I spend all of my time riding in the Blue Ridge Mountains if North Carolina on the twisty mountain roads.

There are plenty of roads with little to no cross roads or driveways that you have to worry about cars suddenly emerging from. About the only thing I worry about are bicyclists and deer at dusk.

But increasingly I experience an odd phenomenon and I’m wondering if it’s just me.

Today I was behind a truck in very twisty blind curves. The curves are one after another with no turn outs.

The truck stopped just before a blind curve and waved me to pass. Was this a truly kind but mentally challenged soul? Or was he trying to rid the world of a biker by luring me into passing in a very tight blind turn?

It happens all the time. And they act as if I’ve just refused a winning lottery ticket when I choose to forgo the chance to get up close and personal with a car grill.

Am I being paranoid or is this a secret trick for getting rid of bikers?



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Hey!

So I recently joined the riding community, and I’ve put about 750 miles on my bike already... She’s a treat, and I love her to death. Even so, I like to fidget and change things for fun... And blow my checks every week because I have no sense of saving...

So I’ve been doing some research and looking into some ways to make my biker a little louder, and if I make her faster with higher horsepower, I won’t complain. Even if I lose a few MPG, it’s not a deal breaker.

My first goal is to possibly replace the slip on muffler on my 2014 CB1100 Standard. I’m hoping this’ll make her a little louder, but I’d also like to eventually replace my entire exhaust for the same goals, speed and power are bonuses. To top it off, I’m not fond of chrome. The bronzing on the engine block exhaust pipes feels tacky to me. However, chrome will work for my bike goals!

I’m looking for some opinions on both slip on mufflers and full exhaust benefits. I’m going to continue doing research, because I want the full treat of great MPG, power, speed, and sound.

Please note, I live in a Harley town, so I’m limited on local support.

I hope nobody has posted this before. It's darn exciting, Santa Claus chasing a pedestrian hit and run. Skip to 0:44.

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muAPJiMho2Y]Santa chases driver who had hit pedestrian

So after buying a 1973 DT100 just for fun, this little gem shows up on CL. 1982 DT100 with only 163 miles showing on the clock. It is not pristine but I couldn't resist.

LONG RANGER posted in another thread:

Rode to the Honda dealership, about 31 miles away, to poke around. When I left the dealership to return home, the bike was dead. Four years on the OE battery, always connected to a Battery Tender, worked fine twenty minutes earlier, and it gave no warning. I wheeled the bike around to the service entrance and was preparing to swallow the cost of a dealer-installed battery, when I turned the key one last time. The battery decided to have mercy on my wallet and squeezed out one final ampere. The bike started. Rode it home and ordered a cheapo replacement battery from Amazon for $45. Phew!

Here is Canada the winter is hard on car batteries. So we learned the following trick. If the car fails to start, leave it off and turn on the headlights for a bit. Shut the headlights off, and try to start the car. It will often respond. I have to idea the science involved. But as young men with second hand cars we learned this trick. Jumper cables in the trunk are as common as rubber floor mats in the winter here.

I'm not giving it away. If you didn't see it, stay away from the news and watch it. It's the race of the season. Maybe even the race of the past few seasons.

Wow! Just Wow!

Back in June 2014, Pterodactyl posted that he was off to the Wintersun Run. When I said it sounded good, he invited me to join him. It was very short notice, but, despite a concern that I might be off to meet an axe murder, my wife encouraged me so off I went. Turned out that at almost the same time Mrs Pterodactyl expressed a similar concern about axe murders. Another CB1100 friendship was born. So, too, was a continuing interest in CB1100 touring. That tale is told [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3294&pid=47946&highlight=Wintersun#pid47946]here and [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3324&highlight=Wintersun]here.

Recently, after weeks of renovating, I was in need of a decent ride. Pterodactyl announced he was off to Wintersun 2018. I signed on.

Day 1: Brisbane to Narrabri (661 kms)


[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RgOZdv4uQy9wsypaNozNRGzqoQg4HQru&usp=sharing]Link to Map

I left home just before 0630 with a visor I’d broken the previous evening while cleaning it. One of the tabs that held it to the helmet had snapped. If I forgot to close it, there was a fair chance it would blow off, snapping the other tab in the process. I changed my planned route so I could ride through Gatton and Toowoomba stopping at every motorcycle shop I came across in the hope of finding a new visor. By Warwick it was clear that I was going to have to order one, so I abandoned the search and got on with riding.

The broken tab was on the bottom right of the visor. Curiously, when the visor was closed, it was when I turned my head to the right that it was most likely to pop out and threaten to blow off.

