2017 CB1100 EX First Ride Review

[Ulvetanna_imp]

Glad you're happy with the new bike VLJ. Here's wishing you many, many more happy miles. My favorite photo is of the reading tree, although to be honest I'm not sure how much reading I'd get done at that particular spot — I'd probably have referred to it as the gazing tree in my case, lol.

What's interesting is that your review reads to me as if it were written about my 2013 model. Your ride experience mirrors my own. I've never been pitched from my seat or had the bike upset in ways that Ulvetanna has mentioned for that matter. You can see from the video I previously posted that what I've subjected the bike to and how it reacted (I didn't rush to change out my suspension afterwards because I didn't feel the need). I've never scraped the pegs for that matter either. I suppose I suck too, but then I've stated as such before.
alprider, I love that blue color — very nice!

Just to be clear for the record, it was VLJ who described those things, and I commented on them.

Glad you're happy with the new bike VLJ. Here's wishing you many, many more happy miles. My favorite photo is of the reading tree, although to be honest I'm not sure how much reading I'd get done at that particular spot — I'd probably have referred to it as the gazing tree in my case, lol.

What's interesting is that your review reads to me as if it were written about my 2013 model. Your ride experience mirrors my own. I've never been pitched from my seat or had the bike upset in ways that Ulvetanna has mentioned for that matter. You can see from the video I previously posted that what I've subjected the bike to and how it reacted (I didn't rush to change out my suspension afterwards because I didn't feel the need). I've never scraped the pegs for that matter either. I suppose I suck too, but then I've stated as such before.
alprider, I love that blue color — very nice!

That's because you ride in the ZONE, dude! Smooth.

That is what I was talking about, is that smooth riding can fix a lot of suspension shortcomings.

In fact we shouldn't call them shortcomings because a smooth rider can make a bike with ordinary components work very well. Dirt riding teaches us that.

But only to a point, and the new 2017 has increased the limits of outright sporting capability while making a good rider look and feel great.

I would like to hear the comments of someone who has traded a first-generation for the 2017 model, back-to-back, point for point.

I guess I might be that guy, we'll see.

I've scraped hard parts on my 2013. Not often and always, at least as I recall, it was on a hard right-hand turn with a dip the pavement at the apex, either for drainage or because of a steep incline after the turn. No, ALMOST always. There was a super-tight left-hand hairpin turn in Arkansas, just outside of Jasper, where I scraped the left peg (the least of my problems on that particular turn, but that's a story for another time).

I wound up tightening down the front suspension a bit on the uninformed theory that it would keep the front end from dipping quite so much. I am not sure if that was the right thing to do, but it seemed to work. One thing to note, though, is that the rightmost header pipe of my Yoshi exhaust is what touches down, not the right peg. Maybe getting my fat butt further back on the seat might help, but it's such a rare occurrence that I'm not too worried about it.

You were right. The CB1100 is very sensitive to front ride height and spring preload. I went through many rides before I finally got the front end to work with the new Ikon-Koni shocks.