The CB1100 Community Forum

Suzuki C50

Disappointed in?
Honda Sabre, I "moved up" to one in the early 80's by selling my CB550. It was during the time when the US had tariffs on motorcycles over 700cc's - to protect Harley. Never got comfortable on the bike, seemed to have less power and worse handling than my sold CB. Moved to an ST when Honda came out with them, still my favorite ex.

Bought a Triumph T100 in about 2004, nice solid bike but again lacking in power and not quite as good on highway as I wanted. Hated dirt/gravel roads. Looked great but. Dealer also sold BMW and made me "a deal" on a R1200 GS. Plenty of power, very tall bike that didn't care if road was gravel or paved. Way too heavy on anything but well groomed forest service roads. Only put 24k on the bike in 7 years, tells you something. Expensive to maintain, any real work required special tools. Over priced accessories. Quite popular with some crowds. Really helped the I sold it.

Got rid of the GS and bought the CB, happy again.

1983, as a student I took all my savings and bought a used Ducati 500. A dream came true.

If that bike was in rain for some hours, you wouldn't get it started, took an hour or so. Leave it outdoor over night, next morning there was rust on the brake disks.

However, riding it on twisty back roads, when it has started, was a charme.

Then, after owning it a month or so, at a weekend trip, while overtaking a car, the engine broke down and I pulled right. The sound indicated a problem with the left cylinder (it was a twin). Removing the left ignition plug let me see the piston. Then I moved the crankshaft with the kick starter, but the piston did not move: very bad signs.

I called my girl friend, who picked me up. At home I opened the engine and saw the whole mess:
the left piston rod was broken and had slit up the complete left cylinder liner! I've never seen again such a damage.

That was a nearly total loss of my savings.

I pulled out my ol' CB500T again, which still was not sold and rode it a couple of more years.

That cured my longing for Italian motorcycles.

I've had several.

1970 CB750K0 - Highly collectable but the decades have not been kind to it. Compared to a bargain bike today, it has awful handling, wooden brakes, harsh suspension. How the go-fast guys rode the wheels off these back in the day is a mystery to me.

2001 R1100S - Stunning bike but almost unrideable at 80 mph+ due to excessive engine vibration. A very capable bike in the twisties however.

2010 V7 Cafe Classic - Another stunner but it had the world's worst suspension. Zero compliance to bumps. The ergos were off, too: Clip-on's but mid-mount foot pegs. The engine was charming and plenty powerful for me.

I know I posted on this thread before but it made me think of some other bikes I have had. A couple of times I have bought bikes I
thought were some what like bikes I have had but you can't go back.
The bike I had before the CB was a Kaw. ER6n , I was hoping it would be like my SV I had had. Nope big mistake. Restored a VTR250
hoping it would be like the 88 Ninja 250 we had. Nope just a puppy to the
Ninja .
Then there was the only BMW I ever had. In 80s I had a lot of UJMs
and decided it was time for my first BMW. I had a GS1100GK at the
time. A friend of my nephew had started a BMW dealer here but was
struggling . The "K " bikes were about to come out. I think it was 85?
I went to see him he had maybe 4-5bikes. He had one K100 naked
and a R80RT leftover for the same price.
I was always one to buy into the latest tech. I bought the K100
added the Hard bags ,windshield and driving lights.
It always drew a crowd. It buzzed a lot till I had it over a 100mph
a few times. the front was soft and it went through 4 sets of fork seals in a
few months. My dealer closed so I had to take it to a small BMW
dealer in Freeport IL to have it fixed. The instruments would just all
shut off as you were riding it. It had a ton of recalls. The throttle stuck on it one day - scary! BMW did stand behind all of it even bad paint on the side covers - it had 3 yr . warranty. One day I left
for work came up to the first stop sign and it just died . I pushed it home( I lived down a hill from the stop sign) I pulled the tank and
found these big blocks of wires and if I lifted them I could get the bike to wake up. I found a wire in one block that was made wrong
and I did a real cob job to fix it - I was late for work - put it back
to gather and went to work. Never did go back and fix it right.
I kept it just 36 months and by that time had went to for a Honda dealer who kept saying " Can't you park that thing a little farther away?"
It was a real love hate thing - It rode so nice.

It is interesting to read this thread. I saw the Ducati ST2 mentioned, which is probably my all time favorite bike. Yes, it doesn't like really low revs, and can be difficult in traffic, but when you have learnt how it works it would do anything. Still miss it. The VFR 800 was another one I loved, and probably the only 4 cylinder bike I really liked (yes I have always preferred twins).

I think the only bike I was disappointed with was the Honda XLV 1000 Varadero. Not a bad bike, but the overall quality was really lacking. Certainly not up to the standard all other Hondas I have had were.

LOL wow BMW's have sure taken a beating in this thread

I've had a bunch of bikes since the mid 60's. I started out on a Yamaha 250 two stroke. Since then I've had Italian bikes, German bikes, American bikes, and Jap bikes. The worse one? Hard to say, bikes since the 70's have been pretty reliable except for some of the American bikes. Most every bike requires some modifications to have it suit you. Early on it was weak suspension and rotten stock seats. Once you got those straightened out the bike was fine. The worse ones for me were the top heavy ones. Honda's were always great, a couple were top heavy but always very reliable. I've never came across the perfect stock bike. However I must say the closest to perfect right out of the box was the BMW K1600 GTL. The seat wasn't the greatest though. For me it is the best handling comfortable tourer I've had. Yeah it has drive train lash, but you learn how to shift it and the lash isn't bothersome. It's fast, handles well, and is pretty darn comfortable. I've got a couple different seats for it depending on the type riding I plan on doing and I really can't complain. The trouble with BMW today is they put too much high tech crap on them and out source the parts from some strange places instead of building all the parts in house. They have gone from simple reliable bikes to high tech machines that are only as good as the worst outsourced part. However they do have a 3 year unlimited mileage warranty.

This is an interesting thread that I have never seen. I will put my two cents in. I sold my R1200RT for a new Ultra Glide in 2007. Uhhh that was a mistake. There was nothing wrong with the Ultra Glide but it was like going from driving a BMW M series to an early 80's Cadillac. I put 1000 miles on it and sold it for used R1200RT. The only problem I really had on my BMW's were the lack of dealers in the area. I love the R12RT's for long distance riding but trying to get warranty work done is a real issue.

Some of the chatter I started in 2013 when the forum was just getting a foothold may be the reason you have never seen it lol