It was a cool but sunny morning and I had a lovely if uneventful ride, stopping at Texas for lunch before riding on to Narrabri. A highlight was an unexpected hill crossing between Bingara and Narrabri which gave me both some agreeably winding road and a surprising glimpse of the great, flat Australian interior.

Even at 0645, the cages heading into the city are lining up. Lucky for me I’m heading away from all that.


First faint glimpse of the ranges to the south as I headed from Toowoomba to Warwick


Photo op at Texas


This would turn out to be the second last stretch of even vaguely winding road I’d see for a bit




The hills in the distance mark the end of the plain between Bingara and Narrabri. After climbing over them, you are down onto the endless flat lands




First glimpses of the seemingly endless flat land in the centre of Australia


Down from the Great Dividing Range and approaching Narrabri

In memory of our inaugural ride, I met Pterodactyl at the Crossroads Hotel where we checked in and set about planning the route to Mildura where the Wintersun Run is held.
Day 2: Narrabri to Cobar (590 kms)

[url=https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s1FqNDYMcccil1rJocJEp_KQNUM049ZC&usp=sharing]Link to Map

We awoke to a glorious morning, although cold. As we loaded our bikes, I was engaged in conversation by an American—from Phoenix, I think—who joined the legion of people who rode or owned a CB750-Four back in the day. Pterodactyl has a theory that, if you counted all the people who told CB1100 owners they’d had a CB750, the total would far exceed the number of CB750s ever produced, even allowing for multiple ownership.

He may be right; but, in the case of this gentleman, I had no way of knowing. He told me he was interested in getting back into riding and was very taken by the CB1100. He took a photo of our bikes and I told him about the Forum and the left-over 2014 models back in the US. Who knows? Another new member soon?

The bike warms in the sun outside the Crossroads Hotel while I chat with another potential CB 1100 enthusiast

It’s a testament to our planning aptitude that we still had no idea precisely where we were going. West was on a good enough start as the last time we made the trip we’d contemplated returning via Broken Hill (home of what is now BHP Billiton) but had abandoned the idea because we weren’t sure whether there were enough fuel stops. Research had shown there were, so Broken Hill was on the itinerary.

So, we turned our noses west out of Narrabri and made our way out through the cotton country in the general direction of the great flat centre of Australia.

What looks like stones beside the road is actually cotton


Not many trees here

Early European explorers criss-crossed the Australian continent looking for the Great Inland Sea. They didn’t find it, although as you fly across Australia, you can see myriad water courses where water flows and collects on the rare occasions it rains. Undaunted by failing to find the inland sea, the Europeans pillaged the Darling River—which flows from Queensland to South Australia—to grow crops like cotton which is, perhaps, a tad heavy on water for the Australian environment. The upstream pillage goes on, some of it illegal, and is a major source of controversy in those parts of modern Australia affected by it. It is one of modern societies’ more intractable problems. Our forefathers (and mothers) made decisions—most likely in good faith—that would prove unsustainable in the long run. Unpicking them now, with the almost endless consequences for people’s lives and the costs of compensation, is very difficult indeed.

In any event, it’s interesting country, flat. White tufts of cotton litter the roadside for miles to the west. Huge trucks hauling cotton and, sometimes, bales of hay passed us as we made our way through Wee Waa (where we had an agreeable breakfast) to Walgett and then Bourke.

A road train in Walgett


CB1100s in Walgett

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourke,_New_South_Wales]Bourke is an interesting town. There is an Australian expression, “out the back of Bourke” which means something is a very long way away indeed. It is said the legendary Black Stump is not far from Bourke. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stump]The Black Stump is a mythical marker of the end of Australian civilisation.

In the nineteenth century, Bourke was a major trading hub, accessible by coach, river and later rail. Any notion of river transport is now a joke as the diversion of the Darling River into irrigation means there is insufficient water to float much of a boat in much of the river.

The main street of Bourke

Bourke was something of a decision point for us. Three considerations came into play.

The first was the Darling River Road which runs from Bourke to Wilcannia via Louth and Tilpa. Pterodactyl was keen to ride it but Google maps gives the transit time as more than 7 hours for 319 kms. In this part of the world that means one thing only: dirt, and a great deal of it. Outback dirt—or bull dust as it is often fondly known—has a couple of features. It is fine and powdery and can hide enormous potholes that you simply don’t see until you ride into them. It also takes on the less appealing characteristics of a skid pan at the faintest hint of moisture.

The second was a priority: the first match of the annual State of Origin Rugby League was to be played the following night and could not be missed. For those very few of you neither Australian nor interested in rugby league, the State of Origin is a three game grudge series played between the Australian States of Queensland and New South Wales. Read all about it [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Origin_series]here in Wikipedia.

