All,

I didn't know where to put this, but I wanted to create a thread to document my progress on the X-11 and any sort of build or story with it. It might be an CB1100SF but i put it in here as its a bit different to a typical CB.

The X-11 is my first real street bike, although I've ridden many different bikes and used to have a motorcross when I was younger. I'm a tall guy and was looking for a bike which was big and a naked, and also a bit modern. I've ridden a variety of power levels and wanted something with power I wouldn't get bored off right away.

So far I've had the bike about 3 weeks and I'm really loving it; i've almost forgot about my cars. I'm surprise how easy it is to ride, how smooth it is and the power is great.



The previous owner had made a few modifications on the bike:

- Wilbers adjustable rear shock
- Spiegler progressive front springs
- Spiegler upper triple clamp cover and handle bar risers
- LSL 22mm handlebar
- K&N air filter

A few swiss rides:







I was a bit skeptical about the Dual CBS brakes at first but for the street it feels very good and also feels safe. But I wonder how they will work on the track when the rear tire is has very minimal loading on it and with such a high rear brake balance.

But I will find out next month when I take it to the track to test it out in "stock" form before I begin making some modifications.


The first thing I did to the bike was remove the centre stand (1.85kg). The bike is a heavy thing:

256.5 kg with full fuel tank (and centre stand )
47.8% front weight percentage

(all measured on automotive scales to ±0.5kg)

My plan is to try and reduce the weight as much as possible but it may be harder than I expect. My first plan is to remove the linking system for the Dual CBS (after the track day) and then change front wheel and battery. I weighed to front wheel (with discs) at a whopping 7.95kg, while a friends Marchesini wheel was just over 3kg! For the rear this will be a bit more complex due to all the hardware involved.

Wheel masses:

Front Complete: 12.1 kg
Front Rim: 7.95 kg

Rear Complete: 18.7 kg
Rear Rim: 12.x kg

(the rims include discs and/or sprockets)

Then I changed the tires from Pirelli Angel GT to Dunlop Sportmaxx Racer to go for a less touring setup to a more performance and track ready one. The compound feels quiet soft but shouldnt be as aggressive as a proper semi slick.



The bikes quite different with these tires. They feel taller and it wants to fall into the corners and lean. They give me a bit more confidence to lean the bike over.
Very happy with the change.

Let me begin by giving credit where credit is due. Forum member tomas posted an informative thread here:

http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread....ht=pannier

Rather than restate what he has already stated so well, let me add some of my own observations with these cases. In particular, a little more detail about what it took to relocate the rear turn signals. As I mentioned to another forum member in tomas' thread, now that I've experienced it and worked through it, it's not difficult. Getting there, however, was a challenge given my limited experience with this sort of thing.

Mr. T (Takashi) at Samurider is always a pleasure to deal with. I was unclear on whether I had to purchase a relocation bracket and asked if he sold one because I could not find one on his website. He told me that the panniers come with a relocation bracket. The problem was that I had ditched my stock license plate bracket which that relocation bracket was designed to fit. I was an early purchaser of the license plate bracket manufactured by forum member metalmaven. That required me to find another suitable relocation bracket. I lack the metal working skills of metalmaven and tomas. But I'm quite handy with plastic. Especially plastic that has a string a 16 numbers and an expiration date.

Exactly one week after having placed my order, the panniers arrived. Tokyo to San Diego in seven days is quite impressive.

The panniers were well packaged and free from any damage.

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As expected, the directions on how to install the panniers were in Japanese. The instructions did include schematics which helped somewhat. And someone was kind enough to type out a set of instructions in English and include those in the package. I found myself referring to the English directions, then the schematics and then tomas' thread, looking for more details on how to do this. Unfortunately, I was stuck at Step 1.

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1. Remove the stock rear blinkers and ...

