The Well-Mannered Missile

We are in eastern Oregon’s Wild, Wild Country, a land where old and odd uncomfortably coexist.  Out here among the wide prairie and high hills the land is pockmarked with cowboys in rusty F-150s, windmills among the wheat, strange UFO sightings and even stranger Portlandians, and a compound where the Rajneesh tried to conquer it all with orange jump suits, blenders, beavers and failed assassination attempts.

A road weaves over and around the prairie like a drunken cowboy who found the bottom of a bottle of Old No.7 then lost his hat, his shirt, and his horse.  Highway 218’s thirty miles of inebriated meanderings start at Fossil, Oregon and end at Antelope, each town a hamlet so small you could stand at the middle and see both ends.  Paved motorcycle dreams are here though, along with mountains, cattle and the courage of speed.  Dave and I would rather ride this road than Tail Of The Dragon.

Fall’s colors explode all round this time of year. The air is chill with summer’s demise, cattle meander in their autumn brown fields while leaves take their time falling from branches onto the road before me.  The world is perfect, but beneath me is Honda’s NT1100, a bike that I wish was sexier, and faster.  It sure doesn’t feel fast.  I look down at my speedometer.

No way.  That can’t be right.

“Yo, White Girl”, I call over our Cardo communicators, “how is my pace?”  A slight pause.

The Honda NT1100 out in eastern Oregon’s open country.

“I am riding as fast as I ever have,” White Girl replies from his Suzuki GSX-S1000GT, our sport touring mount we have been riding alongside the NT as a comparison benchmark.  His statement has my full attention.  By now we have been riding the GSX-S with the NT for a couple of months, thousands of miles and a couple of countries.  Suzuki’s sport tourer is a beast when properly whipped, enough to make me respect it’s power and agility and I know Dave’s performance envelope.  He is one corner ahead of me, but not pulling away, staying perfectly in view.  How?

I still don’t believe my speedo.  Is this thing working?  Honda needs to fix this.

Honda’s NT1100, the sport touring offering from Big Red, is fitted with the same 1100cc parallel twin that does duty in the Africa Twin and our last long term bike, the Rebel 1100.  However, whereas the Rebel tunes the 1100cc parallel twin with a heavier flywheel to 87 hp at 7,250 rpm and 72 ft lbs of torque at 4,750 rpm, the NT1100 makes with a lighter flywheel for 101 hp and 82.6 ft/lbs of torque at 5,500 rpm.  Redline is a shallow 7,700 rpm so the NT pushes taller gearing with a truckload of torque that seems on tap everywhere in the rev range.  Good motion happens at 5k, but real steam happens from 6k on up.  Power is transferred through Honda’s 6-speed Dual Clutch Transmission that can be shifted manually or left to the NT’s electronic brain to manage.  Drive mode programming of the DCT is okay for commuting, but there are three different settings for Sport programming and I have mine on the most aggressive. 

It is the only way to fly.

The NT1100 is fitted with Honda’s Dual Clutch Transmission.  There is no clutch lever and no toe shifter, but it can be shifted manually using the thumb and finger of the left hand, or left to the NT’s electronic brain to shift for you.  Shift points are good enough in sport mode that I rarely used manual mode.

A parallel twin’s smaller architecture makes it naturally lighter than higher cylinder count engines so the NT is narrower in the waist and weights a svelte 550 lbs soaking wet, light for a more touring biased sport touring bike, but deceiving given the NT has a 32+ inch seat height and a generous fairing.  The NT gives the impression of size but feels light off the kickstand.

That weight is managed by a Showa’s Separate Function, Big Piston fork in the front and a Pro-Link Showa shock in the rear, both of which have 5.9 inches of travel.  Different aspects of suspension work are delegated independently in the SFF-BP design with one Big Piston leg handling preload and the other handling compression and rebound damping.  Lighter weight means brakes can be more potent and the NT has twin 310 mm discs up front with radially mounted calipers that would look right on any sport bike, so I decided to treat the NT like one.

The Sport in the Tourer

Brakes on the NT are superb for sport duty with good bite from the first pull on the lever then a predictable, linear pull all the way to full front end dive and ABS activation.  Feel is quality enough that when I slightly overcook a corner trying to keep pace with Dave and his ripping GSX-S, a tiny bit of lever pressure produces just enough brake scrub to reduce turn radius and keep me in my lane, even at full lean.  Great brakes are complimented by wonderful suspension that soaks up corner entry ripples common out here as well as mid corner agitations with little transfer to the rock solid chassis.  Net effect of the quality brakes, excellent suspension and stable chassis is a lot of front end confidence for sport duty.  I love the front end of this bike and for how hard I am pushing the NT, that front end confidence is everything.

Radially mounted Nissin calipers squeeze 310mm rotors for solid stopping power and magnificent feel.  Honda nailed this.

