Finally! Honda CB1100 will charm in 2013 nostalgic Japanese women of the Seventies and Eighties, addicted with its sober lines and its large 4-cylinders cooled by air. For as much, the Honda CB 1100 does not remain about less one motorcycle damned effective, natural, and designed for a large audience, Demonstration in the south – rainy – of Spain.
It will have made some run electronic ink on the Web, this famous Honda CB 1100 even before its first turns of wheels… Indeed, seldom a motorcycle will not as much have caused reactions and of waiting on behalf of a fringe of motorcyclists sensitive to its arguments.
Appeared for Japan in 2009, it will have been necessary to wait not less than 3 years before seeing the Honda CB 1100 unloading in Europe, of which France. Waiting which is due to several factors: a sales strategy aiming at providing initially Japan in particular then the USA, of the technical constraints (related to the standards of pollution, noise different according to the countries), then undoubtedly, an economic situation today is more favorable to these neo-retro motorcycles. In France, Triumph Bonneville record very honorable scores of sale in 2012 (nearly 1,200 units all confused models), but also Moto Guzzi V7 and other W800 (approx. 300 units each one), without forgetting Sportster Harley-Davidson obviously (nearly 3,500 883 and 1200 units!).
In short, there is a request clearly identified on the return to the sources, and without any doubt, the Honda CB 1100 arrives it at point named in this beginning for the year 2013 to draw some chestnuts from fire…
Return to the roadster… of road
And a good fire, precisely, one would need well on the heights of the area of Valencia in this at the beginning of January. Whereas we make our batch of outward journeys return since nearly half an hour to satisfy the photographers and cameramen, obviousness is reinforced between the frozen drops of rain; if its look would not have spoiled in a catalogue motorcycle of the beginning of the Eighties, the Honda CB 1100 is not less one roadster of 2013.
Those which knew its famous predecessors, generally equipped with rims before 19 inches which often made fall the directions at low speed, will understand better than a long discourse comparison: the Honda news proposes for its part a catch in hands much more obvious.
Equipped with rims of 18 inches (against 17 inches for most current motorcycles), of narrow tires (110 with front, 140 in the back) and of one geometry to old (27° of angle of fork), positioning its pilot well in the center of the motorcycle and not on the nose gear wheel, the Honda CB1100 brings back for us at that time where a roadster before was very conceived like road and not sporting without careenage.
Vintage, seemingly only
Here, one appreciates from the start the facility and the approval of his direction – a model of the genre! -, neutral, specifies, without this excessive stiffness often synonymous with brutal reactions on the bumps in acceleration. Doubled arm of important lever of its broad handlebar, here which would almost make doubt the real cubic capacity of this motorcycle, so much its doubled handiness of its natural balance is pleasant in cushy mode, downtown, to stroll quietly on the grand boulevards, to rise in the traffic or to evolve on a thread of gas.
A ghost with the motorcycle, forty something or fifty something – public aimed by this model -, will be undoubtedly happy to join again with his first loves with as much of facility, whereas a beginner without real reference finds that quite simply normal: “Why a motorcycle intended for the daily newspaper should it behave differently?”. It is already a real reason for astonishment, behind its references vintage, the Honda CB1100 offers an unexpected impulsiveness for its gauge, and a naturalness which must also much with the effectiveness of the engine.
Honda CB 1100 Cm3 damned effective in the true life
Consent-even of Mr Fukunaga, the father of this Honda CB 1100 (and one crowned skewer of beautiful Honda of the Eighties at our days), this 4-cylinders online claimed as much work almost than blocks a priori more high tech. In particular, to allow air cooling while meeting the current standards, it was necessary to resort to an additional oil radiator, whose circuit traverses the high engine, whereas the pressure is ensured by a pump placed in the low casing.
In addition, the pistons and come will not concentrate the power at a sufficiently important distance very close to the red zone… Doubled specific camshafts and shortened reduction, here which partly explains this potential adapted perfectly to the diversified course (and sometimes technique, even sporting) of this first contact with the animal.
