What did you do on or to your CB 1100 today

[the Ferret]

Good night check out IHB's hair in his avatar  


you've changed lol

[suhawk305]

Good night check out IHB's hair in his avatar  


you've changed lol

Good night! I wouldn’t be talking Ferret, Mrs, Ferret showed me an old picture of you with ALOT of hair! 

[SportsterDoc]

...looking at the shop for the first time, I don't see the boss being amenable to letting me store a bike there. Might have to work on him a bit.

Do you have an office? 
I bought this Bonneville when my office was in Simi Valley, CA and home in Las Vegas, NV.
I went to my office alternate weeks and got some miles on it before the 300 mile trip across the desert.
So it was in my office when gone and in the shop so I could ride it when in town.

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There was ample room in the building

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But I never should have rode 300 miles on the stock seat!
I stopped at the dealer in Las Vegas on the way home for a touring seat.
I was only ~30 miles from home, but that was 30 miles of torture!

[Gone in 60]

...looking at the shop for the first time, I don't see the boss being amenable to letting me store a bike there. Might have to work on him a bit.

Do you have an office? 
I bought this Bonneville when my office was in Simi Valley, CA and home in Las Vegas, NV.
I went to my office alternate weeks and got some miles on it before the 300 mile trip across the desert.
So it was in my office when gone and in the shop so I could ride it when in town.

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I have a home office. In the "office-office" I have a small cubicle since I'm only there one day a week, and if I transition to the shop, I imagine I'll set up a desk there. It's 60 miles one-way from home to the office. But, it's 30 miles from the office to Mom's house. So, the plan if I need to add a day is to go to Mom's and sleep over between office days. That lets us spend more time together which is good as she's getting older.

I have that same seat on my Bonneville, and after an hour I just start to feel it, but I find it pretty comfy. Still, I had another OEM seat - the very plain one with no real character to it, and I put a new cover on it with a bit more padding and is more stylish. That helps, and the bike is a mile-muncher. Been a hot ride lately.

[SportsterDoc]

The Bonneville did well long distances..with the touring seat.
Zion National Park was only 152 miles from home in Las Vegas, but the extraterrestrial loop was ~460 miles...a nice one day ride.  Pahranagat Lakes were on that loop.

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Well now that the motorcycle side of my garage is vacant, there is room for M/C storage.  Conditions of forum member storage would be that I should be allowed to sit on it occasionally and make vroom-vroom sounds!

[Gone in 60]

I love Zion, and would like to see it on a bike some time. There's a YouTuber who rides cross-country from NY to CA and WA on an air-cooled Bonneville. It is a bullet-proof bike, and I can't see selling mine. Enjoy your empty garage slot. My car is in the shop for a while, and I'm luxuriating in the space for my bikes.

[pdedse]

Well now that the motorcycle side of my garage is vacant, there is room for M/C storage.  Conditions of forum member storage would be that I should be allowed to sit on it occasionally and make vroom-vroom sounds!

Hmmm...New Mexico, is it?

[the Ferret]

My wife and I did Zion, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Canyon de chelly and Grand Canyon on our Bonnie in 2003 or 2004. Wonderful Trip.

[Gone in 60]

Saturday was a good day. Was going to sleep in a bit, but work stress had me wide awake at dawn. Good thing, because checking my phone, my Petersen boss texted me with a request. Due to an unplanned spike in purchases of the early morning shop tour, they were short-handed. I was going to go in a bit later, but heck, I was up. Packed for the day, suited up and headed to West L.A. 

At 7:30 traffic was non-existent. Cal-Trans had been working on smoothing out The 5 freeway north of The 605, which has been pretty rough. To my enjoyment, miles of fresh, smooth pavement greeted me as I started winding north through the industrial parts of L.A. 

Getting to the museum, the motorcycle parking area was unusually populated by more riding employees that I had ever seen for a Saturday.

   

Had a great tour with people from all over, even Israel. I love it when I get to chat about cars with people from other countries.

Afterwards, I wanted to cruise by a few new museums going up in Exhibition Park including the Samuel Oschin Space Museum that will soon display the Space Shuttle Endeavor in launch position with tank and external rockets. It's now skinned in a shimmering stainless steel spire, but I could only glance, as there was no safe place to pull over and take pictures. Can't wait for it to open.

