I will always remember the winter of 79-80 as being somewhat depressing. A psychiatric nurse in Yorkshire does not have much in the way of disposable income and at the time I was knocking about on a five year old CB550K3, but lusting after every new, glitzy offering from Nippon.
With each passing year the bikes were getting faster, smoother, more futuristic in their styling and better handling; I just had to have one. So, it came to pass that the Yorkshire Bank and I entered into a loan agreement in early January and I took possession of a bright red, shiny, new CB900FA.
No, it wasn’t the best on the market at the time, but it was no slug either and the handling was reasonable, even if it did squirm about a bit at the back end through undulating fast bends. The answer to that one was to wind on a bit more power and pray.
I ran it for two years at the rate of 15000 miles a year with no problems apart from an ignition coil demise in Southern France just after the Bol in '82. In fact, the ignition coil fracture was a common fault on the Honda 900, as I knew four other 900 owners and all suffered coils dying on them. Somehow these all seemed to occur in the most inconvenient places, like mine in France, Mike’s on the Isle of Afran, John’s in Holland... if this happens miles from civilisation, whip out the spark plugs that the coil serves and carry on with a 450cc twin, which I've been told is capable of cruising at 75mph!
Home maintenance is relatively straightforward once you have resigned yourself to the use of a micrometer, good feeler gauges and a few spare shims to tackle the valve clearance. The carbs are best balanced with a set of mercury vacuum gauges. The only special tools needed are a valve lifting tool and four screw-in adaptors to fit the carbs and attach the vacuum gauges.
These two tasks were the most complex on the servicing side, although a little bit fiddly they were a breeze after you’ve done them a few times. Electronic ignition solves the timing problems.
The only expensive parts in running a Honda 900 are the tyres and fuel. Fuel consumption was never exactly, er, economical, it would average about 45mpg while cruising at 80mph, but if you go completely crazy it'll go down to 27mpg (into a headwind on a night ride in the wilds of Scotland). As far as tyres are concerned I junked the Japs straight from the start and fitted Pirelli Phantoms for the whole of the time that I owned the bike. It helped me sleep better at night. Tyre wear was very heavy indeed, 3 or 4000 miles on the back. Very worn tyres made the rear end very twitchy, and a weave also started in the straights.
The rear suspension can leak its oil at quite low mileages and wrecks the handling. The bike weighs a hefty 530lbs with a gallon of fuel and has relatively narrow bars, so it can be a bit of a bugger to whack through fast corners. The bike always feels high and heavy and needs effort and concentration in town. Things are helped by the large amount of grunt developed at low revs, so it can be run along like a tractor in high gears.
The clutch is smooth, but heavy, and the gearbox action a little lumpy at times but doesn’t miss changes. The mass of the bike is really felt if iy have to push it more than a few feet. Top speed is around 135mph, far from excessive for a 900, but adequate for UK roads as it'll cruise along at 110mph for as long as you can keep your licence. The speed could only be really used on motorways, on lesser roads the slow steering meant it was necessary to whack on the brakes or go straight through a hedge, Ridden sensibly, I couldn’t complain about the handling, ridden by a lunatic it was fun only if you enjoyed grappling with heaving, wallowing metal.
If you're short of leg then you may well collapse in a heap at traffic lights, especially true if you fit longer shocks to improve the clearance as it’s possible to scrape various bits of undercarriage on the tarmac. Initially, comfort was limited by cramp in the legs but this soon went away, the seat itself comfortable. If you could find the space and rev the engine to the redline, secondary vibes from the DOHC motor are present in the bars and footrests, and even the tank rattles a little. It all depends what you're used to as to whether this is a problem or not. As I've used the bike to go to Belgium and Holland as well as all four corners of the British mainland it obviously doesn’t bother me too much.
Reliability, save for the coil, has been excellent. I had no second thoughts about leaping on the bike and a a 2400 mile journey to the Algarve in Portugal, the return journey was made non-stop with about 15 minutes sleep in France... crazy? Yes, definitely, but it was the only way that I could have a good break.
Such experiences, high mileages on a fast bike, are very interesting indeed, you seem to merge with the machine and know which way it’s going to react. Having 95hp to play with, bags of fierce acceleration and over 500lbs plus loads of luggage to get out of control, all mean concentration but in a funny way it all becomes second nature after the first few hours and you just buzz along on a high. Luckily, no police stopped me (or if they saw me they couldn't catch me) and the Honda just seemed to eat up the miles. On a smaller bike with less comfort and the need to play with the gearbox to keep the machine in the powerband it could've been a kind of hell rather than a great ride.
If you want to divorce your wife do a similar trip with her on the back, as the pillion seating is diabolical, no legroom, seat too hard, too much vibration and lots of wind blast. All the more a pity be cause the riders comfort is so good.
The power really starts flowing in above 5500rpm, you can feel the bike come on cam as the exhaust note changes, and the force strains the arms and can whip back the head. In the lower gears, the vibes hit the mirrors leaving them useless until you get into top somewhere around 90mph. The acceleration on some of these newer bikes with much more power and less mass must be fantastic, if very dangerous.
In fact, the old Honda, if ridden with spirit, can give these new watercooled speedsters a bit of a fright up to about 130mph. If these bikes can accelerate away, it takes a lot of bottle to whack open the throttle at that kind of speed.
With newish suspension and tyres, the mass of the Honda means it sits on the road with a great deal of stability. Although I never had it happen to me, but that very mass becomes very hard to control if the 900 goes into a nasty speed wobble at about 125mph. Stories of taking up two or three lanes of the road to recover are not unknown. This adds a bit of spice to fast rides, although I believe that good tyres and suspension will make this very unlikely.
High mileages can do nasty things to the valves, especially if you don't bother to check the clearances regularly. Both the clutch and the crank can blow up if you ride like a total lunatic. It’s got one of Honda’s more reliable camchain tensioners, which if it doesn’t mean much in the light of some of their models, does mean camchains can last for up to 50000 miles. Some high mileage bikes consume more oil than petrol and the electrics get just a bit wacky - batteries burn up, rectifiers don’t and the electronic ignition goes dead just when you least expect. Luckily, I sold my bike well before any of that happened and my memories are only happy.
Those Honda calipers are another thing that are affected by age - the usual swearing and strip downs work. The brakes are powerful in the dry but in the wet they lag and then suddenly lock up. Most amusing, trying to control 750lbs of bike and rider in a skid. Luckily decent tyres help here. Modem tyre compounds will probably help along with Goodridge hoses to improve the feel, although the brakes never felt particularly spongy.
Buying an old one rather than a new CB is all down to finding one that has been well looked after - easily apparent as the engine alloy goes off very fast unless Solvol and mucho elbow grease are applied. Don’t worry over clutch rattle, that’s a Honda trademark but listen to the top end and crank for rumbling and rattling noises.
There are certainly other makes that have fours that can withstand much more abuse and neglect, but there are still some good CB900s running around and there are lots of bits in breakers available to keep them on the road. In its way, the Honda is the ultimate high speed hack, as the UMG says, the CB900 is a very cheap way of going very fast.
James Mcbride