CRUISING TO A DIFFERENT BEAT
Honda, the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, doesn’t offer many big bikes for sale these days. There are a couple of Gold Wings, a good variety of Africa Twin adventure bikes and the new NT1100 coming soon. Even the famous Fireblade is now track-only.
So the introduction of the CMX1100 was a bit of a surprise, a cruiser powered by the engine from the Africa Twin – a torquey, narrow, 1084cc parallel twin with lots of electronics. Combine that with a cruiser chassis and style, super-low 700mm seat, sporty suspension, more advanced electronics and you get a bike which breaks the cruiser mould.
It’s not a V-twin.
It’s “only” 1100cc.
It doesn’t weigh 300kg.
It’s so affordable to be almost cheap.
It goes like stink.
THE LOWEST SEAT IN TOWN
Honda’s sold lots of CMX500s to learners looking for the confidence that comes with getting both feet onto the ground when stationary, so it’s no surprise the 1100 followed the same formula, its 700mm seat height being one of the lowest in motorcycling.
Add in wide mid-set footpegs and it’s about as easy as it gets to move from stationary, feet down, to rolling and feet up. The handlebars are
