[QUOTE=bsquared;371336]Heh. It is pretty unusual to see a tach, at all, on a lawnmower.[/QUOTE]

Ain't that the truth!

We have a commercial [URL="http://powerequipment.honda.com/lawn-mowers/models/hrc216hxa"]Honda lawnmower[/URL] that is a fantastic piece of engineering.

We have the service manual for it and do all of our own maintenance. One bit we do yearly is clean the carburetor, replace the air filter and spark plug, change the engine oil, adjust the valve clearances, sharpen the blades and regulate the operating speed.

Fortunately, we own an hourmeter that can sense the spark inductively, so setting the operating speed (and idle) is a simple matter of wrapping the hourmeter wire around the spark plug lead. The attached picture shows a similar hourmeter on our two-stroke dirt bike. When not running, the hourmeter shows the total hours run, and when the engine is running it shows the RPM. When the engine is shut off it briefly shows the highest RPM recorded for that session. A lot of commercial equipment has maintenance schedules based on hourly usage.

:blahblah:

I have great faith in Honda technology. I am very fond of a certain 4 cylinder 2000 Accord, which I hope to keep running far beyond its current ~105 K miles.

I have no doubt that Honda makes excellent mowers. My niggling quibble is that mowers are powered by industrial-style engines, which tend to run at an optimal speed. Racing engines are totally different beasties. This is the root of my "funny car" remark.

Then too, the engine in our Accord is turning about 3K rpm in high, at 80 mph. It tops out somewhere over 5K. It only comes close to such revs under heavy load, accelerating or hill-climbing at Interstate speeds. I generally try not to demand such loads from it.

Three of our current five motorcycles are Hondas and eight of the 13 motorcycles we have owned are/were Hondas.

We have found that Hondas are incredibly reliable and engineered very well. The flat-six engine in our Goldwing is a piece of modern art and possibly the smoothest engine we have ever experienced.

But lately, we feel that Honda, in general, lacks inspiration. Maybe that is the wrong word. We are not very skilled at describing our feelings.

We had an option to buy a Honda dirt bike in February but we instead purchased a KTM. They (KTM) are very aggressive in powersports right now and are one of the few manufacturers willing to make two-stroke engines, which are considerably simpler to work on and understand than four-stroke engines. (They are much cheaper to repair and maintain, too!)

Two-stroke engines are both conceptually and in actual practice very fascinating in how they work. There are so many physical laws that are applied to achieve forward motion. Even the exhaust is tuned to send a wave back towards the combustion chamber to supercharge the cylinder with fuel between each ignition.)

The power delivery and "experience" of a two-stroke, although probably slower on a racetrack than a four-stroke, is incredible fun. More than that, perhaps. The experience is more than a machine doing a task. It is like being a child again with a very cool magical toy.

So we are not sure what our outlook on Honda is at this point. Perhaps we have ridden enough motorcycles to want something different. We have a similar dilemma with wristwatches. (To our knowledge, Honda does not make those.)

Certainly, if someone asks us for a recommendation, we will always default to suggesting a Honda. It is near impossible to go wrong with the brand.

Our favorite road bike, right now, has a pedestrian single-cylinder 250cc engine and it cost a fraction of our first bike. We wish in hindsight that we had bought this bike in the beginning, but lessons were learned, in some cases via the old-fashioned painful way.

Most likely any competent motorcyclist would have recommended the 250 for us, but at that time we were not thinking about things in a rational manner. You can be certain that we recommend this bike to our friends now, because it does everything you need it to do, cheerfully and cheaply. Honda has hit a homerun with that bike. It reminds us of the first bikes that Honda imported that were sold to ordinary people to have fun. Honda waited for years to take on the big bikes.

FWIW, that 250 spends the vast majority of its life at 7K RPM or higher, and it does so without any sign of that being a problem. It truly feels like it wants to go have fun. (The Goldwing turns 3K RPM at 60MPH, which is surprising given it has six cylinders and stump-pulling power, but like we mentioned before, it is smooth. Almost like a turbine!)

Maybe our issue is the lack of fun road motorcycles that are lower-displacement models. In other countries they have graduated licensing programs where a low-displacement motorcycle is required. But here in America you can (and we did) walk into a dealer and ride out on the fastest thing available.

We are rambling again!

:blahblah:

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;371346]Our favorite road bike, right now, has a pedestrian single-cylinder 250cc engine and it cost a fraction of our first bike. We wish in hindsight that we had bought this bike in the beginning, but lessons were learned, in some cases via the old-fashioned painful way.

Most likely any competent motorcyclist would have recommended the 250 for us, but at that time we were not thinking about things in a rational manner. You can be certain that we recommend this bike to our friends now, because it does everything you need it to do, cheerfully and cheaply. Honda has hit a homerun with that bike. It reminds us of the first bikes that Honda imported that were sold to ordinary people to have fun. Honda waited for years to take on the big bikes.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=xilman;266515]Personally, I think it would be an excellent idea to pay for some lessons given by professionals and, preferably, on a rather smaller, less powerful and more controllable machine.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=xilman;268487]Over here you are not allowed to ride a bike with an engine over 125cc, except in certain constrained circumstances, until you pass a full driving test. The test is quite rigorous and professional instruction is, I believe, obligatory.[/QUOTE]

Nuff said ...

:tu:
That should be applied to Thailand too... Unfortunately, people here are still killed daily due to their own stupidity and show off.

On the subject of Honda engineering: this is getting to be an oldie... but still a goodie:

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo[/url]

[url]http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/hondacog.asp[/url]

[QUOTE]Nuff said ...[/QUOTE]:busted:

[QUOTE=bsquared;371359]On the subject of Honda engineering: this is getting to be an oldie... but still a goodie:[/QUOTE]

Very cool! :smile:

With regards to Honda, I've never owned one of their cars nor bikes. But I can *very* highly recommend their portable generators.

We had four of their EU1000i units at the first company I was with here in Barbados (back when power outages were an almost weekly occurrence). I once had to carry one of these up 12 flights of stairs (fully fueled, in the dark) to power one of our wireless relay sites during an "unscheduled" power outage.

Remarkably light, powerful and reliable. They never let us down (unlike BL&P). I plan to buy a EU2000i shortly for domestic and business contingency (read: hurricane preparedness) purposes.

Suuuuuuu zuuuuuuuu kiiiiiiiiiiiii
 

[YOUTUBE]yttbFbMPQeM[/YOUTUBE]

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJSstGwB8s"]1995 Intel Pentium Commercial
[/URL]
Heh...