GlennC
New Member
I have no idea whether anybody cares, but here are a few thoughts after putting a few miles on my new NC. Apologies in advance for such a long post.
Comfort
- My gluteus hurteus. All the time. The stock seat has to go.
- Until it does, the bike is far more comfortable for me with two mods which I'd consider critical. I installed a set of 3-1/2" Rox risers and raised the front of the seat. The seat is still bad but no longer awful and rides of an hour or so are fine, though I still feel the seat every minute I’m on the bike. Not great.
- Installing the risers wasn't particularly easy but was doable with all-stock wiring and cables. I'll post separately with specifics to hopefully benefit future members.
- My technique for raising the seat was a carefully-folded and placed old t-shirt under the seat at the right thickness. I think this has some benefits in that all surfaces are protected, the seat makes contact over a wide area, it's easy, and it's obviously completely reversible. Nothing about this particular seat mod is ideal no matter how it's done, since the front of the seat is hanging loose, but this is workable as a temporary, dramatic improvement for comfort.
- Wind protection is almost non-existent. This suits me fine as I've mostly owned un-faired bikes... but... my KLR impresses me by comparison: given its small fairing, it's astonishing how much more wind I feel when I ride something like the NC. A bigger screen and some wind protection for the hands might be in the cards for winter. I did raise the screen to the upper position but didn’t really notice a difference. One win: as on the KLR, I get no buffeting at all and ride in clean air. I hate buffeting.
Engine
- A few things I’ve learned over the years, at least for me, is that big power feels great at first, but I quickly become accustomed to it and then 1) it just feels normal, and 2) it gets me in trouble. What really seems to matter in the long run is 1) how an engine *feels,* i.e. the nature of the vibrations and sounds that it creates; the “textures” it delivers as it’s ridden in different rpm ranges and at different speeds; and 2) the *quality* of its powerband: is it peaky, is it progressive, is it torquey, does it have dips in its power delivery at certain rpms? The NC hits almost all the high points on all counts:
- I could ride all day between two- and three-thousand rpm, and get 85mpg. Doing this feels great despite going slow. Thus the bike doesn’t need to be ridden fast to be enjoyed. Big win.
- It’s perfectly linear and gently progressive as the rpms rise: obviously not peaky; but not flat, either. In the three- to five-thousand rpm range it has an addictively progressive increase in urge and a perfectly-matched, increasingly-insistent quality to its sound and feel. This is what Honda does best, car or bike. It just feels great to *use* the modest power that’s there, which makes the bike more fun with its throttle open than its fifty-or-so hp should allow.
- I wouldn’t say no to an extra 2,000rpm of overhead assuming equally progressive response, but so far I haven’t felt it’s needed. It could well make the bike less fun to ride for me as I might be too tempted to constantly chase the extra performance.
- It’s quiet! To me there is plenty of tactile and aural feedback, and it sounds and feels great. But, almost none of the noise reaches other drivers. One BIG benefit of this is that I can make passes without upsetting other motorists. Passing just in general has a tendency to tick people off. 7,000rpm of aftermarket exhaust right past a driver’s window is extremely annoying and makes motorcyclists look like the negative stereotype already in a lot of peoples’ minds. On the NC you can do a safe, reasonably quick pass in a modest space with no drama for anybody involved. I usually give drivers a goodwill wave after I pass. Result of all of the above is that people are far less likely to take offense, to road rage, to call cops, and so on.
Handling
- The bar position and width is excellent for leverage, and the footpegs are decently located to help create a solid base for control inputs. This makes it far better than “sport” bikes for control in any ordinary street use.
- Steering response is okay. I prefer perfectly “neutral” steering, meaning that at a given lean angle the bike will hold that angle with no further input. Bikes like this feel eager to turn and are a delight in the corners. The NC with its stock tires has a tendency to want to stand up, so you are fighting the bike to a degree when cornering. I hope this can be solved with tire choice.
- Cornering stability is not a strong point. Some bikes can combine quick, light steering with a excellent stability. I’ve had many bikes with this quality, and they’ve generally been my favorite bikes to ride. The NC doesn’t have it. I hope tire choice will help here as well.