On the other side of the park is George Lucas' new museum going up, which looks like a space ship with a lawn on the roof. Couldn't get a full shot of it from anywhere, but I was able to sneak onto the edge of a construction area to glance at it for a moment. Another place I'm really looking forward to checking out.

   

Early evening now, so I made my way through Downtown to The Bike Shed to check out the doings and grab a coffee to perk up for the lane-split journey south till the freeway would open back up south of The 605.

As soon as I rolled in on the CB1100, as usually happens, a few people strolled up with "Wow, haven't seen one of those in a long time". Pulling up to a motorcycle crowd, you don't get the "What year is that?" you typically do from non-riders.

I greeted them with thanks for their interest in my Honda, and we started chatting. Then, we grabbed drinks, sat on the outside patio to talk more, and that became the evening. 

Pietro from Italy was on a gorgeous R9T. I'm over my BMW lust, but if I were to go back, his would have to be the bike.

   

"So Bryson, what are you riding?" "The Ducati chopper over there." 
"Um... Ducati... chopper?"

Yup.

   

His bike became the topic of conversation till it got dark, we bid safe riding to each other, and went our separate ways, hoping to meet up again. Pietro was heading home, Bryson was headed to a ballroom dancing class, and next to where I parked my CB, a group of lady sport bike riders, all with pink bikes, was revving up and heading out as well. 

Rode home in the twilight, and had spent enough time with my new friends that the ride home was in light traffic, no splitting needed. Nice.

[Ollie]

Yesterday I took the CB on a little 4 hour ride through Preston and Tucker counties and it was delightful other than one incident. I was following an older Subaru on Aurora Pike when we came to a stop sign to cross Rt 50. He slowed to a stop, moved forward a little and stopped again, then when he proceeded I pulled forward to the sign while looking right, only he had not proceeded but stopped again and I hit his bumper.

He got out and came back asking if I was alright. I apologized saying this was totally my fault pointing to the black mark my tire made on his bumper. He said "don't worry that it won't hurt a thing, the reason I stopped was I couldn't see clearly because of that bush". I told him I had been trying to look around that same bush as I pulled up when I should have been watching where I was going. He said "they should cut that bush down it always makes it hard to pull out here, anyway be careful", he shook my hand and got back in his car and drove on.

That really bothered me as I rode off because I've never done that before and always wait to be sure the car doesn't start off then suddenly stop. The throttle assembly and mirror had rotated a little forward which I pulled back otherwise no damage other than the tire smudge on his bumper and the man was nice as he could be. 

Soon I was riding down the mountain on 50 with not a car in sight focusing on one 25 mph curve after another which took my mind off the "incident". 15 miles later after a bottle of water and with full tank of gas I took 72S at a leisurely 55-65 mph up and down small hills and around the gentle curves. At these speeds the CB1100's engine is almost glass smooth with good torque in 4th through 6th gears, the exhaust emitting its subdued 4-cylinder growl. Again I came upon no other cars and could have really opened it up but 65 just felt right.

At St George I took Limestone Road (it's paved not limestone) which is a small 1 3/4 lane road that meanders through mostly woods with the occasional small farm. No more 6th gear mostly 2nd through 4th now just taking it easy hugging the right edge of the road around every curve in case a truck or car was coming and thank goodness I was because in the middle of one sharp left corner came some kind of wide trike I think a Polaris Slingshot with it's left front tire well across the unmarked center, another one followed and that was it for traffic.

A bit later I pulled off on the overgrown driveway of an abandoned home for some water and to just take in the lush green surrounding. For some reason when I see old abandoned homes like this I imagine the families who lived there, the parents with children then becoming grand parents, how did they live, the good times and the hard times, why was the house abandoned, what became of them?




A gentle tink from the engine cooling down shifted my attention to the motorcycle as I finished my bottle of water. It reminded me of two of my previous Hondas, a 73 CB750K3 and 2000 Nighthawk 750, similar only this one is better in most ways. Honda really did a nice job with this air-cooled 4-cylinder motorcycle.



Back on the bike now winding up and around, Limestone Road turns into Stemple Ridge Road and eventually back to Rt 50 at Aurora. From there it's an hour to home across Aurora Pike, Terra Alta, Brandinville and Clifton Mills. Strafie who was lying on the front porch ran out to greet me with her tail wagging a mile a minute.
Next up was another ride but this one on a mower.....