Photo: CBO
I hope that you agree with me when I say that the world would be a much nicer place to live if Honda would simply add a scrambler to its line-up. I’m not exactly a fan of these bikes, but they certainly look very cool when designed properly. We already have some neat designs from established manufacturers, and a bevy of mind-blowing custom builds of which some look like a million bucks. Still it looks like the scrambler enthusiasts are waiting for more big manes in the industry to jump in the bandwagon.
Now, even though my pulse accelerated a bit when I saw this very neat machine, it felt a bit disappointing to learn that it is only a custom build created by a Honda dealer (Challenge Big One) in the city of Boe, southern France.
At 260 kg (574 lb wet) the Honda CB1100X is definitely not the ideal choice for fighting muddy trails, creeks and all the other obstacles a trip on the wild side puts in a rider’s way. The fairly low ground clearance and the bare collectors would do little to help a rider fight rocks and boulders, if you see my point…
However, if you’re only planning to ride such a scrambler on firm surfaces, it will do just great. And you will also get a massive head-turning factor some riders seem to value quite a lot these days. Personally I am not sure the pattern on the tank is the best choice for such a bike, as the first close-up glimpse almost tricked me into believing I am seeing the Louis-Vuitton stars. Which (again hoping you’ll agree with me) would suck big time on a scrambler. All in all, the house of Tokyo could definitely use some input from some of its French distributors when scrambler time comes…
Honda CB1100 is rather far from the off-road agility ideal
Now, this trick scrambler is based on the Honda CB1100 retro roadster, which is a tad too big and especially too heavy for off-road use. Of course, as motorbiker also adds, only few scramblers will see muck-ridden gullies, while most of them will be used as café-racers or fun rides through the countryside, hard-packed roads being the worst-case scenario.At 260 kg (574 lb wet) the Honda CB1100X is definitely not the ideal choice for fighting muddy trails, creeks and all the other obstacles a trip on the wild side puts in a rider’s way. The fairly low ground clearance and the bare collectors would do little to help a rider fight rocks and boulders, if you see my point…
However, if you’re only planning to ride such a scrambler on firm surfaces, it will do just great. And you will also get a massive head-turning factor some riders seem to value quite a lot these days. Personally I am not sure the pattern on the tank is the best choice for such a bike, as the first close-up glimpse almost tricked me into believing I am seeing the Louis-Vuitton stars. Which (again hoping you’ll agree with me) would suck big time on a scrambler. All in all, the house of Tokyo could definitely use some input from some of its French distributors when scrambler time comes…
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