Daar word op de deur geklopt, hard geklopt zacht geklopt.......

And there was a little guy sitting just looking after the package, i guess he must have hopped on in Tokyo where the parcel has been in transfer passed the factory where it was made.



He was very protective of the contents and helped unpack the D.I.D. tool from Houtman.



So we both unpacked the long awaited and perfectly presented chain tool and had a " bear " or two on the arrival.

Thanks John, i'm very pleased

Found a scruffy '14 CB1100 E (standard 6 speed) with 30k miles. Missing muffler and looks like it's been "soft dropped" in the parking lot a couple of times, but no apparent rust and it fires right up and no check engine light.

No apparent leaks, chain and tires look good.

Will riding it around with no muffler cause problems going forward? The current owner has the muffler but he removed it after scratching it up... Claims he likes the sound without the muffler...

I don't need another CB1100, but I was wondering if it might be worth having as a parts bike...

Just thinking out loud!

Guess where I spend Saturday and Sunday : 589 miles in the saddle of this ... incredible, wonderful, marvelous, delightful ... UJM. Some of you guys may have gotten so used to their CB1100 during the years, that you do no longer see how special she is. But this is by far the most "homogeneous", smoothest and most authentic rides I have ever had in a long time. You really think one needs more flash or dash ?

Thank you Honda. Adios BMW and HD (I never owned any of these ).
I wouldn't sell or trade this last gigantic M/C for nothing.

Where to begin...

I had the opportunity to test ride the latest model Zero sR/F in a group environment and initially went into this with the thought process that this would never be a purchase i would make. Mostly that predisposition is due to a strong ideological difference i have with Zeros policy on software updates. If youre not up to speed on what they tried to do with their 2022 bikes check it out some time.

The basic gist is that they intended to "lock out" physical features of the bike (extra power, extra battery range, even the heated grips) by making you purchase a separate software update to gsin access to them. I consider this scummy because the hardware for these features are already on the bike but theyre thinking they can make you pay extra to gsin access to them. Its like buying a bike and being told the top speed is 100mph, but if you pay an extra $1500 for a software update itll go 120mph. The bike could always do 120. They just artificially locked it out.

Anyway, for the above reasons i had resolved to never buy a Zero, because i dont want to support a company that would do that. I did, however, want to finally get onto a full sized Ebike and feel it for myself.

My first impression when i sat on the bike was, "man this thing is **stiff**. " the seat felt like a plank, with those hard edges that cut into your legs. The suspension was dialed way up too. The pegs were higher than i expected and the bars lower than i expected. All in all it was a very very aggressive posture. I could tell immediately that the bike wanted me to be in track mode.

When you activate the bike its just a matter of turning on the key and the kill switch. The kill switch works like a kind of safety. As long as that isnt on the throttle isnt live. Once the throttle is live and you touch it, you know it. 140 ft/lbs of torque right away. A lot of bikes will use the phrase "neck snapping torque." Theyre liars. This is the real thing. I asked for the full beans twice dueing the demo ride and both times the acceleration quite literally overwhelmed my neck muscles. I can say that i have never felt anything so assertive on the road. But ok. Everybody knows EV bikes have power.

The ride was.....eh. twist and go is super convenient but ultimately soulless. The engine brake (or brake regen as they call it) is strong but also 100%uniform. It doesnt transition across the rev range and thus behaves awkwardly when engine braking into a turn. Without a clutch to smooth out your inputs the turn entry and exits feel stilted. Its also a bit harder to load and unload your suspension smoothly when tipping into turns. This coupled with the badly distributed weight from the battery makes the bike kind of a dog when it comes to your side-to-side action. Its reallly not excited about being flipped over. Add all that to the 80% aggressive ergos and the very very stiff ride and what you get is.... a lot of work. Really. Thats what it felt like to me 30 minutes into this ride. Work. I can get loose and flow on my CB. I can dip and plunge and climb all over a middleweight naked like an XSR700 or a z650. This thing just wasnt having any of that. What it boils down to is theres a great deal less of an **interface** between man and machine.

Tech and wizbang features were cool and fun. The bike looked and felt extremely high quality. The high-pitched whirring sound of the E motor was cool and satisfying. People keep talking about these bikes like theyre silent. They definitely are not. I could hear the motor over the wind noise, through my earplugs and my music.

Overall this bike is a 6/10 but i am excited for the future of Ebikes. I still would not buy the Zero SR/F but i did come away with some very good news: the scummy software policies are actually being scrapped next year to due an extremely negative customer response. It shows that Zero is really listening to everybody, and i found that refreshing and came away from the experience with a different level of respect for the company.

Well in my quest to get the bars as low and far forward as the stock mounts/tank will allow I decided to swap the bar mounts around as they have a pretty good offset

I had already switched out the stock bar on my 2013 for an Emgo 7/8 Superbike bar

Here is the Superbike bar with stock mount orientation



Same bar with the mounts flipped





By getting the bars just a little more forward I was able to rotate it more rearward giving it a perfect angle at the grips and plenty of tank clearance. Very happy with the end result

Below shows tank clearance at full lock

A pristine honda rickman 750


They did not ask whether they should, only whether they could.

I went down to the Irish Veteran & Vintage Motorcycle Club show today, the first time it has been on since the pandemic. It is an outside/inside autojumble plus a bunch of display bikes from various owners and affiliate clubs. First time I have ever been, really enjoyed it for a €10 entry. A few bikes that caught my eye.

A 1970 Bridgestone GTO 350. Bridgestone made motorcycles from 1952 to 1971 apparently. News to me, remined me of my Suzuki T500 but with swisher exhausts.

A Honda CB750 K0, enough said.

A 1998 Honda GB400 Twin, a special TT Edition, home to a few spiders by the look of it but ridden to the show.

But the surprise bike for me was the Honda Juno, a horizontally opposed air-cooled twin from the 60's. The previous Juno from the 50's had an enclosed fan cooled motor and this latter model relied on air cooling from the exposed barrels and heads like our own bikes. I only got a head on shot of it, so I robbed another image off the web for a better angle.

Great day out, I shall go back again next year.

Unbelievably gorgeous condition. The first motorcycle Honda ever made! Only 75k....

With all the dirt everywhere around my engine I decided to look at the spark plugs at the very last. But today that was on my list.
When I pulled the spark plug caps off, I saw - right around the seats / gaskets of the inner sparks - lot's of little stones and debris. Because of the little cooling fins located around these spark plugs no vacuum hose can get close enough to get the stuff out.

What can I do ? what would you do ?
I don't dare to pull the plugs for fear that a hard piece of debris might fall into the cylinder.

recently acquired my 2013 CB1100 and trying to make it fit my 70 year old body---I have made the "forward controls" and after a ride today they are GREAT ! BUT i need some higher bars along with hoses etc to adapt them, not apes but maybe 6 in higher than stock AND a more rearward fitting seat to move my butt back----AND Im 6-3 with long not so bending legs. Was playing around with seating as I rode today and think these modes would do it. Never ride 2 up so thats not a problem (hard to find a lil darling that wants to ride with a 70 year old geezer LOL ) If u got suggestions Im all ears !