Cheers SB,

My missus hasn't got a bike license so hasn't got any choice but go pillion lol, but she really does enjoy it and has missed out for a long time due to the health problems.

Hopefully when the weather finally picks up over here she will be able to come out on the back of the CBR once i've finished going through it. I did take it out for a short run after finishing re-sealing the exhaust collector box to the link pipes yesterday (sunday) which was the driest day we've probably had in quite a few months.

It was the first time i'd been out on it after bringing it home in January. Next jobs are to do an oil & filter change and replace the screen. I opened up the airbox that evening while doing a bit of tinkering and found a previous owner had fitted a K&N filter which seemed fairly new - i know they don't really make a difference to performance but i do like that you can clean and re-use them.

 

I guess I'll date myself with this post...When I was in high school I drove a VF500F Interceptor. For being 15 it was very nice ride and I think I was the only guy with a bike. I remember one afternoon driving around town, stopping at a light, and having a Hurricane pull up next to me. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Or course I thought I was Fred Merkel on my little interceptor so I tried, in vain or course, to keep up with the Hurricane. That was the beginning of the love affair for me.

 

"Why do you ride a Hurricane?" ~ I'm on my 4th one. '95 '96 '95 and currently on a '96. Been on bikes since I was 15. Factory stickered brand new street legal trail moped on 16th birthday. 2 years a motorcycle courier. I guess bikes are in my blood. I missed a chunk of biking when my kids were born (expensive) but always loved the 1000F for it's sheer cockyness of being big and brutish but surprisingly fast (not as fast as the other big blocks around at the time I concede).

I always promised myself one day I'd get one and I did. Why I'm still in love with this bike? Here's a list - The look on people's faces when you tell them it's 18 years old (mine is mint) "It looks like a new bike" is the usually reply. The reaction to the guy that has just nearly racked up 11 points on his licence so he can catch you and ask if it's a rebuild It's not it's original as it comes (bar nexxus cans).

The respect I get at traffic lights when the dayglo leather boys arrive with their identikit evil insect bikes. Normally they would drag race anything and everything off the lights but seem to know this bike could make them look daft if they tried to. The wipe clean exterior, easy to maintain, cheap to run and insure. That feeling on the motorway where you have a mad moment and wind it up from 85mph to 130mph in like 4 seconds (I still scream wheeeeee!) The £23.00 to fill the tank knowing I won't be doing this again for about a hundred and sixty miles. The 200 mile thrash across country in non stop torrential rain and getting off the bike being 65% - 75% dry.

The dual linked brakes meaning braking with the foot is almost non- existent. It really is like a scooter. The factory supplied luggage hooks which mean i can strap more on my bike than I can with top boxes and panniers. I like the fact it starts on the button every time. I like the 1990s paint job nowadays bikes are just engines and some black plastic bits with your **** pointing up at the sun. I like when people smile at me because my bike looks / sounds nice and they have felt the love. I could go on and on.

I'm sure some of this is probably the same owning another bike but there is just something about this model. It's Honda's last great flagship in my book. XX11's are ugly to me and all the RR's look good but don't tick all my boxes. Long live the CBR 1000F.

 

Hear hear , nicely spoken and yours is a smashing looking example if I may so.

 

Couldn't agree more. Well said CBR1K. The great styling, utility, durability and power make it a well rounded machine.

 

I generally like riding old bikes with my friends having all kinds of VF, Magnas, CX500 (I have one too), Viragos or LTDs. Sometimes. when we ride together we just swap the bikes to break the routine.

I don't know about others but at the end of the day, when you switch back to the CBR, you immediately understand why you won't part with it.

It's so good that I can end the day going back home on the CBR... seems like a happy end after all, and I think the rest are not that happy getting back to their bikes haha... because all these old bikes no matter how fine they are, they have some riding quirks which CBR hopefully does not share. Rock solid I would say.... but damn expensive to maintain...

 

We've had our cane in the family for about 13 years my brother passed it down to me about 5 years ago I fixed it up and kept it going I'm going to get it painted and pass it down to my brother's son who is in turn supposed to pass it down to my son.

 

^Awesome!

 

Well i rode a CBR600F for a while and it was great fun, a bit quick, got some decent looks and overall decent fun ride.... until someone decided to run me off the road and write her off. So a few years after the accident (about 8!) i decided i would get back on the saddle and go for a bit more power, thinking that if i'd had some more poke, being run off the road could have been avoided. As i prefered the look of older bikes and loved the 600 cbr i had i decided to go for the 1000F (i did consider a fireblade, but impulse lead me to the 1000F). so i found one, took it for a test ride, it put a massive grin on my face and a little bit of wee came out when i opened her up a bit. went back to the owner and said take my money!

so i've waffled a bit but basically this bike is everything i want in a bike! and still makes me smile each time i take her for a blast.

 

". . . still makes me smile each time i take her for a blast." It does do that, doesn't it.

An hour or so has gone by perusing this thread from beginning to end. A great similarity runs through it. Almost everyone has an "I rode a CBR1KF and fell in love with it."

I could have sworn my story was recorded here also, but it hasn't been. So . . .

My eldest son had an '87, or maybe and '88 that he left it home while in Army basic training. He asked me to ride it occasionally just to keep the battery charged. Well, you know what sacrifices one will make for his children. I had to take a run to Great Falls with a side trip to visit an uncle. A perfect chance to fulfill my promise and spend a couple hundred miles on the bike. That was all it took. I had to have one.

It rode like it was on rails. There was power to pass. Curves were conquered. A semi passed in a side wind and the CBR, sneering, didn't even wiggle. And the power! The comfort! When I parked it downtown a good looking young lady said admiringly, "Cool bike." That sealed it. If cute young things were impressed with an old fart on the CBR - Well!! Nobody had ever said that about the CB650 I was riding at the time. It immediately became totally inadequate.

Unfortunately it was several years before finances allowed a purchase, but just when they did the motorcycle gods smiled on me and prompted a rancher out of town to let the local Honda dealer know he had a '91 CRB1k for sale. The owner knew I was looking and alerted me. Short story - with the wonderful wife's smiling approval I went, I saw, I purchased.

That was 10 years ago. I've looked at a lot of bikes since and ridden a few, but none appeal to me as the CBR does. This may well be the last bike I own. Well, unless the CFO will agree to a KLR250 for fire roading.