Thanks for the post - it’s good to look back and realise that I’ve lived most of my personal dreams by virtue of the bike of my fantasies, a machine that's played a major part in making those dreams a reality. What a bike the Blackbird was, and is - and what a bike it continues to be.
It was strange how the thrill of discovery returned when I viewed this fuzzy, wrinkled old advert. The visual presentation brought back many memories; including the all-encompassing sense of absorption I experienced when I first saw a Honda Blackbird - defined first by a picture in a bike magazine and then presented “in the flesh” at the Motorcycle City showroom in Manchester. For me, it was love at first sight. The fascination with this machine is still with me and it will never leave me: of this I am sure.
I’m old enough and experienced enough to know that there are currently available modern bikes that are “better” in some ways than the old Honda: but I’m biker enough not to care. There are enough spares and modifications out there now to enable anyone to make a “modern” bike out of a Blackbird - but there’s no way you can make a Blackbird out of a modern bike. To me, the CBR1100XX is a once-in-a-generation experiment that is still relevant today in terms of comfort, performance and reliability - more than twenty years after its introduction into mainstream motorcycling - and guess what?
Yeah. That’s right.
I’ve got one!
HAVE YOU???!