Reliable, beautiful, agile, comfortable, a joy to ride.

September 2022 is just around the corner and it has 85,500 kms on it, so I`ve put on a little over 20,000 kms and have to say every one of them has been a pure joy! This bike will do what you ask of it without hesitation. 

It is very nimble, it has a low center of gravity as well as seat height, the rake and trail is such that it will easily turn in the 16`  and can do full lock handle bar circles all day or until you get dizzy. Figure 8`s are effortless in the transition and until I jacked the suspension up to full stiffness at position 5, I was sharpening my floor boards quite nicely. 

This bike has a single crank pin engine, it shakes, at idle the whole thing vibrates, the handle bars are rubber insulated to lessen the impact on your arms which works well, they sacrificed 10hp to make it do that but it seems to me the torque did not suffer at all, the low end grunt this bike has on acceleration is very pleasing. The gear ratio spacing between the gears is well thought out, 80 km/hr in 3rd gear produces a pleasing exhaust note from the factory exhaust as does 4th at 100 km/hr. 5th really isn`t needed until you hit the 4 lane where it will cruise along at 130 to 140 comfortably all day. Ahem, or so I`m told ;-) 

The instrumentation on this bike is VERY basic, it has a speedometer, neutral, high beam, and turn signal indicator below the Speedo, in the Speedo also is a kick stand indicator, high temp indicator, and low oil pressure indicator. That`s it, no tach, no gear position indicator, or fuel gauge, which means you ride and shift by feel and kinda have to keep track of what gear your in which is easier than you`d think. 

The 15 litre fuel tank which should only get 91+ octane fuel, has a reserve position in the fuel petcock that will supply about 2 litres more to get you to a gas station, fuel range will vary greatly depending on how your riding, if your Sunday driving I think you could probably get 275 to 300 clicks before reserve is required, if your into it constantly you`ll need reserve at 212! Spend some time getting to know how to flick the petcock to reserve from the seat so you can let it pick up before you come to a stop, if you don`t, significant cranking is necessary to fire it up again. Trust me.

Mechanically... This bike is bullet proof, the only thing I`ve needed to do besides brakes and tires was put in a new clutch last winter, I do a lot of low speed practice, I take the time on every outing to sharpen my low speed skills, so late last year my clutch started slipping under hard acceleration or when making a pass. I put a Barnett clutch kit in it easily by myself, reused the factory gasket and it`s been fine ever since. 

Valves are hydraulic and NEVER need adjustment as does the carburetor idle settings according to  a sticker I found inside of one of the side covers. I have taken the time to replace ALL of the fluids given the mileage on her, that includes brake fluid when I did the brakes, coolant, shaft drive rear end hypoid oil with new synthetic... To that end I was told by the previous owner to use a  very expensive full synthetic 10W40 which became unavailable recently, I went to my neighbourhood Honda shop and bought the semisynthetic oil and  Honda filter and I find the bike seems to like it, don`t ask me how I know it`s just how it feels, shifts and rides.

To sum things up, I don`t think you can go wrong buying a Honda firstly, every bike I`ve ever owned has been a Honda and I`ve had 5... Can`t not tell you... A CT 70, an ST 90, a CB 350, and a V65 Magna ( The flying V) I called her. Every one a classic, and so is this one! Remarkably, they can be picked up for a song right now, which blows my mind, but as time goes on, the looks, ride, and feel of this bike, especially when put up against what`s out there commercially right now will, in my opinion, make this one of those sought after classics in the not so distant future.

Kind of like the `71 CUDA... Oh yeah, I had one of those in college, kind of have a thing for falling into classics, which I wish I`d never gotten rid of and I won`t ever be selling my 97 Shadow ACE 1100!

Thanks for reading.

Ride safe out there!

Practice your slow speed skills and read up on counter steering. Your bike will lean farther than your comfortable with and, when you know what to do, countersteering can save your life!

And please join a club such as the Defenders to support our veterans and motorcycling in general!

God Speed!

Craig Greene