Ever imagined what a motorbike would be like if Bentley became involved? Well wonder no more because Honda has already done it for them.
Now that seems like a strange title but the longer I rode and spent time with this particular Honda the more it reminded me of a Bentley. It’s uncannily smooth, impeccably finished and oozes quality from every orifice, er, just like a Bentley I suppose. It also makes you feel like a bit of an ‘ old git’, just like a Bentley, and I just can’t see the annoying phone tapping youth of today buying one but, then again, neither does Honda.
So what’s this bike all about then you ask? Honda claim their 2013 CB1100 is a modern bridge between the old style retro bikes us ‘ancient folk’ all adore and would love to own again , however, the CB1100 is lathered with basic but present day technology. Nothing wrong with that so I’d have to agree with Honda to a point and it did indeed confuse the general public with eye-brow raising comments like; ‘Oooh, this is nice, did you restore it yourself?’, then when you reply with; ‘No, it’s brand new,’ they look as mystified as the front row of a David Copperfield show. So Honda’s bag of time travel visual tricks seems to have worked and it generates just as pleasing a smile as sawing a woman in half and leaving her in that predicament does, right lads?
Honda’s mechanical magicians haven’t had to work too hard to produce this bike though. It’s been around for three years already in Japan and only this year has Honda seen fit to throw it into Europe, and therefore South Africa. The engine is slightly modified from the Japanese version to churn out more torque and top end power because Japan has rules we don’t want.
The engine nestling proudly inside these black twin-loop steel frame tubes is an 1,140cc, DOHC, 16-valve, fuel-injected, air-cooled (sort of), in-line, four-cylinder, with a five-speed gearbox - try saying that after a pint of rum! You did see a ‘sort of’ in there because it’s also oil-cooled but only around the spark plug placement area for reasons I’m not completely sure of, ‘emissions and all that’, I’d predict.
So with all that explanation of the internals orbiting inside my head I thought it’d be only good manners to run the bike on Noddy’s Dynojet dyno and, unfortunately, I came away a little depressed. Only 78hp at the wheel isn’t too impressive for 1,140cc is it? And the torque figure wasn’t much better either, with only 86Nm but, for once, I’d have to agree with the old cliché of, ‘the riding experience is much better’, honest.
This big air-cooled unit is such a sweet thing; smooth power delivery is an understatement and combines well with the excellent fuelling (as usual) from Honda’s PGM-Fi fuel-injection system squirting into relatively small (for today) 36mm throttle bodies. The longer you spend with the CB1100’s ‘lazy’ motor the more you’ll see what type of rider Honda is aiming to please, which I’m pleased to say is me. The CB1100 is not superbike fast but still leaves everything but the purist of supercars looking enviably at the seventies style rear light and deep chromed single silencer. I believe if you got your head down for long enough you might just be able to tickle the 200km/h mark - no too bad at all for something that weighs close to 250kg (wet).
And don’t worry about that mass coming to halt because those big 296mm discs do the braking job nicely and you have ABS and Honda’s obligatory (on this type of bike) linked brakes. You all know about those already, so let’s move on.
So the engine is a peach but to sum up the chassis; it is what it is. A heavy steel frame, basic 41mm telescopic forks and a pair of conventional rear shocks are what you get. Neither forks nor rear shock has any adjustment besides some pre-load facility but Honda’s choice of damping suits the ride. The long 1,490mm wheelbase certainly makes the CB1100 stable in a straight line and it’s quite manoeuvrable through congested city traffic, helped by the high and wide ‘bars and low seat height (795mm), but it does feel more like a superb cruiser than anything that begins with CBR. Saying that you can have fun through the bends and, again, like the engine, it’s nice, plush, reassuring and just a pleasant place to be all of the time, especially while one casts their gaze across those fetching and beautifully presented analogue instruments. And to compliment this luxurious ride is the five-speed gearbox; light, effortless and typical Honda who are always at the top end when it comes to swapping cogs and, after riding the CB1100, still are.
By now you’ll have gathered that I like this retro Honda but I do have a few concerns that keep creeping into my head. Apparently this bike echoes back to the days of the 1969 CB750, which by the way it doesn’t. If Honda had an open book of design then why did they not build a modern version of that first iconic CB750K0, but with fuel injection, etc, etc? Am I right or what? How cool would that have been and I for one would have gone out and bought one tomorrow, in gold please. Also the 18-inch wheels annoyed me, why are they not spoke wheels or even better those Comstar wheels that all CBs had during the seventies, eighties and nineties? Another also, is what is this particular CB1100 supposed to mimic? The only Honda bikes I can find that come close are the Nighthawks from the USA (check out the images on the Net and you’ll see what I mean). Don’t get me wrong the CB1100 is exquisitely finished with its deep paint and award-winning chrome but I wish they’d have gone even more retro, like Kawasaki and Triumph have with the W800 and Bonneville.
The Honda CB1100 isn’t cheap either at R119,000 and most people agreed the price is too high but they are made in limited numbers only and that always lifts the tag. But the age group this bike is aimed at possibly wouldn’t care about the price and just want one because it takes them back to their youth, and they probably already have a Bentley in their garage anyway, therefore this new/old Honda CB1100 will fit in nicely darling.
