{"id":30061,"date":"2025-11-01T00:01:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=30061"},"modified":"2025-11-01T09:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T16:27:19","slug":"quantos-pistones-the-sixes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/11\/01\/quantos-pistones-the-sixes\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00bfQuantos Pistones? (The Sixes)"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

As the Sixes go, there have been a few:\u00a0 The Honda CBX, the Kawasaki KZ1300, the Honda Gold Wing, the Honda Valkyrie, the Benelli Sei, and the BMW\u00a0 K1600.\u00a0 \u00a0This doesn’t include any custom engined bikes, and there have been a few.\u00a0 \u00a0This blog is long enough already, so I’m leaving out things like bikes with three Triumph 650 Twin engines.\u00a0 All the bikes included here were factory offerings.<\/p>\n

Honda CBX<\/strong><\/p>\n

The year was 1979, and I was riding a Triumph 750 Bonneville I bought new in Fort Worth, Texas.\u00a0 We had a Honda dealer in town that had a demo CBX, and I went over there as soon as I knew the dealer had the CBX in stock.<\/p>\n

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A 1971 Honda CBX, like the one I ruptured.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In those days, dealers of all kinds of bikes allowed unsupervised test rides.\u00a0 Very few dealers, if any, do that today, and for good reason.\u00a0 There are guys out there that will ride the snot out of them.\u00a0 I was one of them back in 1979. I picked up the CBX (a beautiful silver one that was essentially a naked bike; this was before Honda put the big fairing and bags on the CBX in 1981), and I headed out to Loop 820.\u00a0 Loop 820 (as the name implied) looped around Fort Worth.\u00a0 I lived on the west side of town out near the General Dynamics plant where I was an engineer on the F-16.<\/p>\n

Loop 820 in those days way out on the west side of Fort Worth was a traffic-devoid area, and that made it a favored spot for top speed testing.\u00a0 My ’78 Bonneville would top out at an indicated 109 mph on Loop 820 (I think I’m past the statute of limitations on that moving violation, which is why I’m sharing this with you).\u00a0 Naturally, it was where I took the CBX.\u00a0 The bike had something like 6 miles on the odometer, but I didn’t care.\u00a0 \u00a0The magic number?\u00a0 131 mph.\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 I was a speed demon back in the day.<\/p>\n

When I brought the bike back to the dealer, I put it on the sidestand with the engine still running.\u00a0 It squirted oil arterially out the left side of the forward cam cover.\u00a0 It squirted in spurts, like it had a heart pumping it out.\u00a0 “How’d you like it?” the enthusiastic sales guy asked, and then he saw the oil orgasming out the top end.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t,” I said. “I mean, look at it.\u00a0 It leaks worse than my Triumph…”<\/p>\n

So I didn’t buy that CBX, but I never abandoned the idea of owning one.<\/p>\n

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My 1982 Honda CBX. Bone stock. Impressive. Fun to ride.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Maybe 20 years later I stopped at Bert’s, a huge local Honda\/Suzuki\/Yamaha\/Kawasaki (and maybe a few other makes I can’t remember) dealer.\u00a0 He had a 1982 CBX on the floor.\u00a0 It was a used bike with\u00a0 just 4500 miles on the odometer, and he wanted $4,000 for it.\u00a0 It was beautiful.\u00a0 Completely stock, it was pearlescent white with turquoise and black accents.\u00a0 I stopped twice but couldn’t quite bring myself to pull the trigger.\u00a0 Then I stopped in a third time and it was gone.\u00a0 \u00a0 Rats.\u00a0 \u00a0Missed it.\u00a0 He who hesitates is lost, and I had hesitated.<\/p>\n

I asked about the bike and was told some rich guy from Japan had bought, and Bert’s was putting new seals in the forks, installing a new air filter, cleaning the carbs, and doing a general servicing on it.\u00a0 Lucky guy, I thought.<\/p>\n

Then I stopped in a fourth time and the bike was back on the floor.\u00a0 The sales guy on duty in Bert’s used bike department was a nice old guy who told me he won the Daytona 200 in 1956. Did he really?\u00a0 Hell, I don’t know.\u00a0 We didn’t have the Internet yet.\u00a0 But none of that mattered.\u00a0 The ’82 CBX was back on the floor and it was now $4500.\u00a0 I could get my checkbook out fast enough.<\/p>\n

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Six pipes, six cylinders, six carbs, 24 valves, double overhead cams.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had a lot of fun with the CBX, riding all over California, Nevada, and Arizona with it.\u00a0 I put 20,000 miles on the bike.\u00a0 I even road to the Laughlin River Run one year, where it drew more stares than any of the cookie-cutter wannabe rebel yuppie EVO-engined Harleys.<\/p>\n

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On the road near Bagdad. Bagdad, Arizona, that is.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s my buddy Louis and his Gold Wing.\u00a0 Louis went into witness protection and has since taken to wearing a shirt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I loved the bike, but I decided it was time to sell it a few years later.\u00a0 A friend offered me $4500, which is what I had paid for it and about what they were going for in those days, and I sold it.\u00a0 I wish I still had it.<\/p>\n