- Brakes are excellent. I can't see how anybody would see a need for a second front disc.
- Suspension is lousy. The front especially, which has awful response to sharp bumps and magnifies every little crease in the road into something far more jarring than it should be. Typical for a “budget” bike. This compromises feel in cornering and traction over imperfect surfaces. For cornering, good suspension is an important safety consideration. I do not trust this bike’s front end with the stock setup. Remedies will be required.
- The riding position stock is okay, but ride a dirt-bike, for example, and you’ll find the control relationships much better. Aerodynamics becomes a factor in road riding, and dirt-bikes are necessarily very tall, so some compromises on both points are reasonable, but it can be improved at least somewhat.
- Bottom line the NC is a nice-handling bike, but doesn’t match the effortless, virtually-telepathic feel of some I’ve owned. I hope some of this can be improved.
Appearance
- I think the NC is a sharp looking bike. I could nit-pick here and there, but I like it.
- Lots of problems with modern bikes come from sacrificing other qualities for style. The NC suffers from some of this:
- The seat is inexcusably bad. It should be wider, flatter and less contoured, with a larger surface area and more room to move around. What catches the eye in a showroom does not work well on the road.
- The fenders should have much better coverage in stock form.
- Complex, interlocking plastic pieces are just the way it is with most modern bikes, but I don’t have to like it, and I don’t. I would much prefer simpler disassembly, with fewer panels, attached with normal screws and bolts.
Electrical
- The headlight is above average. At first its chevron-shaped hot-spot on high beam looked oddly random, but I’ve realized that on a straight road, it perfectly follows the verges of the road, illuminating it quite evenly to an impressive distance. Lighting to the sides is okay. Low beam is good, but may be placed too low in relation to the high beam. I could do with a broader high-beam hot-spot. This would better illuminate hazards like deer right off the road, and would also make for a brighter day-time signal light to other drivers not exactly in your travel path, such as left-turners. As is, it’s an understandable and effective design. One note: with such a precisely-controlled beam, *any* change to the size or location of the light source, i.e. LED or other upgrades, is going to destroy the pattern and very possibly make the light less useful.
- I like the running lights in the front turn signals, which I think is very important for safety. I ride a lot at night, and the biggest danger is probably drivers misinterpreting the distance or speed of a motorcycle’s single headlamp. Some drivers have imperfect vision, some are in a hurry, easy to make a deadly mistake. The running lights make it much more obvious it’s a motorcycle and allow its approximate distance to be identified much more quickly and accurately.
- I’d like to get some sort of flasher unit for the brake light. My KLR has an LED version and I think it helps a lot with visibility from the rear.
- Love the various computer functions on the gauge cluster, but wish it would show more data at once. For example, one choice of odometer setting as well as one choice of mpg setting. Better yet, this plus total mileage always visible, as in almost any car or bike from the dawn of time ’till ten years ago.
- The instant-mpg readout only goes up to 99.9. Poor design choice when 85mpg is an attainable *average.* Almost any time I’m going downhill it just reads 99.9, which is not really providing useful information.
- My KLR gets 65-67mpg, which I’d always considered excellent. I never thought I’d have a full-sized bike that would do considerably better. My early impression is that it would be hard for me to get less than 70mpg on a full NC tank and easy to get 75mpg, despite riding the NC at much higher average speeds. Awesome.
Transmission
- Almost perfect gear spacing, possible exception of fairly large gap fifth to sixth. First seems neither too low nor too high. Sixth is nice and tall, perfect for high-efficiency cruising.
- Shift action is heavy. Maybe some break-in will occur. I need to focus more on shifts than on other bikes. I’ve found about a million false neutrals. I’m happy to accept responsibility for this on the basis that I’ve been spoiled by easier transmissions to use, and may have become lazy and undisciplined in my shifting. It’s still good; far better than some.
Conclusion
I’ve really, really enjoyed some of the few rides I’ve had on this bike. Despite the low miles there’s some normal suburban riding in there, a fair amount of twisty back-road riding, and some highway. Every bike I buy is an experiment, and I’m always surprised by which ones I get attached to. The NC has a lot going for it. At this point, I’m in.
