01-08-2018, 05:52 PM
(01-08-2018, 02:07 PM)VLJ_imp Wrote: Interesting discussion going on here.
I gather that I approach this subject from a very different starting point than the majority of the people here. Growing up, I knew absolutely nothing about motorcycles. I grew up in L.A., and all I cared about was sports, girls, and history books. I never rode a dirtbike. No one in our neighborhood rode.
The first bike I ever had was a used Honda Hawk CB400 Hondamatic, with a two-speed (IIRC) automatic transmission. I didn't know that it was unusual for bikes to have automatic trannies. To me it was just cheap transportation, and that was it. I thought it looked cool in its aqua and orange livery, and I came to realize that girls thought it looked cool too. Good thing for me, they also had no idea that a 400 with an automatic transmission was not exactly the coolest bike on the block. They just thought it looked dangerous, plus it vibrated right where they liked to be vibrated.
Winnah!
Once I bought that bike, though, I was hooked. I immediately started looking into new bikes, and the first motorcycle I ever lusted after was the 1992 Suzuki Katana 1100. Not only did it look awesome to a young moron like me, it had an electrically adjustable windshield! Holy crap!
Remember, this is the pre-helmet-law era, so the idea of a windshield sounded awesome to me after one too many nights riding home at five a.m to the San Fernando Valley from my girlfriend's place in Canyon Country, wearing nothing but one of her borrowed scarves and a flannel shirt. I will always remember that damnable '28 degrees' reading on the local bank's outside ticker display, knowing it was going to be a whole lot colder than that at seventy mph in the rolling hills. Sure enough, yep, every time I'd crest a hill and drop down into some little dip in the mountains, it suddenly felt ten degrees colder.
By the time I got home one night, my bottom lip had frozen and split open, and my face was covered in frozen snot.
Yeah, the Katana 1110 looked like something out of The Jetsons to me.
Problem was, I couldn't afford one. Somehow, though, I was able to afford a brand-new leftover Yamaha FJ1200, which I cartwheeled at 140 mph on Hwy 58 in the Mojave desert when my tailpack worked its way over the seat and into the wheel area, locking up the rear wheel and sending me fishtailing until finally it tossed me down the road.
Undaunted, I continued to go Full Retard through a succession of ever-faster racy bikes: VFRs, CBRs, GSX-Rs, Ninjas, etc. Eventually I mixed in some sport-tourers so my two wives and a few different girlfriends could join me. I watched a couple of riders die right in front of me; one at Sears Point during a track day; the other, my best friend, on Hwy 49 near Auburn.
I lost my desire for track days. I had hit a plateau, and wasn't going to go any faster without a major change of commitment, which I wasn't about to give.
A few years later I had to undergo multiple neuro-spinal reconstructions, which put paid to my ability to ride anything with even the slightest forward lean. Just can't tilt my head into the required position now, which precipitated my recent spate of purchases of bikes with upright seating positions. My neck won't even allow me to do the Street Triple seating position now, so it's become Naked Standards Time for me.
Any guess as to which Naked Standard happens to be the most attractive to yours truly, who also happened to spend ten years as a Honda motorcycle dealer?
Marked vs unmarked? I don't know which style is really my bias. I know what I don't like, i.e., Japanese Transformers styling, and I want nothing to do with the whole world of cruiserdom. Otherwise, I like the look of classic Triumphs and Japanese UJMs, and I came of age as a motorcyclist, so to speak, during the era of Miguel DuHamel's domination of AMA Superbike, so I've always loved Superbikes, especially Hondas and GSX-Rs (Doug Polen and Kevin Schwantz).
With the exception of that first Honda 400 Hondamatic, what I've never had is a slow, non-sporty bike. My ST1100, ST1300, and V-Strom 1000 were the least sporty things I've ever owned, so my desire for this CB1100 is a complete departure for me.
I don't know, but somehow the CB1100 seems to be the perfect example of both a marked and unmarked motorcycle to me. Pick either direction, and it pegs the meter for me.
I like to do as much of the mechanical work on my motorcycles as I can on my own. But when I decided to start modifying the suspension on my Hawk GT and it came time to start doing stuff like drilling holes in the damper rods and tuning the suspension components, i thought that it might be wise of me to look into getting some help. I found one mechanic that wouldn't mind me watching him while he worked on my Hawk (as long as I was willing to come in late on a Saturday). I jumped at the chance as I really wanted to learn first hand what was involved. [url=https://www.cycletunepdx.com/]Cycletune, the shop that agreed to this back then, remains to this day the only place I trust to touch my bikes other than myself (not that I totally trust myself if I'm being honest). The guy who owns the shop — Chris, is a Honda master mechanic and trained extensively with Honda Racing Corporation in Japan. Chris was Miguel DuHamel's lead technician during those years you came of age as a motorcyclist VLJ. He's also the guy that let me watch over his shoulder and ask far too many questions as he worked on my Hawk all those years ago (it just so happened that his wife had owned a Hawk GT as well). Great guy, and his shop is a considerably busier these days, lol.
Naturally, Cycletune was one of the first places that I stopped by with my CB1100 not long after I brought it home from the dealer. I knew that Chris as well as Rob, the other Honda master mechanic that works there, would likely appreciate the CB1100. For me, watching the smiles on their faces as they came walking out of the shop to look at my new CB was priceless. Then they started exploring all of the little details of the bike. They asked me a few questions about this and that and they told me a few stories of other Hondas they were reminded of by the way Honda went about things on the CB — some things that I knew and a few things that I wasn't aware of. A great day had got even better and I could have stayed there all day talking to them. Of course they had to get back to work and I had a new motorcycle to ride so a nice moment came to an end. But it was a good day nevertheless.
Those two guys probably know more about motorcycles in general, and about Hondas in particular, than anyone else that I'm likely to meet in my lifetime. They genuinely got a kick out looking over practically every square inch of this bike — motorcycle guys through and through. Needless to say, they both both definitely understood the true beauty of the CB1100. Just as I was getting ready to ride off, a customer who had walked over from the parking lot asked me if I had done the work on the bike. I wasn't sure what he was talking about and asked him what he meant. You have to keep in mind that my CB was brand spanking new then and I was one of the first ones (if not the first one) to take delivery of a CB1100 in the metro area. He was wondering if I had restored the bike and could tell him a bit about it as he wasn't familiar with this particular model. When I told him it was a brand new bike, he was blown away. His reaction probably speaks with as much volume as did those of Chris and Rob. Of course Chris and Rob weren't the only ones that would enjoy looking over the bike in great detail and the guy that wandered over from the parking lot wasn't the last one to ask me if I did the restoration work. I never get tired of those types of reactions to the bike — it is certainly worthy of them.