Suzukis. Moreover, it wasn't just SoCal. Any classic California ride, whether it was Hwy 1 and Big Sur, the Mojave desert, the Lost Coast, Angeles Crest Hwy, Mulholland Dr and the Rock Store, Big Bear, Tahoe, Skyline Dr and Alice's Restaurant, basically all the best rides, it was all Japanese bikes.

I didn't grow up in the Bay Area, and I imagine that Triumph had a greater presence in bike-crazy, eclectic San Francisco, but I also imagine that the UJM and its offspring were as ubiquitous in The City as they were everywhere else in California at the time.

In any case, when I think of the '70s and Zeppelin and The Eagles and Van Halen, and I think of riding great California roads, I think of the CB, not the Bonneville. I'm not a leather jacket-sportin' British Invasion Mod, nor a fan of punk rock. To me, the nostalgia for Triumph has to do with hedges-lined country lanes in the British Midlands, or misty nights of bar hopping in tony London Town. Bonnevilles aren't about roaming the great open spaces of the American West, or ripping through Golden Gate Park after seeing Neil Young at the Filmore.

That's CB territory, through and through, and that's how I internalized my perceptions of the CB vs the T120. As much as I admire the looks and heritage of the Bonneville, that heritage isn't my heritage. I don't remember those days, because I never saw them. What I saw was a bazillion Japanese rat bikes abused by countless stoners who couldn't afford anything new, and the Japanese bikes were the most reliable, versatile, and downright fun bikes their meager fundage could buy.

That hippy van fogging up Spanish Flat Rd brought it all back home to me, perfectly crystallizing my thoughts.

I knew I was on the right bike. My two elder brothers still don't even know I bought this CB, but when they finally see her, they're absolutely going to freak, and I totally get it.

Any Dean Koontz fans here? I'm a huge fan. I've read nearly everything of his, and one piece in particular that always stayed with me is Intensity. For those of you who've read it, this picture here...



...was taken on one of the Wine Country roads he described in the story. He covered a lot of my favorite roads in that book, and this trip saw me hitting most of them.

Napa Wine country is just mickey heaven. This is where you take your CB to cruise along and enjoy the scenery while taking great satisfaction in those 53 mpg you're managing.

This next one is Ulvetanna territory. This is the bridge at the western terminus of Skaggs Springs Rd...



This is straight-up a race road. This is not where you take your Harley. This is where you go for billiard-table smooth, perfectly cambered, serpentine tarmac that is nearly always car-free. This road reminds me of a cross between Laguna Seca and Thunder Hill.

It's not for the faint of heart.

This road is where my fourth issue with the CB came to light, due to the kamikaze nature of some of its very fast downhill corners.

For the most part, I have been borderline astonished at how well this CB performs as a quasi-sportbike. Her suspension is better than the XSR's, of this I now have no doubt. Her overall handling is necessarily compromised by her sheer heft, but she manages that heft like a Monday mornings-sore Bo Jackson. She just gobbles up Mosquito Ridge and its bumpy, highly technical layout.

Skaggs was a different story, and it's probably more my issue than the bike's. There are long, never-ending corners up there that really test your willingness to commit, and it was during these corners that I noticed my tires starting to squirm. It felt similar to riding an ADV on semi-knobbies. Unlike the wide, grippy, consistent-feeling tires on my XSR, the squirminess of the touring tires on the CB were quickly eroding my confidence.

After a few too many warnings from those squirming tires, I finally let those fast downhill corners get to me. Too much weight on too little tire, I decided.

Here I freely admit, I lacked the bottle to stay on the gas and stuff her in hard on her nose. I backed off. I started tapping the brakes to scrub some speed before rolling into the corner, rather than charging into the corner.

It was only on the fast downhill corners, and the bike might have been able to handle it, but I wasn't the guy to play Chuck Yeager and find out.

Perhaps a set of grippier skins might restore my confidence there, but I don't think so. It was more a feeling stemming from the sheer weight of the bike on such skinny tires, and my own mental block about pushing too hard on her.

This is the one issue I discovered that may stick. I simply don't see myself ever jamming her into those sorts of fast downhill corners the way I would with a lighter, purpose-built sportbike. It's my own failing, not the bike's, but I don't want to push my luck.

Another amazing thing I learned up on Skaggs is that this CB has virtually no engine braking, which initially scared the bejeezus outta me. I'd roll off the throttle heading into those downhill monsters, and..nothing would happen! It was like an out-of-control freight train. I'm used to bikes slowing down when I roll out of the throttle, but this one doesn't.

Now that required some serious mental recalibrating.

The plus side is that once I became used to it, I discovered that I flippin' love it! I realized that part of what makes the CB's throttle response so perfect is not just the actual fueling, but also the smooth suspension keeping the chassis level, the silky torque curve right off the bottom, and also the lack of engine braking. This lack of engine braking means there is so much less drive lash, and almost no back-and-forth jerking of any sort.

Rather than cut and thrust, the CB is all about arcing and swooping, in large part because the throttle is the thing, not the brakes. Simply use the throttle to increase your speed, like a rheostat. Due to the lack of engine braking, the CB's throttle is the world's coolest dimmer switch.