Comfort
- My gluteus hurteus. All the time. The stock seat has to go.
- Until it does, the bike is far more comfortable for me with two mods which I'd consider critical. I installed a set of 3-1/2" Rox risers and raised the front of the seat. The seat is still bad but no longer awful and rides of an hour or so are fine, though I still feel the seat every minute I’m on the bike. Not great.
- Installing the risers wasn't particularly easy but was doable with all-stock wiring and cables. I'll post separately with specifics to hopefully benefit future members.
- My technique for raising the seat was a carefully-folded and placed old t-shirt under the seat at the right thickness. I think this has some benefits in that all surfaces are protected, the seat makes contact over a wide area, it's easy, and it's obviously completely reversible. Nothing about this particular seat mod is ideal no matter how it's done, since the front of the seat is hanging loose, but this is workable as a temporary, dramatic improvement for comfort.
- Wind protection is almost non-existent. This suits me fine as I've mostly owned un-faired bikes... but... my KLR impresses me by comparison: given its small fairing, it's astonishing how much more wind I feel when I ride something like the NC. A bigger screen and some wind protection for the hands might be in the cards for winter. I did raise the screen to the upper position but didn’t really notice a difference. One win: as on the KLR, I get no buffeting at all and ride in clean air. I hate buffeting.
Engine
- A few things I’ve learned over the years, at least for me, is that big power feels great at first, but I quickly become accustomed to it and then 1) it just feels normal, and 2) it gets me in trouble. What really seems to matter in the long run is 1) how an engine *feels,* i.e. the nature of the vibrations and sounds that it creates; the “textures” it delivers as it’s ridden in different rpm ranges and at different speeds; and 2) the *quality* of its powerband: is it peaky, is it progressive, is it torquey, does it have dips in its power delivery at certain rpms? The NC hits almost all the high points on all counts:
- I could ride all day between two- and three-thousand rpm, and get 85mpg. Doing this feels great despite going slow. Thus the bike doesn’t need to be ridden fast to be enjoyed. Big win.
- It’s perfectly linear and gently progressive as the rpms rise: obviously not peaky; but not flat, either. In the three- to five-thousand rpm range it has an addictively progressive increase in urge and a perfectly-matched, increasingly-insistent quality to its sound and feel. This is what Honda does best, car or bike. It just feels great to *use* the modest power that’s there, which makes the bike more fun with its throttle open than its fifty-or-so hp should allow.
- I wouldn’t say no to an extra 2,000rpm of overhead assuming equally progressive response, but so far I haven’t felt it’s needed. It could well make the bike less fun to ride for me as I might be too tempted to constantly chase the extra performance.
- It’s quiet! To me there is plenty of tactile and aural feedback, and it sounds and feels great. But, almost none of the noise reaches other drivers. One BIG benefit of this is that I can make passes without upsetting other motorists. Passing just in general has a tendency to tick people off. 7,000rpm of aftermarket exhaust right past a driver’s window is extremely annoying and makes motorcyclists look like the negative stereotype already in a lot of peoples’ minds. On the NC you can do a safe, reasonably quick pass in a modest space with no drama for anybody involved. I usually give drivers a goodwill wave after I pass. Result of all of the above is that people are far less likely to take offense, to road rage, to call cops, and so on.
Handling
- The bar position and width is excellent for leverage, and the footpegs are decently located to help create a solid base for control inputs. This makes it far better than “sport” bikes for control in any ordinary street use.
- Steering response is okay. I prefer perfectly “neutral” steering, meaning that at a given lean angle the bike will hold that angle with no further input. Bikes like this feel eager to turn and are a delight in the corners. The NC with its stock tires has a tendency to want to stand up, so you are fighting the bike to a degree when cornering. I hope this can be solved with tire choice.
- Cornering stability is not a strong point. Some bikes can combine quick, light steering with a excellent stability. I’ve had many bikes with this quality, and they’ve generally been my favorite bikes to ride. The NC doesn’t have it. I hope tire choice will help here as well.
