Comments on: Honda CX500 cafe racer

By: Noel Woodroffe

Noel Woodroffe — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:34:12 +0000

In the UK when they first appeared the CX was known as the ‘plastic maggot’, and for many years was the favourite tool for city despatch riders who are known for their suicidal tendencies

By: Pipeburn

Pipeburn — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:48:46 +0000

you can also see more pics of this bike and others on his flickr page

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pampadori/sets/72157602624283287/

By: Oricos

Oricos — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:04:09 +0000

I had one of the 78 CX, too, A real good bike and it was not the stators that were bad, the connection from the alternator to the rectifier was not good, melted and short-circuited the gen.

I had two SilverWings and they were a lot handier than the GoldWing, of which I had every model from the 1000 to the 1800.

The conversion seen here is very nice and does a big favour to the aesthetically ugly first series CX. In Germany they were made famous by a comic of a biker “family” called “Werner”, and given the nickname “Güllepumpe” which is a pump that is used by farmers to spread the liquid pigshit on their fields. In one of these comics, a farmer ends up with a broken pump and stops a biker on a CX 500 and uses his engine as such. The famous “Güllepumpe” was born.

This link is of course in German, but you’ll get the gist of it just watching it.

Enjoy.

By: Chris Hunter

Chris Hunter — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:01:57 +0000

Big thanks to reader Christian Seger, who has located a detailed discussion about this bike and its build here.

By: trentreker

trentreker — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:52:58 +0000

oh man! i was just telling a friend about my first bike, a ‘78 cx500. it was a bit different than this bad boy, as it had a windjammer fairing with a stereo, cruise control, crash bars with highway pegs and fog lights on them. i know, not cool, but i was 18 and spent that first summer working in yellowstone park where i rode the living hell out of that thing, screaming with the stereo at 80 mph (back when the limits were 55) down to jackson hole and up to bozeman.

a lot of folks thought it was a silverwing, as raketemensch detailed.

never had trouble with it at all but to replace the brakes and give it a tune-up. it was configured to ride long and far and it was perfect. i rode it for a couple of years and 15,000 miles until i moved to hollywood to be a rock star and wrecked it flying through a red light.

but what a cool scar i got!

because of that bike, i’ve ridden nothing but honda ever since.

By: Mike 'Stu' Stuhler

Mike 'Stu' Stuhler — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:42:51 +0000

Actually, Honda made these into a turbo–the 82 model was the standard
500 and then they punched it out to 650 for 83,
Jerry Griiffiths–Doug Chandler’s father in law–took the reins of Team Honda’s flat track team in the late 70s/early 80s and this was the motor they started with. Yeah, I know, bad idea…..
He turned the motor and sleeved the barrels to get the 750cc cap you need
for the class c stuff, and they called it an NS750. It was a turd, but it was a
fantastic start.
By the way, an ole bud had one of the 82 500 Turbos. It was a pretty darn
good bike, and handled extremely well for what they were.
Great stuff on your site! I try to follow you guys regularly. Thanks for the trip(s) down mammory…er make that memory lane!

By: Jefferson

Jefferson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:04:38 +0000

Second what Rake said. The CX fits together beautifully. So beautifully, in fact, that you need to start removing parts to get to other parts, which need to be taken apart in order to fix the problem part. In other words, it’s a good way to spend an hour cursing the Japanese.

That said, I like the design and the cafe’ treatments that I’ve seen.

By: Phil

Phil — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:59:24 +0000

ok – enough of the old honda’s with bandage on the exhaust, please. They were crap when new and they aren’t much better now.
There’s a limit ….and the CX has just gone over it

By: William Alexander

William Alexander — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:18:34 +0000

http://slingshot-cycles.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=1

By: William Alexander

William Alexander — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:29:17 +0000

I’m pretty sure that’s one of Shaun Stewart’s creations from http://www.slingshot-cycles.com/