We were hoping to camp at [url=http://warrawongonthedarling.com.au/]Warrawong on the darling near Wilcannia where, quite separately, we’d both been told there was a wonderful camp site.

A phone call to Warrawong advised us that there was no television in the communal area, so watching the State of Origin match was not an option. During the day we’d discussed the dirt and decided against it, so we’d decided Broken Hill would be the place to overnight on Wednesday.

It’s a 600 km hike from Bourke to Broken Hill and the riding, although straight and relatively flat, is surprisingly hard, so we decided to reduce the load and make the 100 km run to Cobar and overnight there. That would put us just into the time when the kangaroos were rising from their beds and playing their evening game of chicken with motorists. They’re welcome to this game, although the carnage and persistent smell of decaying loser that creeps into a motorcycle helmet leaves one wishing Skippy would evolve a little thereby increasing his likelihood of surviving chicken.

Bull dust on the wide shoulders of the rod between Bourke and Cobar, allowing a slightly better chance of spotting a kangaroo or emu.

It felt like a gentle climb all the way to Cobar. Turns out it was: 100 metres difference or a metre every kilometre. You’d imagine you wouldn’t notice it, but I did.

We made it to Cobar unscathed and settled into the Great Western Hotel.

All dressed up and ready to go!



Rode down to St. George to visit my mom. I avoided I-15 and took state highways through central Utah. There have been a number of brush fires so far this year, and it will likely get worse. I saw an awful lot of country which looks like the picture below.

I wanted something compact that would be effective, and that I could carry either on my bike, or in a pocket to deter theft. I have a heavy hardened hex link chain and shackle, long enough to pass through the frame and around an immovable object for long term storage and over nights, but it is not practical to lug around for every day riding. If I was commuting to work every day, I would leave the chain at work to lock up my bike while at work, but happily, I am retired.

Unfortunately the ignition and fork locks on most motorcycles are unbelievably easy to defeat, with a simple tool, and physical force. That got me onto disc locks to prevent the bike from being rolled away. If a pro really wants your bike, has the tools to defeat whatever you have, a crew, a van, trailer, pick up truck, etc., he is going to take it. Consequently, I think the most effective deterrent for every day riding is something that you always have with you, and more than just relying on the ignition and fork locks.

I settled on this disc lock by Bully Locks: https://www.amazon.com/Bully-Locks-Prem-...lly+Locks, not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either. It fits the brake rotors on the CB1100, and is compact, but appears to be very well made. I considered an alarm lock, but most people these days are oblivious to vehicle alarms, and false alarms are a nuisance.

Currently I have one of these locks that I bought to try out. Having exceeded my expectations, I will be buying a second one, so that I can lock both front and rear brake discs. This will prevent any forward and backwards rolling.

A friend gave me some draw string bags for the 50 Ml size mini bottles of Crown Royal, which I found worked great for my disc lock kit. I added a "remove before flight" red tag, and substituted a rubber band for the split key ring it came with. The rubber band stretches over one of my mirrors as a reminder, and folded in half, the red tag fits inside the Crown bag. Lastly I wrapped self adhesive Trimbrite Body Guard clear Mylar around the lock body so there would be no metal on metal contact between the lock body and the front fork leg, or the rear brake caliper, for front or rear disc use. The Trimbrite is great stuff with good adhesive, and is about 13 Mil thick. Two lock sets in separate bags with keys and a red flag fit in the tray under the seat with lots of room to spare, so I will have them with me all the time to use when I need them. Although a little heavy, they will fit easily in a jacket pocket as well.

Nothing is fool proof, so if someone gets past my every day precautions, then I will consider it what insurance is for.

let me first say that I think the 2017 ex is as close to a perfect bike as I've found. Honda did a brilliant job with the design and the execution. but Mr.P's new seat made me start thinking, as sheer fantasy: if other period-accurate add-on parts were available, which ones would I like to see manufactured and offered? my short list:

1. old-style exhaust header clamps, with fins
2. metal headlight bucket, painted in black enamel
3. old-style steel chain guard, painted in black enamel
4. ribbed black plastic air cleaner covers
5. reproduction of 70s CB metal tail light that would take the new LED wiring and bulb/lens
6. extended chrome front fender with the single stays in back
(like the White House, only slightly less fusty)
7. or little genuine rubber mud flap for front
8.. OEM Honda fuel tanks in a variety of period colors (esp. gold!)
9. how about some good tube-type tires in stock sizes

As it is, the bike is a wonderful mix of retro and more modern design elements. Much as I admire the k10 and k17 kits, I personally wouldn't want to go full-on retro, nor can I afford it. But it would be nice to have a few more options out there to pick and choose from--if anyone is looking to start a new company.