My dad's Honda CB350 Highness: trips to Puducherry and Karikal

Overall, the bike did managed to make my dad passionate about touring on two wheels.

BHPian R15M_Rider recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

First Service & Twin trips on the ECR to Puducherry and Karikal

Sharing an update after discussing about his views and experience so far. Do bear in mind that I am updating from a third person perspective after receiving inputs. Therefore, updates on this thread might be short, but I will try to make it as effective as possible. Regarding more details about the trip, I will share an update on my YZF R15M thread from a first person perspective.

First service cost came 2.5k. It involved the basic things, mainly the important engine oil change, air filter etc. They also included polishing, which my dad felt was unnecessary. If he had known, he wouldn't have gone for it. Not much to see apart from that.

Coming to the experience of riding the Highness on two trips (a total of 836 km (round trip to Pondy + round trip to Karikal), with just a three week gap, here are the highlights:

1. The Suspension Setup. At the age of 57, the major thing that this must achieve is comfort.Long hours on the saddle must be as comfortable as possible on all sorts of roads our country has to offer. I am happy to report, the Highness has passed this test with flying colors. Beautifully tuned suspension. Front shocks are from Showa I believe (please correct me if I am wrong). Not sure of the back ones. But really, this point was really important for the Highness to score. There were some horrendous stretches of under-construction roads in between Chidambaram and Karikal so I am sure this suspension got tested properly. The seat cushioning also nicely compliments this.

2. The Brakes. There were a couple of sudden brake situations on the Karikal trip this weekend, with cattle/stray dogs running onto the road suddenly. Once again full marks. No situation in which my dad lost control of the bike. Brake calipers are of Nissin.

3. Zero Vibrations. Well, hardly surprising for a Honda I guess, but still an important one to note for long trips.

4. Adequate torque at higher gears but hardly any torque at lower gears. This made it a formidable touring machine. On the open highways, the bike is happiest at around 80-90 kph in 5h gear. Rhythmic thumping exhaust note and overtakes are a bliss thanks to the tall gearing nature without the need to change down. But at lower gears, the bike certainly lacks torque. Basically opposite nature of my R15. It hardly accelerates. The only drawback found so far as per my dad.

On the Chidambaram Cuddalore NH32

For riding gears, for the Karikal trip, he wore a Rynox Air GT 4 jacket and Korda Aero Riding gloves.

Overall, the bike did managed to make my dad passionate about touring on two wheels. Infact, he says, somehow, this biking trip has hardly tired him and he has felt more tired while going on long trips with the car! I guess the motorcycling bug has certainly bit him! He is already planning a trip to Yercaud next month. He feels, this motorcycle should gain more in popularity. I will keep this thread updated as always.

Coming to the rusting issues, which are reported by some of our fellow members in Team BHP and some outside on social media as well. From my end at least, so far, not able to see anything that would be a cause for concern. We typically keep our bikes under roof in parking available. If under-roof parking in our apartment is not available, we use a bike cover. But I guess, we still are very early into the ownership with the bike, yet to be a month old from purchase. Currently the Highness sits at just over 1200 km under a month of ownership thanks to the long rides.

Many more adventures to come!

On a slightly related note, one of my comments I made on the CB350 in a ThisConnect episode on Motorinc got noticed! I took some of the content from this thread to the comment to convey to Shumi and Kartikeya about our experience compared to their views.

Do check it out from time-stamp 33.25 in episode 20 of ThisConnect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIUruTZ26V8&t=2349s

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