Honda CTX1300. A motorcycle made for breaking necks. This is the reason

Saturday, summer afternoon. Old Town of Fashion. Men are already wearing short T-shirts to show off their winter bicep gains. Women are already wearing short shorts, showing their winter suffering by squatting down and eating cat food sprinkled with black cumin. They are all very good, they are worth keeping your eyes on. And suddenly he appears, a Honda CTX1300, in pearl white, and everyone, regardless of gender, faith, opinion and preference, unconditionally and uncontrollably turns to him.

Honda has always been like that birthday uncle who wishes everyone a happy birthday, doesn’t argue, doesn’t hold political views, doesn’t swear, and is always a safe bet when it comes to wedding guests. You wanted a good, proper bike that didn’t break down – you bought a Honda. These bikes were further designed using a digital ruler with a tolerance of one nanometer and all levels of sustainability. But at some point in history, designers gained courage and were allowed to put their future Cyberpunk vision on the board. For the journalists it was good, because they could get the sound, which is my own fault, but for the customers it was not so good, because they bought the Goldwing anyway, as they had been doing since 1972. The CTX was the representative of the creation of the motorcycle called “bagger” , which in short meant a large touring motorcycle without protection from the wind, and all the concerns they wanted to provide. Not that anyone cared about the lack of glass on the bike that it should have, and if customers wanted them, but the style. They just looked cool, and you might be a farm insurance consultant, but when you went out on the town, you were the king of swagger.

I have never ridden a motorcycle before or since that was so interesting. People took pictures with it the same way they would take pictures with the Yeti and – unfortunately – the CTX1300 is only visible most of the time. Honda had to convince its established customers to spend 65,000. zlotys (which in today’s post-inflationary money means half a million) for a motorcycle so futuristic that it can travel through time. Interestingly, technically the CTX was perfect. First, it had everything Honda was packing on the Goldwing at the time, including a radio and speakers. Second, it had the best C-ABS braking system, which, after stepping on the rear plane, braked everyone and distributed the braking force at all times to make it as efficient as possible. Third – the engine. Here I have to stop for a while, because the unit was transplanted from Pan European, that is, devices whose owners show photos to others in the album, not on the phone. Personally, I don’t like V4 engines very much, because it is like a woman with a set of four breasts – why, if two are perfectly satisfactory? In fact, I have already used this metaphor in a test CTXbut it remains valid. That said, the PE engine, which has been stripped of the horses significantly here, is amazing and probably no V-quad unit runs better. Interestingly enough, despite the reduction in power, I can’t say that the CTX is sluggish, especially since you can drive it in two ways. One is obvious – we go around the city, look in the mirrors and count how many people have cut their necks and will have to go to a physiotherapist. The second thing, the same thing is that we reduce to three, or even two if we are feeling particularly fun and drive as if someone threw a rat in our boxers.

Finally, I would like to write that this story has a happy ending and everyone lived happily ever after, but Honda’s life was different, expected. At the time of writing this column, there are two CTX 1300 units on classifieds sites, both for over 30,000. In other words, the Honda CTX1300 has lost more than half its value since 2014. But let’s look at it another way – you can have a technically perfect motorcycle with a bullet proof engine and it looks insane for half the price.