A Short Ride in France on my New NT1100A
Gallery
Ride
Tuesday 10th June I left Poole on the Barfleur ferry for Cherbourg. A ferry trip of some 4 and 3/4 hours with the ferry departing Poole at 08:30 English time and arriving at Cherbourg 14:15 French time. The plan was to head for the South East of France to tour around the Alpine region east of Valence and Gap. After that the intention was to loop back via Carcassonne and do an East to West crossing of the Pyrennees before heading north and returning home by way of Bordeaux. I pre-booked my first 3 accommodations for Flers, Bourges and Lyon. I intended to book the rest of my accommodation as I went along to have some flexibility in my route.
Unfortunately things didn't go to plan. The short ride from Cherbourg to Flers was straightforward. However, next day, it was very hot on the Flers to Bourges ride and with the farmers out harvesting their crops, my hay fever came on strong causing me to squint and continually blink. The forecast for the following days was for it to get even hotter as I progressed south. Lyon was forecast to be at 34 Centigrade for several days. So it was with a heavy heart that I cancelled my Lyon accommodation, rearranged my return ferry trip for Friday 13th June and headed back to Cherbourg via an overnight stop at Laval. So my little trip only lasted only 4 days and I only got as far south as Bourges. Shame but I’ll try again when it’s hopefully a bit cooler in September. Strange weather we’re getting these days.
Although my trip was curtailed, I did enjoy my ride particularly the home stretch where I crossed the Loire river just east of Saumur. I particularly enjoyed the ride from Laval to St Lo which involved riding on minor twisty roads. The Garmin was told to avoid toll roads and I gave it waypoints to force it to take the more interesting D roads. What my short trip allowed me to do was to get more familiar with my new Honda NT1100A. It was the first longish trip I had done it. The preparation for the trip involved fitting the bike with:
- A SW-Motech rack for my Givi top-box. A good piece of kit that was easy to fit.
- An Evotech Performance radiator guard. An expensive but nice piece of kit and so easy to fit.
- A SW-Motech tank ring and PRO Micro Tank Bag. Good kit but it was slightly annoying that I had to buy a new tank bag owing to SW-Motech changing their ring locking mechanism from EVO to PRO (with the former discontinued).
- A mount for my Garmin Zumo 390LM GPS. This was problematic owing to the need to run a cable from the mount to somewhere on the bike where there was power for the GPS. First, the NT1100A must have one of the most difficult fairing panels any bike has to take off. Second, this is when I discovered that the bike is fitted with a tiny Lithium-Ion battery (instead of a conventional Lead-Acid) hidden behind an excuse of a tool box on the LHS of the bike. I ended up threading the cable through without taking off the fairing panel and making up a fused lead to the battery. Modern bikes for you I guess?
- A cheap (£8) spoiler bought off AliExpress which attaches to the standard screen. The standard screen is just terrible. The wind buffeting in anything over screen position 2 is painful. The spoiler is a temporary fix which worked well at 130 kph on French motorways. However, there are a number of aftermarket solutions available and once there’s feedback from others about how well they go for their bikes I’ll get the one that works best. I’m favouring Puig’s offering at the moment.
- Comfort rider and passenger seats. Why don’t bikes come with comfortable seats these days?
The ride gave me the chance to bond with the NT1100A. I find it takes me a bit of time to get used to a new bike. I find that I have to be a bit more delicate with the NT1100A’s throttle and then there are the ride modes, switch layout and extensive TFT menu system to become familiar with. I could get picky about the switch layout but it’s just a case of me getting used to it. Initially, I kept pressing the horn instead of the indicators switch which got me some looks! The menu system is extensive but I’m gradually getting through it. The NT1100A is definitely a mile muncher. It’s comfortable and the engine feels so under stressed. I also found that the bike, with its torquey engine, was very willing and fun on the twisty roads that I came across between Laval and St Lo. Handling was fine (like the Tracer, I’ll probably never adjust the suspension as the factory setting seems adequate for my riding skills.) It was fine in an urban setting once I started being more delicate on the throttle and got used to the gearing. It’s a manual and I like the gearbox. No missed gears or false neutrals. In terms of rider mode, I stayed in Tour mode. Rumour has it that the throttle is less snatchy in other modes, e.g. Rain mode. I rode around 650 miles in France with the bike returning 62 mpg which I thought was pretty good.
The NT1100A seems bigger that the Yamaha Tracer 900 GT I had previously but it never feels a heavy bike like my old Varadero did. Being a big twin, the exhaust note is more of a chugging sound than the turbine whine of the Tracer I’ve been used to. I’ve got used to the exhaust note and quite like it now. It’s got a bit of a bark to it when it’s wound up. The panniers are a nice size and it was a surprise to find that they came with inner bags. One slight moan, is that he RHS pannier is a bit of a pain because it’s shaped to fit over the exhaust and therefore doesn’t stand up on the floor and is a fair bit smaller than the LHS pannier. The tiny Lithium-Ion battery worries me as it seems to struggle to turn the engine over from cold but to be fair it has always started first time. It’s probably just me just getting used to how the Lithium-Ion battery turns over a big twin. The placement of the Lithium-Ion battery behind a token toolbox seems like a bit of an afterthought.
To sum up, I think that the NT1100A a good bike that suffers from having a terrible screen and, for me, the complexity of what I have come to expect of modern day bikes (old fart that I am). The screen is fixable, although shame on Honda for coming up with a screen that is as bad as it is (in my opinion). The bike just takes a bit of getting used to. One thing that really annoys me is that Honda doesn’t want you doing anything to the bike yourself to the extent that the user manual doesn't cover adjusting the drive chain. I just hope the Honda dealers are up to the task.