This facet of the CB's power delivery paid massive dividends on the glorified goat trail that covers the rest of Skaggs Springs all the way to the ocean, at Stewart's Point. I've ridden countless bikes over that nightmarish Hieronymus Bosch painting of a road, and this CB is far and away the easiest bike with which to navigate that mess. The throttle response is so predictable, the power take-up so linear, so exactly-what-you-want-exactly-when-you-want-it, it makes all other bikes seem primitive, and hard work.

Eventually I did arrive at Stewart's Point, and...



...my pretty girl gets her first glimpse of an ocean.

I couldn't decide where she was more in her element; in that crazy-tight goat trail, or out there on Hwy 1, with Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same" filling my head, perfectly apropos of the moment: a CB1100, stretching her legs on the Pacific Coast Highway, and then...



...her first ocean sunset.

Yes.

The CB1100: sheer brilliance, resplendent in her scarlet livery. Hwy 1: her ancestral home.

It wasn't all rainbows, puppies, and unicorns however, as I discovered upon my evening arrival at my hotel in Mendocino, and the ceremonial unpacking of the bike...



These are two of the four straps that were securing my tail bag to my bike. Notice in all the pictures so far that there are no straps trailing down the side of the bike? See how the straps went beneath the grab rail and under the seat?

Well, somehow two of those straps were chewed to pieces during this initial leg of my trip.

Bad, bad news. Something similar to this is what led to my tail bag finding its way into the rear wheel of my FJ1200 way back when, which led to that FJ1200 immediately becoming an ex-FJ1200 once it started cartwheeling at 140 mph down Hwy 58 in the Mojave desert.

I had visions of the same thing happening again, and I still had to get back home.

This is what I ended up doing...



Not the best, but it was all I could do. I wanted to avoid this method because the straps are touching the shock springs, and I was worried those springs would tear right through the straps even more easily than the rear fender and underside of the seat tore through the other two straps.

After spending a quiet night in Mendocino, capped off by watching Sportscenter in my room while munching on some Paul Newman's chocolate chip cookies (is there anything that franchise doesn't make these days?), I awoke to an impossibly glorious morning on the northern coast...



As you can see there, it's just those two straps keeping my bacon safe.

Heading out, I decided to try some roads I'd never traveled, which led me up into the dappled sunlight filtering through the Big Trees...



The entire ride home, I was constantly reaching behind me to check on the tail bag, and everything seemed to be holding up.

I hadn't been on the very western-most section of Hwy 128 in years, and I'd forgotten just how amazing certain stretches of that road are for serious sportriding. Tail bag worries or not, I had to let the CB eat, and eat she most certainly did. Man, does she love quick, endless S-bends.

That one section of Hwy 128 amid the late morning sunshine, holy crap, that was about as good as motorcycling gets.

Every so often I did manage to tear my eyes away from the scenic splendor and sinuous playground to check my instruments, and lo and behold...



Bam. One thousand miles, on the nose.

I had to pull over and take a picture of that one.

Not too shabby, considering I've only had her, what, thirteen days?

As soon as I made it back to Sacramento, I rode straight to Cycle Gear and picked up a bungee net. I don't trust those two remaining straps. I really don't like them rubbing against the shock springs. This CB is going to be my long-distance bike, so hopefully the bungee net won't break.

Yep, even though the XSR sits more comfortably for me, this CB is going to be my long-distance ride. It's the smoothness, the plush seat, the incredible mirrors, the extra range from the tank, the insanely good headlight, etc. It's all those things, but, more than anything, it's just the feeling she gives me. I love being on her. I love being near her. I love looking out a window and seeing her. I love when people come up to me to talk about her. (Sorry, Ulve, but I'm not yet in the sick-of-having-to-talk-to-people-about-her phase of CB1100 ownership.) I love firing her up. I really, really love the view from her saddle, especially at night.

I love that bike, like crazy.

Oh, and the combination of spoked wheels and chain lube?

Quite obviously a contrivance of the devil. Forget Dan Brown, Dante's Ninth Circle is where you find those most unfortunate of souls who have been condemned to an eternity of washing the 2017 CB1100 EX.

Nice report, VLJ. Sounds like a most agreeable ride. Pity about the straps; do you know what did it? There must be some hefty chafing going on there. I've resisted using those anchor points near the rear pegs for exactly the same reason as you: I worry straps'll get tangled up in the suspension.

The fuel question is vexing a number of people. I reckon the only thing to do is strap a spare tank on and go out and run it until it stops and then see how much you can put in it. Join the conversation in [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=12141]this thread of Nortoon's for his concerns about it. However, if you get to put 3.8 US gallons in it, you must have a bigger tank than the earlier standard models which had 3.9 gallons. The DLX had 4.6 US Gallons, I think, and the EX is supposed to hold 4.4.

Anyway, glad you like the bike. I also liked your rationale of why it appeals to you.