- Brakes are excellent. I can't see how anybody would see a need for a second front disc.
- Suspension is lousy. The front especially, which has awful response to sharp bumps and magnifies every little crease in the road into something far more jarring than it should be. Typical for a “budget” bike. This compromises feel in cornering and traction over imperfect surfaces. For cornering, good suspension is an important safety consideration. I do not trust this bike’s front end with the stock setup. Remedies will be required.
- The riding position stock is okay, but ride a dirt-bike, for example, and you’ll find the control relationships much better. Aerodynamics becomes a factor in road riding, and dirt-bikes are necessarily very tall, so some compromises on both points are reasonable, but it can be improved at least somewhat.
- Bottom line the NC is a nice-handling bike, but doesn’t match the effortless, virtually-telepathic feel of some I’ve owned. I hope some of this can be improved.
Appearance
- I think the NC is a sharp looking bike. I could nit-pick here and there, but I like it.
- Lots of problems with modern bikes come from sacrificing other qualities for style. The NC suffers from some of this:
- The seat is inexcusably bad. It should be wider, flatter and less contoured, with a larger surface area and more room to move around. What catches the eye in a showroom does not work well on the road.
- The fenders should have much better coverage in stock form.
- Complex, interlocking plastic pieces are just the way it is with most modern bikes, but I don’t have to like it, and I don’t. I would much prefer simpler disassembly, with fewer panels, attached with normal screws and bolts.
Electrical
- The headlight is above average. At first its chevron-shaped hot-spot on high beam looked oddly random, but I’ve realized that on a straight road, it perfectly follows the verges of the road, illuminating it quite evenly to an impressive distance. Lighting to the sides is okay. Low beam is good, but may be placed too low in relation to the high beam. I could do with a broader high-beam hot-spot. This would better illuminate hazards like deer right off the road, and would also make for a brighter day-time signal light to other drivers not exactly in your travel path, such as left-turners. As is, it’s an understandable and effective design. One note: with such a precisely-controlled beam, *any* change to the size or location of the light source, i.e. LED or other upgrades, is going to destroy the pattern and very possibly make the light less useful.
- I like the running lights in the front turn signals, which I think is very important for safety. I ride a lot at night, and the biggest danger is probably drivers misinterpreting the distance or speed of a motorcycle’s single headlamp. Some drivers have imperfect vision, some are in a hurry, easy to make a deadly mistake. The running lights make it much more obvious it’s a motorcycle and allow its approximate distance to be identified much more quickly and accurately.
- I’d like to get some sort of flasher unit for the brake light. My KLR has an LED version and I think it helps a lot with visibility from the rear.
- Love the various computer functions on the gauge cluster, but wish it would show more data at once. For example, one choice of odometer setting as well as one choice of mpg setting. Better yet, this plus total mileage always visible, as in almost any car or bike from the dawn of time ’till ten years ago.
- The instant-mpg readout only goes up to 99.9. Poor design choice when 85mpg is an attainable *average.* Almost any time I’m going downhill it just reads 99.9, which is not really providing useful information.
- My KLR gets 65-67mpg, which I’d always considered excellent. I never thought I’d have a full-sized bike that would do considerably better. My early impression is that it would be hard for me to get less than 70mpg on a full NC tank and easy to get 75mpg, despite riding the NC at much higher average speeds. Awesome.
Transmission
- Almost perfect gear spacing, possible exception of fairly large gap fifth to sixth. First seems neither too low nor too high. Sixth is nice and tall, perfect for high-efficiency cruising.
- Shift action is heavy. Maybe some break-in will occur. I need to focus more on shifts than on other bikes. I’ve found about a million false neutrals. I’m happy to accept responsibility for this on the basis that I’ve been spoiled by easier transmissions to use, and may have become lazy and undisciplined in my shifting. It’s still good; far better than some.
Conclusion
I’ve really, really enjoyed some of the few rides I’ve had on this bike. Despite the low miles there’s some normal suburban riding in there, a fair amount of twisty back-road riding, and some highway. Every bike I buy is an experiment, and I’m always surprised by which ones I get attached to. The NC has a lot going for it. At this point, I’m in.
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