I'll just cut to the chase here rather than describe in boring, agonizing details the several hours it took me to figure out this "simple" step. As a precaution, I disconnected my battery and wrapped the negative lead in electrical tape to prevent any arching. Necessary? I'm not sure. You're getting into that space anyway so why not:

1. Remove seat.
2. Remove tray (one screw with backing nut and one push pin).
3. Find electrical connections inside rubber boot and peel back boot.
4. Orange connector is your left turn signal - disconnect it by pulling up on the small tab then pulling it apart.
5. Blue connector is your right turn signal - disconnect in the same fashion.
6. The wires to your turn signals run from these connections back over the rear fender then out to their respective sides where the stock turn signals are affixed to the grab rails - simply pull them out and towards the back of the bike.
7. The wires are held tightly against the top of the rear finder by a curved piece of metal. Using a flat head screwdriver, bend that piece up slightly and pull the turn signal wires free.
8. Use an allen wrench to remove the grab rail bolts and the bolt that holds the turn signals onto the grab rails. Once those bolts are removed, you can simply slide the turn signals with their attached wiring completely out from the grab rails. That was a good feeling.

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After removing my license plate, I tried to figure out a way to make the relocation bracket that came with the panniers work.

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Try as I might, I couldn't get it to work with the metalmaven bracket. If any of you have the stock license plate bracket and want to relocate your turn signals, I'd be happy to send you the bracket that came with these panniers. Just send me a private message. I ended up purchasing a universal license plate relocation kit from Saddlemen. I think it was just over $20. It worked perfectly.

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I ended up not needing any of the bolts or connectors that came with the Saddlemen kit; just the bracket. I'm running up against the photo posting limit so I'm going to post this then continue with another post ... stay tuned.
9. The stock turn signals have two black rubber pieces pressed together from which the wires extend. Remove the bottom piece of rubber and the small brackets and bolts that were part of the unit. It should just slide right off.
10. Affix the turn signals to the bracket. The holes in the Saddlemen bracket allow the turn signal to lie flush and the wire to pass through. I ended up using fender washers and 6mm-1.0 x 20mm bolts to affix the turn signals to the bracket.

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Once I had determined that the included relocation bracket wasn't going to work, I put my license plate back on and affixed the Saddlemen bracket with the turn signals onto the bottom bolts of the license plate. The next part is the wiring. We haven't even gotten to the panniers yet! But this preliminary stuff is what takes the most time.

11. Connect your turn signal wires. If you're okay with the turn signal wires running up along either side of the rear fender, then you simply do that and use the included extenders to allow the wiring to snake back over the top of the rear fender and down into the electrical harness by the battery; the one with the rubber boot you disconnected early on. I tried this but didn't like the look of it. I went back to tomas' thread and looked closely at what he had done and decided if it was good enough for tomas, it was good enough for me! I took a large drill bit and carefully enlarged the hole that already exists at the bottom of the tail light housing (after having removed the red cover and holding the brake light wiring out of the way with my other hand). I then drilled a hole in the side of the tail light bracket large enough for me to add a rubber grommet and pass both turn signal wires through. I then passed both wires to the left, under the frame and on top of the rear fender. I used the extenders which, thankfully, simply snap onto the existing connectors and routed the wires back down to the connector by the battery.

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This is without the rubber grommet.

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With the rubber grommet.

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As another precaution, I used more electrical tape to further protect the exposed wiring.

12. Reconnect your battery, cross your fingers, and test your turn signals. Everything worked perfectly.

13. If you've made it this far, you can finally put the panniers on! The panniers come attached to their brackets. Each has two Phillips head bolts and washers at the bottom. Remove the panniers from the brackets and attach the brackets to the bike using the supplied spacers, nuts and bolts. The brackets attach where the grab rails used to be (no more grab rails). The shorter spacers go up front and the longer spacers towards the rear. Only one set of the bolts require a nut and I can't remember which one. I'm confident it was the rear set.

14. Once you have the brackets securely attached, place the panniers down into the bracket, align the holes, tighten and refasten using the supplied bolts and washers. Easy peasy Japanesey.

The Japanese set of instructions came in one of the panniers along with two keys taped to the inside. I don't have great shots of the bike yet with the bags but hope these will suffice. Excuse the messiness of my garage. I think the orderliness of garages fall upon a spectrum with mine being on one end and, say, redbirds' on the other. Most fall somewhere in between.

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Just a cool little article and video. The first mention, of course, is our beloved CB1100s legendary ancestor, the 1969 CB750.

