This Honda CBR1000FP was once my everyday ride. Bought for just £500 back in 2008, complete with almost 12 months MOT and an almost-new exhaust system, the big old CBR has done me proud.
The true mileage is a mystery, as the MOT paperwork trail stopped at 97,000 miles, and the car-inspired dash admitting to 99,657 when I bought it, but obviously the speedo never worked. But for two years I rode the bike every single day, and other than a hydraulic clutch failure (which made for an interesting ride), I had no other problems. I fed it on part-worn tyres, secondhand chains, and even topped up with recycled oil.
With two MOTs under it’s belt, not even I was going to push my luck with another one. Having lived outside and used in all weather, including snow on more than one occasion, the one lush Honda finish was finished. The swing arm had gone rusty, the shock had stopped working, and the linked brakes Honda blighted this model with now refused to work. This was handy for the last proper trip out it made – to Santa Pod in 2010.
On the drag strip, the lack of linked brakes was handy for burnouts. Which was useful as with zero prep and a borrowed entry sticker from another bike, the Honda was lined up on the Pod’s quarter mile – with interesting results.
Lining up against a newer and more cared-for Yamaha R1, our volunteer drag jockey lit the back tyre up and edged forward to the start. 11.33 seconds later he had not only reached 124mph, but also beaten the R1 home – which caused a few laughs.
To go out with a bang, the bike was then handed to some cheeky chaps from the preskoolsuzuki site, but their attempts at Honda euthanasia failed miserably. Even five minutes spent with the cruise control (sticky throttle) jammed wide open couldn’t kill the beast. So since then it’s been parked up in my way. And it still starts up on 3-year-old fuel and no sympathy. I’ve really run out of ideas for what to do with it, as there’s nothing worth selling unless you want 100,000+ mileage parts?
The bike cover has blown away, the neighbours are probably cheesed off with the CBR1000FP garden feature, and after spending a day looking for the key, I discovered it had been in it all this time, and still nobody wanted to nick it.
So what to do with the Mothership? Beach racer at Pendine 2014? Sand racing at Mablethorpe? If we do something by the sea at least we could pop it on some pallets and give it a Viking funeral…
Sell it to someone for the JOG challenge, and show it some respect you barsteward.
A bike that has received that much abuse and uncaring deserves to be cosseted. Pass it on to someone who may appreciate it. What about a motorcycle maintenence course as a project bike ?
…long long ago (well, when I was in my 20’s) I was given a Morris Marina ‘coupe’ with four weeks T+T left on it, and no windscreen…This I drove around for about six weeks, like you do (in full-face helmet as it was November and bloody cold after I’d kicked all the other windows out as well) until the day came to scrap it…so ‘for a bit of a giggle’ we took it to a local beach at the dead of night (Pilling sands, more mud flats than beach really, and when the tide is out it goes out for miles) 3 of us in my Marina, and 4 in my mates Renault 4….most of us drunk or stoned (well, it was the 80’s!)
The master plan? To bang it in second gear, brick on the accelerator light the petrol soaked rags on the back seat, point it West and bale out…sending it out into the Irish sea (proper Viking burial)
Anyway, this I duly did (well after a false start, when the brick fell off the throttle and the fire went out…more petrol next time!) and off went BL’s finest…valves bouncing…blazing like a striking miners brazier…heading out to it’s watery grave.
Twenty minutes later and we can no longer see the fire (probably long burnt out) but we can still hear the haunting noise of the engine screaming as the car goes round and round in big circles about 2 miles away down the beach (yes, I’d missed the sea) it’s single working headlight occasionally visible through the mist (like some demented mobile lighthouse)
By then we’d got cold and bored (and run out of Castlemaine XXXX) so we left it to it’s own fate and headed back to the Renault…soon realising that 7-up (including ‘fat’ Eric….he takes up two seats anyway) in a Renault 4 the twelve miles back home would be a feat in itself (why hadn’t we thought that one through?)…and it had seemed like such a good idea earlier on in the pub…..