As I keep Dave in view, the well tracking front end means I can pour heaps of roll-on throttle on corner exit, enough that I can occasionally get the back end to drift out just ever so slightly to finish a corner.  Not the quickest way around a racetrack, but it makes me smile.  The wide rain grooves on the shoulders of the stock Metzeler rear tire are part to blame.  A set of Dunlop Roadsmart IVs would cure that but for now I take delight in making the big bike dance.

Unfortunately the exhaust note on the NT is a low drone so it doesn’t sound fast and with a rev ceiling of only 7,700 rpm it lacks the drama of the Suzukis high rpm-wailing corner exits.  Overall, the bike just feels like it is being…leisurely.  It never feels fast or out of sorts, it just soaks up everything from late braking antics to high lean angles to full throttle exit drama.  After months and thousand of miles of this, it becomes a running joke between Dave and I.  Dave asks me what pace we are going to use for testing today and I always reply, “just a leisurely pace.”  I check my speedometer and it is anything but leisurely.

Showa SFF-BP was so well dialed that I never touched a clicker the entire time.  It absorbs imperfections big and small with little transmitted to the chassis and recovers quickly.

No way, that can’t be right.

It is.  Fully railed over in yet one more Hwy 218 giant sweeper, it is in the three digit range and climbing.  Dave is one corner ahead of me in full push but going nowhere.  It feels like I am doing 30 mph.

On tight, technical sections of which 218 has plenty, the NT is work.  The stable chassis geometry resists my quick turn demands, something Dave’s GSX-S does with aplomb.  The wide handlebar is good for leverage but fights hanging off the bike as does the tank shape.  Getting out of the seat to set up a corner just feels awkward given the NT’s ergonomics.  This motorbike wants you to say in the seat.

However, on long radius turns, or endless top gear sweepers that span eastern Oregon’s prairie, the NT is some kind of bizarre UFO bike magic.  I have ridden this road innumerable times over many years and rarely have I gone this fast with such stability while feeling like I was doing a leisurely pace.

Ergonomics are more conducive to touring than sport but when pushed, the NT will respond.

“Yo, White Girl,” I call over our Cardo communicators, “how is my pace?”  A slight pause.

“I am riding as fast as I ever have,” he says, then pauses.  “That NT rips.”

We arrive at Antelope, then turn back to find the road to what used to be the Rajneesh camp in the early 1980s.  Upon arrival we find the reservoir built back then full of water, the airport strip for the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s private jet intact and the compound beautifully kept.  What happened here is one more strange chapter of how opposites can coexist, for a time, and just how truly wild the west can be.  Netflix’s documentary about the camp is titled, appropriately, Wild Wild Country and being on the grounds where it all happened is like standing on a battlefield.  I get goosebumps.  In an ironic twist of fate the camp has been repurposed as a Young Life retreat. 

God, as always, has the final say.

The renamed Washington Family Ranch, the grounds are beautiful while the current purpose could not be more opposite it’s Rajneesh origins.

The dead end road is rarely used so the pavement is perfect, so I convince our crew to use it for our photo shoot.  Photos done, I push the NT as hard as I can on the sprint away from the camp, leaning on the front brakes until the ABS kicks in regularly and the Metzeler groans under the strain, pushing peg scraping lean angles and rolling heaps of throttle on exit that ask the rear to obey my greedy commands.  Finally, for once, I leave the Suzuki behind. 

No one in their right mind will ever ride the NT like this, but should they decide to, they will find a bike that soaks up everything until it feels like a leisurely pace.  Then you check your speedometer.  I really think Honda needs to fix that thing.

The Wild Wild Country of eastern Oregon brings out the best of the NT’s sport design.  Out here it has room to stretch its legs.

Over coffee in The Dalles, into dinner and party crashing honky-tonks afterwards (windmills were involved, long story) Dave and I discuss the irony of the NT’s deceptive speed.  We agree that no one will ever push the NT to the bleeding edge of it’s sporting side like I did because most people have common sense, or some inkling of self or bike preservation, or are just not comfortable with full lean, full throttle, triple digit sweepers in the middle of open cattle range.  But after Hwy 218 and the many thousands of sport miles I have poured on the NT from here to Canada and everywhere between, I have come to realize that while Honda’s NT1100 is not particularly attractive and may sound like a poorly running lawnmower, it gets faster every time I ride it.  And the more I ride it, the more I like it.

Like everything out here in this Wild, Wild Country, the NT is a motorcycle where opposites coexist.  Serious touring chops reside in a bike that is deceptively fast.  It is as sexy as a washing machine and sounds like a sickly wheedwacker but gets better looking and sounding when you understand its intent.  And it keeps a, shall we say, leisurely pace.  Maybe one day Honda will fix that speedometer.

Rain, touring, mega mileage days and two up aspects of the NT will be addressed in the next article, but for the sport side of this sport tourer I have learned my lesson.  Honda’s NT1100 is a well mannered missile.

Wait, did someone say rain?

Ted