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/11-mos...e=facebook

Preface: Some hobbies just compliment each other. I spend time doing long distance (40-60 round trip miles) backpacking once or twice a year to get back into the Utah/Wyoming high country (10-11.5K in elevation). I do this to reach and fish remote and pristine trout waters. Over the years I've had to offset what age and self-abuse (mostly in the form of beer/scotch and red meat) have been doing to my chassis with gradually reduced pack-weight. As a result I have a sizable investment in ultra-light gear in an effort to bring the pack-weight down from 'back in the day' at around 65 pounds to now running in most cases with a 25-28 pound pack at the outset of a 7-8 day trip. In fact, I have a trip to the Wind Rivers coming up shortly and the scale in the picture is being used to weigh the misc. gear on the bike lift.

CB 1100 content: This is the first time I've loaded the bike up with the OEM Honda rack I purchased off our member SouthPaw. I have to say it's amazing how much SPACE I have with the rack. It borders on PALATIAL. I have my largest tank bag on the bike and it's at best 1/3rd full and not even expanded. I could easily put another dry bag on the bike in front of the orange bag which is about 50% full. All this and I left the café seat installed. I will say the saddle bags are stuffed however. Putting the stock seat back on would increase space a little as well due to the flatter /wider profile. To put this in perspective I have a two-man tent, Zero degree down sleeping bag, Thermarest egg crate ground pad, Klimate inflatable pad, Gas canister stove, large fuel cell, two piece cook set, double walled metal cup, Mt House freeze dried dinners X2, instant coffee packs, whiskey flask, fishing gear/poles/rod carrier/extra socks/underwear/shirt/full Nalgene water bottle/Large MSR Fuel bottle with 32oz of gas for bike/tire plug kit/Pump/insulated gauntlet gloves just in case etc. etc. currently on board. She's a 'nakit' Sports Tourer indeed! Trip pic's coming post haste.

Getting ready to head out in the AM to do a 2/3-state, 2/3 day (Utah-Wy- Idaho) 800 mile solo loop on the CB1100. Plan to fish, camp off the bike and visit a number of historical sites. Afterwards I want to do a post ride report with pics in our Seat Time Forum.

My problem is I'm at 99% capacity on Photo Bucket and don't want to delete any pictures there as previous threads I've posted them in will be degraded by the missing pics.

I'm not cheap and know I could pay for more memory there but truth be told I'm not happy with them (even if it is FREE). Photo Bucket's site seems to have become unstable as of late. It's frozen up on me so many times I've lost count and it's crazy slow while trying to maneuver around in the library. Plus the multitude of ads have become tiresome.

Anybody have a suggestion?

I just came across this, and thought I'd share it.
I'm no vintage Honda expert, so I have no idea how "correct" all of this is, etc., but man, what a looker!
And MAN, what a price!

http://playtoysclassiccars.com/cars/1976-honda-k6/
(click on the main picture on the listing to enlarge and see the rest of the pics)

http://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/harl...spartandhp

and is this the same thing as a power commander?

I added a windscreen the other day and it's a whole new bike..

Mileage, comfort at speed, overall enjoyment of ride, are all better..

It's just a little thing but it makes a HUGE difference..

I am so very happy with both how it looks and how it performs.

On October 6, I will ride to Sanford, FL and together with my CB will get in the Amtrak Auto Train. On the morning of the 7th I will get off the train in Lorton, VA to meet with my son somewhere around Charlottesville, ride to the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway and start our way south on it. We will ride the whole BRP.

I still don't have all the details figured out but expect it to be a good time. Preliminary plans are to get to Meadows of Dan on Friday, Cherokee on Saturday, go see Wheels Through Time, find a place to spend the night and on Sunday start our way home.

Any of you are welcome to join us!

I actually had a black 2014 pass me in traffic near the University of Washington (U Village) today. I pulled out of the left turn lane and went straight through the light to verify it was a CB1100 hoping to stop next to him at the next light. That didn't work out so I just waved and shouted "nice bike" at the rider instead.

This is the first time I've spotted one in the wild so far not counting planned gatherings. Highlight to my week so far. Only a couple more busy days of school work and I am finished with my degree too.