Meet Perry, my 1979 CBX

[steve murdoch icoa #5322]

Nice write-up, Phil.
Maybe some Sportkit rearsets would help with your knees. They do put your feet a bit higher but they also place them further back and the angle might work for you.
These are iconic bikes, imho. Even if people don't know what it is as soon as they see the 6 headpipes they usually need to find out.
200km per tank is a lot better than i get.

[Syscrush]

Thanks Steve.

Even 1mm higher is not gonna work. I need to get my feet down a bit to relieve the knees. Correcting the suspension will help a bit too because I won't have to do a deep knee bend to unweight the seat everytime I see a road imperfection coming! My plan is to get some drop pegs made by Knight Design, like these ones:



As for the iconic quality of the bike with those 6 pipes and no downtubes... It's really remarkable. People who know nothing at all about bikes respond to it - if I'm at the front of the line waiting for a light to change while pedestrians are crossing in front of me, I'll always see some dude do a double-take, then tap his buddy on the shoulder and point to the engine. My wife has noticed that when we're riding together, I get more looks on Perry than she gets on Doña, her bright red Monster 620. When a semi-dumpy 40-something dude on a 600 pound, 35 year old bike is turning more heads than a young cutie on an Italian sex machine, something very special is going on. :)

With that said, I could live without hearing something about how some random dude rode a CB450 until he got too drunk, wiped out, and wrecked his knee every time I stop for gas/snack/stretch. I mean, if it was a PYT even 10% of the time it would be a refreshing change. :)

[Jeff Bennetts]

Phil I use these on my ZRX, they are refered to as 360 degree pegs and are Infinitily adjustable, made by Cycle Pirates. Not sure if they could be made to work on a CBX with some fabricating.

[bikeymikey748]

Good observations, Phil.
I'm with you on the 200km. range. I'm usually flipping onto reserve between 180 & 200. More the former than the latter. Odd thing is, even then it will take little more than 15 or so L. to top up. I've a notion our reserve supply is actually quite generous. Though, I've one more rear sprocket ( two teeth less) option to try, and a feeling that I can still jet 'down' safely, a bit more. There's the larger front sprocket option ($$$$) too, all in the name of increased range. I find the bike still under-geared, it'll pull up to and through redline, EASILY, in fifth! Can't imagine what some of the CBX specials that I've seen with current era rear ends and stock ( for whatever rear end they've grafted on ) gearing are taching on the highway...YIKES
A guy on a V-rod ,with Screaming Eagle bits liberally sprinkled throughout, flew past me last weekend. He got held up by a group of three cars, and had to wait for traffic coming in the opposite direction to clear before moving on. I slipped in behind him and waited for him to 'drop the hammer'. He went down two gears ( ! ) and pulled out. I dropped into fourth and off we went. Well sir, I just sat on his tail with no trouble. You had to hear the 6-1 over his twin . He did a mirror check, seemed real surprised to see me on his six, and dropped onto his tank. I kept in it until I saw 185 km/hr, and then cut him loose. Pretty impressive for a garage-built thirty-one year old, I thought
No drama, no wobbles, the X was just doing well. But....with my current gearing, there wasn't much more speed to come as the red line was not to be denied. That's the first I've given mine it's head.
True too about the notice our bikes get. In fact, sometimes it's really surprising, just how much attention they draw
Like you said, it's gratifying that folks seem to take such an interest in something that we find to be a BLAST to be riding anyway.
It's a puzzle your fuelling gremlins persist. Any ideas as to what you'll address next to correct them?
You look a tall lad, I'll wager you're flat on your size LARGEs when stopped. Seems odd though, I thought that our bikes would be more accommodating of taller folks, for some reason.
Oh and, did SOMEBODY say that they were in Montreal ? Funny, I'm home most of the time and don't remember the phone ringing

[Syscrush]

Oh and, did SOMEBODY say that they were in Montreal ? Funny, I'm home most of the time and don't remember the phone ringing

My brother, the trip was planned on Wed, I was riding from 7AM to 9PM on Thu, and the list of people I owe a beer & a visit to in MTL is LONG. This trip had me with only 12 hours in the city - and 6 of 'em were spent drinking... Decided to keep it in the family this time. But I'll be back soon with my wife and will definitely give you a heads up and plan a visit!

My CBX keeps up with the VFR800 in the straights just fine. Probably pulls on it a bit. I think I'm also geared a bit lower than stock, which is how I like it - it's nice to be able to actually wind it out in 1st and get well into 2nd and maybe even 3rd when merging on a hwy - as opposed to a modern supersport that hits 180-190 at redline in 3rd. The gearing on this bike is pretty close to my very first bike - a 2000 Katana 600. As it's geared now I have no doubt that it would bury the needle in 5th (it would be barely over 220 kph on the GPS at 9500 RPM - maybe 240 on the speedo), and not take a long time to get there. 50 over here in Ontario carries SEVERE punishments with it, and I didn't really get a chance to let loose in QC, so I've not had it above 160 (GPS) yet.

On very smooth/new pavement, I was able to keep up with the VFR in the turns, too, despite my cousin being a bit crazier than me on public roads. But as soon as there was any roughness in the turns, I'd be dropping 10kph and loading up the pegs to keep from getting bucked out while he'd be one-handing it. :)


Here's my current thought on Harleys:

"I like Harleys a lot. Those tiny little motors are just adorable!" :)

Try saying that to a member of the Screaming Eagle Noisemaker club and see how well it goes over. ;)

[Syscrush]

I thought that some of you might be interested in my GPS mount. Here are a couple of pics:

It does obscure the left turn signal and high beam indicators, but I decided that was the best compromise overall. Since I can see the lenses of the turn signals from the cockpit anyhow, and it's easy to tell when the HB is on at night, I haven't found it to be a big issue. I think that it's showing 0.4 kph here because I had turned the bars immediately before taking the pic, and the device does pick up pretty small movements.


The mount is basically some stainless sheet cut & bent to form a bridge between the threaded hole in the fork cap and the mounting stud for the gauge surround:


It's not show-quality by a long shot, but being stainless it should stay fresh and it's pretty strong. I had some concerns about the stability of the mount & what it's connected to, but after ~3500 km of riding in this configuration I'm very comfortable with it. It works fine and looks OK.

When I convert to handlebars I'll have to relocate the fuse panel anyhow so I may move it to a more central position then - that's how I had it on my KTM, and I came to like that a lot. Clearance with the ignition is a potential issue, but there's always a solution.