I hired one to sus them out as a thought to maybe buying one!
We did the most of the Mae Hong Son Loop on a Honda CB500X.
The route was much “Phil”OZified with GT Dave (my apologies for calling you Phil – BTW) over liquid refreshments and it was recommended to do it clockwise since we had only 4 days and important to cover as much ground as possible on day 1. I thought, more theoretically, it would be more off-camber and since I didn’t own the bike I wasn’t fussed about scrubbing tyres and wanted to see how much they chewed up.
Honda have 3 variants – an “F” which doesn’t mean faring (it’s naked as), an “R” that doesn’t mean road (the sports version – and maybe “R” means race and the “X” version. Thinking “X” might mean dual purpose I was looking forward to a 19” front wheel, but NO, it is just a slightly more sit up version than the lie down types.
Leaving CM at 11.30 a squirt south down to just before Chomthong on the dual carriageway allowed the opportunity to roll the bike across lanes to get some feel for change of direction in a safe environment and notice that 1[sup]st[/sup] was good till 54 and 2[sup]nd[/sup] to 94 k’s. Gave the bike a feed of 91 gasohol (wished the filler cap was hinged but instead wondered where to stick it once unlocking it) and turned right onto the 1009.
At Doi Inthanon vision was down to 20 metres at places and with only 15.9 degrees on the thermometer going uphills was OK but downhills the bike behaved like a pig. The rolling off and back on the throttle was very lurchy (is there such a word, and if not, how about lungy?). The soft front end would have won silver at any Olympics for its behaviour when getting off the gas and gently rolling back on it felt like a gun going off and Carl Lewis getting off the blocks – maybe tolerable for rider as I’m expecting it but “no good” for any pillion. Add the fact that the back brake was less than ideal (maybe previous riders had glazed the pad/disc combo up in the 7000k’s the bike had travelled before I sat my fat **** on it – and maybe not, I doubt I’ll ever find that one out) meant relying too much on a front going downhill on a wet mudded up cold road. Faaaaaark, a GS safari on tar!!!!!
Talking about suspension, it is not a small bike at all and sat the 2 of us with luggage tied on behind comfortably. I’m 87kg and with approx 10kg in a bag, I also carted my default preload – Thip weighs in at 47kg with a high centre of gravity J and she likes to cart the hair dryer everywhere she goes so allow a total of 160kg for the 2 of us. The rear was naturally doeee as a result. On 3 occasions during the trip (and all on lefthanders) I also felt the bike drop away rapidly. Whether it wanted to get into the ideal racing line or was on the verge of a low side (I’m not sure) but each time I stood the bike back up easily and shook the smell out of the pants. Thip said the pillion seat was more comfortable than the Versys and heaps better than the ER6.
Buffeting wise, I’m used to big sooky screens so I was somewhat surprised that the small screen offered chest and neck protection, and I’m 5’11”.
Instrument panel wise, the clock is also on and the tacho is in bars in increments of 200rpm – I prefer a dial for accuracy. There is a mode switch that allows you to switch from total k’s, to trip “A” k’s, then trip “B” k’s – all good, then instant fuel (a great idea but with a minimum 7 second time delay is about as useless as an ashtray), then average fuel usage trip “A”, then fuel used trip “A” – and I wished the last 2 were independent and not linked to trip “A”.
After a stopover at Mae Chaem, the 2[sup]nd[/sup] day was then west to Khun Yuam and north to Mae Hong Son. In the section 20-40k south of MHS the tightness of the bends you cannot see the exit of until after the apex, the undulations mid corner, the potholes, oncoming traffic on wrong side of road meant we couldn’t shake a Click from our tail so it just goes to show that power does not necessarily prevail.
We stayed 2 nights in MHS allowing us a day to explore the area. We took in the Long Neck Karens’ just past Nai Soi. On the dirt, trying to ride at anything less than 18kph was piggish unless you were walking the bike along without throttle – which does 8kph in 1[sup]st[/sup] and 13kph in 2[sup]nd[/sup]. We decided against taking the big pig up some snotty rutted out dirt track into their refugee camp but would have taken the Wave I have back at Sak Lek. We then rode up to Rak Thai and quenched our thirst with some Oolong #17 tea before heading back to MHS for our 3[sup]rd[/sup] night away.
On the way back to CM on day 4, we had a look at the Pong Duead Geyser in the Huai Nam Dang National Park.
Whilst it seems like I’ve just written a critique about the bike – On the positive side it has a reasonable headlight (but wished the high beam switch kept the low beam on as well), the clutch was easy to use, the front brake had a good feel, the oggy knobs were big enough to rest your knees against with very little vibration and we could both walk after a long day in the saddle. We recorded over 26kms/litre so it is a bike I would ride the gently undulating and sweeping areas of Issan or as an inter province express between Phitsanulok and CM or BKK. Get in into mountains or the tight stuff and it behaves like a big bike does – and nowhere near as nimble as the Wave. I therefore kept my 200k+ Baht in my pocket and instead bought some aftermarket YSS shocks for the Wave.