By the way, adopt the Ferret and Cormanus approach: ride it don't wash it. All that crap comes off when you give in to the occasional urge to bathe it.

no wonder about the straps....if you have any kg in this kind (big) bag.... it moves on that way still a bit....the efffect you got......i trust only the classic old simple ropes for bags like that......there you can realy strong close pull "over" the whole bag / a saddle gives a smooth move ground so it must pulled extra close down....after moves nothing more too over bumpy gravel offroad streets.....


or too...the straps should be minimum out in the corners of the bag and not so close together but i guess you would have still some a free moving headweight

Nice story, and well-written . . . Tell me, do you ENJOY torturing those of us in the frozen northeast US with photos of clean, dry roads and beautiful scenery??? One thousand miles . . . and I still have only eleven . . .

Glad you're enjoying your new one! Maybe in a month or two, I can do the same here in Pennsylvania.

What’s sharp under the seat that could have caused the fraying? The latch maybe?

I have several thousand miles logged with a bag strapped to the rear set like you show with zero chafing or tangling from rubbing on the suspension.

If you got used to the strain on your back it probably means that you just were using different muscles and there’s probably nothing major wrong with the seating position for you. If you’re sore after every ride, than adjustment might be needed (perhaps to both the bike and you). Also, it’s pretty easy to move the bars slightly toward you, if the mounting bracket is the same as in the 2013s

Nice pictures.

Love the first ocean sunset pic. Very nice! Screen saver material.

Magical Mystery Tour. Great album. Summer of 1967. I was going to be a senior in high school when school started again, and me and my other Beatle haired hippy buds spent a lot of time with headphones on, listening to that revelation of an album (along with St Peppers released the same year) . Motorcycle wise I had been street riding 2 years and had graduated from an Italian Aermacchi 50 3 speed 2 stroke to a Japanese Honda CB 160 4 stroke. What a great little motorcycle, although at the time it seemed large. The next year I moved to a CL 77 305 Scrambler and it was huge! lol (as was the White Album 1968).

From what I glean from reading about your weekend, I think you are learning what the CB is really all about.

"Rather than cut and thrust, the CB is all about arcing and swooping, in large part because the throttle is the thing, not the brakes. Simply use the throttle to increase your speed, like a rheostat. Due to the lack of engine braking, the CB's throttle is the world's coolest dimmer switch.".... "I hadn't been on the very western-most section of Hwy 128 in years, and I'd forgotten just how amazing certain stretches of that road are for serious sport riding. Tail bag worries or not, I had to let the CB eat, and eat she most certainly did. Man, does she love quick, endless S-bends"....."That one section of Hwy 128 amid the late morning sunshine, holy crap, that was about as good as motorcycling gets"

Don't push things beyond comfortable and all is good. Smooth and easy with all inputs. Roll the throttle on and off. It's just an easy bike to ride, and an enjoyable one if you let it. Jorge Lorenzo not Marc Marquez.

Sounds like you had a great time on your journey. Congrats on the 1000 mile mark. If you save the XSR for the times you want to have a fling with Skaggs Springs Road you'll have a happy (bike) marriage.

From my perspective, it's been fun watching you change your perspective.. lol.

The only sharp-edged surface I can find beneath the seat is the lip of the steel fender. The strange thing there is the straps aren't frayed where they crossed over the edge of the fender. The fraying was in the middle of the strap, directly above the tire.

I fully expected the same thing to happen as a result of the straps rubbing across the shock springs, but when I inspected the straps upon arriving home there wasn't a single additional mark on them. I still don't trust that method, however, plus I don't like how it looks.

cookiemech, my intent is definitely not to torture all you Eskimos out there, holed up in your cozy igloos. Not at all. My hope is that these little missives will serve as inspirational fuel for the fire to help you make it through these cold, dark winter days.

Also, someone here (I can't recall who) requested these reviews, including pictures, and I'm happy to oblige.

I don't run my straps under the fender. I run them under the seat and then replace the seat. Either that or I attach them to the grab rail, the rear set, or some other hard part. I have not ever had problems with fraying from the straps rubbing on the springs/shocks. Is it possible that your straps loosened enough for them to rub against the tire? I had a loose end of a strap that I failed to tuck away properly bounce against the tire for an hour or so and it looked something like your straps do. Just a thought.

If you're concerned about the looks, then I'd tuck the straps under the seat itself. It's a little bit of a pain, but all the straps stay secure and hidden.

Thanks for the report, MTC did not say it but both Wi. and ILL. got dumped on with snow last night so it was nice to see your pictures.

EmptySea, yes, your theory is possible. Lacking any other answer, anything is possible. For all I know, space aliens might have done it.

I did have them strapped to the grab rail, but I ran them beneath the fender rather than beneath the seat. I didn't think the seat would latch with those bulky straps in the way, and I was worried about the straps rubbing right through the bottom edges of the seat. If you're saying this method doesn't harm the seat, I'll give it a try.

mickey, nope, I'm not going to push this bike beyond my comfort level, either real or imagined. It's simply not that important to me to extract that last Nth of sporting performance from her. I have to keep reminding myself that I didn't buy her to go as fast as possible on Skaggs Springs Rd. I bought her in an effort to enjoy slowing down a bit. It just so happens that she's not slowing me down in the corners as much as I thought she would, at least until her tires began squirming on Skaggs.

That was enough warning for me. It was time to remember Plan A, and stick to it.