If its 90 horses will not throw into a panic faded them stopwatch (it takes nevertheless nearly 200 km/h…), the news Honda CB does not offer of it less one availability of every moment… and 1100 Cm3 damned effective in the true life. Downtown, the 4 legs agrees to begin again towards 1,000 tr/min on the higher reports, but it is especially after 2,000 tr/min and more still in the zone of the 5,000 tr/min than it gives the best, a push frank and less brutal than linear.
Decorate the whole of a true facility of proportioning to the handle, and you obtain what to charm the pilots of Sunday and the epicureans attached to the strong feelings… without through kind. Here, even the transmission planks it without faults, whereas limps it is made almost forget.
The 6 are sought
Thus, to 90 km/h, the machine takes you along peacefully, with 3,000 tr/min. Fixed well on the saddle – a little closes –, the hands resting on the high and broad handlebar, you finish fixing you well on board by tightening between the thighs the tank erotized in its back part. With the stop, the saddle with reasonable height should make it possible the majority of the gauges to flat pose at least a foot on the ground.
But on the way, isolated on both sides of broad low driving, they betray its cubic capacity almost as much in any case than the least test of recoveries. With mid–mode, the Honda CB 1100 gets constant and amply sufficient accelerations to be freed from the least going beyond without retrogressing. Better, the 6 are often sought whereas limps it comprises only 5 reports… And then, naturally, the rhythm ends up increasing. With a firmly dimensioned fork and a tubular framework, hunting as generous as the footing, the directional stability of the Honda CB 1100 does not have anything obsolete.
If there were compounds postpone limited in clearance, one could approach most situations with a true peace. Working correctly on most coatings, comfort is worthy of what one awaits from this kind of motorcycle… without excess nor molasses, a happy medium for a broad use.
What to ask moreover?
Up to 8000 tr/min, its four-cylinder engine tractor draws with good will, for lack of promptness, whereas the directional stability remains in the good average, provided that one does not draw too much on the handlebar.
Moreover, if the BT-54 specific to this motorcycle ensure a correct grip, a last joker remembers to your good memory: the famous integral CBS braking which of only one pressure of the foot already offers a sufficient power, whereas the lever with the handlebar finishes convincing you: how to happen some after having tasted there? The day passes, always too quickly in these fast presentations, and all the more when the motorcycle helps you to overcome a capricious weather, to defer you on the pleasure of rolling, quite simply.
However, the rain accompanies us since the end by morning; the Spanish southern roads do not have anything a gift, often very slipping. Even at sometimes fast intervals, the Honda CB1100 finishes spreading out qualities which one would really like to find on roadsters much more high tech and ambitious: a natural direction, a reassuring stability, a making safe coupled braking, an acceleration easy to proportion and total performances very usable. An equation a priori obvious in the absolute, but less on the market…
Assessment: Without fault… or almost
It is the one without fault. Almost here, you understood it, the feeling which prevails when one goes down from this machine for a first assessment. With classical solutions seemingly, Honda incontestably succeeds in projecting its motorcycle in the dynamic standards of 2013, while flattering the retina. For as much, if one owes this time outward journey at the end of the reasoning, it is precisely perhaps on the rough feelings that most demanding will be able to possibly find to repeat.
Indeed, for those in search of this famous “mechanical character” with the impossible definition, the linearity of the engine of the Honda CB1100, without particular brutality nor roughness, will undoubtedly not be more attaching the every day of the year.
Whereas the certain plastics in addition to their unpleasant casing of pinion of exit of gear box do not have their place on a motorcycle asserting, such a cultural heritage. In Japan inter alia, the Honda CB 1100 already fact the object of many preparations in the spirit of the Seventies, via new paintings, exhausts, parts of preparing, saddles and other equipment typified vintage.
What returns from there is the addition only more salted to the final one, by considering it an already serious starting price. Proposed with 10,990 € by mid-January, the Honda CB1100 is not thus to regard as a “basic” roadster, and in this price range, will encounter very aggressive models. There remains a really single general approval and a line on the market, doubled famous “made in Japan” which preserves today, and rightly, of many fans.
