Honda STX1300 (ST1300) Pan European Owner's Review

You are the proud owner of the ultra-sophisticated sports tourer Honda STX1300 (ST1300) Pan European. The following is a journal of your thoughts as you ride your STX for work, play and touring.

“Damn. Looks like I am going to be late again for this morning’s 9.00 am meeting with the department managers.” “Jessie, tell them we’ll start at 9.30 am”, you called your personal assistant.

Next, standing in front of the mirror, you select your dressing for the day: tie, cuff links, belt, leather shoes and chrono. “Hmm…Ok, today I’ll ride to work. The car stays behind.” You picked your helmet and the STX’s HISS ignition key and you are off to work.

Commuting to Work

The handsome, magnificent and futuristic sight of your STX greets you. From a distance, the STX looks ready to morph into a Transformer.

Unlike most other bikes, the STX’s side boxes are designed together with the bike, flushed and beautifully blended in. It’s triangular shape gives a larger space than Givi side boxes and can take in a full-faced helmet and riding jacket. It can also fit in most laptops.

Press the Start button, and the bullet-proof STX engine gets fired up once again. There is this electric-motor like whirring sound from the engine compartment. But this is not the STX’s V4 1,300cc engine sound. The sophisticated STX’s engine is too quiet at idling and you can’t hear it.

The STX is comfortable to ride, eager to steer, sporty and stops well.

It takes less effort than you expect to upright the 300kg STX. Even though the STX has a huge 29 litre fuel tank (to give it a near-500km range), thanks to Honda’s mass centralization principle in their bike design, 9 litres are hidden at the bottom of the bike, leaving only 20 litre of fuel at the usual fuel tank on top: not much more than the Fazers, Hornets and VFRs. The weight of the STX is noticable only when you manually push the STX around in the parking area.

You engage its slick light gear box into first gear. There is this surprising lack of any “clonk” sound that you hear from most other bikes. Yet another touch of quality on the STX. You turn the throttle slightly, the rev starts to climb and you can make out the low, quiet, deep burble-burble of the STX’s V4. It sounds like the other Honda V4 engine (VFR) and sounds a bit like a twin engine.

As soon as the STX starts moving, all its weight magically disappears completely and it feels lighter than most 200kg street bikes. As you make your way to your usual route to the office, you make left turns, right junction turns and U-turns. The STX is so willing to please you to lean over to turn. Its turning radius is also smaller than most 1,000cc bikes.

While waiting next to you at the traffic light, there are a factory worker riding a Honda wave and a sports bike rider. With the 1,300 cc engine between your knees, it is a little warm but it is not hot at all compared to many other 1,000 cc bikes. From your side glance, you can see that the factory worker can’t peel his eyes of your bike as he stares admiring at the body work of your STX. The sports bike rider is in a world of his own. His bike engine and exhaust producing noisy done and disturbing the people around him. Your STX 1,300 cc engine by comparison, is barely a whisper. But you know by now powerful is the one who can command with a whisper and not having to shout. Moreover, what matters in life, it is not how much horsepower your engine has, but how much you have in your bank account.

The traffic light turns green and the sports bike is off as he redlines his first gear. “Impractical people riding impractical bikes.” With only a gentle turn of your throttle, before the next traffic light, the rest of the traffic previously beside you are left half-a-world behind you.

Along the Expressway

As you hit the ECP expressway, it is peak hour traffic again. Traffic is slow moving. The STX may look huge, but it is really easy to squeeze in between the traffic if you want to. This is because it’s side boxes are flushed in, so they are narrower than other bikes’. The side mirrors also serve as a good guide to help you judge safe passage.

But today, you are not in the mood to squeeze traffic. What is the hurry? After all, you are not a courier. You are the senior person in the meeting. They aren’t going to start the meeting without you. “It’s alright. Let them wait.” You take up a lane and just follow the car, using the strong pulling torque of the 1,300cc engine pull you along in its 5^th highest gear from as long as 2,000 cc rpm, just a tick from idling rev.

As you start to ride at a more brisk pace on the rightmost overtaking lane, the cars in front of you start to change to their left inner lane and give way to you. You wonder is it because of your bikes huge presence and bright headlights that intimidated the car drivers or is it the drivers mistaken you for a traffic police bike?

Of course, occasionally, there are some car drivers who are road hogging and oblivious to your presence behind them. But you do not get flustered by these drivers but you sympathized with them. “Pity these poor souls, driving cars so small with an engine that is the smaller cc than your bike!” Without the need to drop from its tallest 5^th gear, you twist the throttle and over take these cars with ease.

Just then, the brake lights of the car in front of you suddenly flashed red!!! The car in front brakes hard. Oh, no can you brake in time without slamming into the rear of the car?

No worries, the STX comes with an advanced Combined Braking System that links and balances the front and rear wheel braking effort for you. It gives you great worry-free ability to stop the STX. And on road emergency riding situation like this, it cuts your road emergency stopping distance by half. All you need is just one-two finger effort, you squeeze the brake lever and the STX brake system brakes hard and brings your STX to a stop. The STX also comes with ABS. But like the lawyers that you have, you hope you never have to use it.

Pillion Seating

You managed to get a date with the young fresh graduate who has just joined your firm. The thought of going on a date with you on a motorcycle both excites and worries her. “Don’t worry, it is not dangerous and it will be comfortable,” you assure her. She gets a comfortable ride on the broad rear pillion seat. You raise the windscreen to shield her from the windblast and she arrives at the restaurant neat, composed and not disheveled. Along the way, you noticed that she uses the large and vibration-free side mirrors of the STX to check her looks and make-up. The evening was great and the ride went as you promised. Things are going your way: she has agreed to your next date.

With its good looks and comfortable rear perch, the STX gets the babe.

Trunk Road Riding

The STX is at home on twisty trunk roads and shows its sports touring capabilities.

Surprisingly, the STX is very agile and loves to tackle corners. The quick steering and willingness of the STX to lean over reminded you of the Honda CBR954 FireBlade, the sport bike of the time when STX was first conceived in 2002. The FireBlade might have influenced the STX design from the aggressive headlight looks, to the steep steering angle and relatively short wheel base.

The Honda CBR954 FireBlade.
Note the similarity of its headlight design with the STX's.
The 954 excelled in agility, braking, control and finese over brute power and top speed.

You look forward to seeing corners and bends coming up. The STX has a great riding position where the handle bars is near and below you, almost sports bike like. You find yourself ducking below the windscreen and assumed a sports-bike like prone position and sliding sideways out of the smooth seat to counter steer the STX down, once again scraping your toes against the tarmac.

The V4 displays its sporty part of its range. From a gentleman, it transforms into a fighter. The V4 shows it means business when the rev climbs above 4,000. And when it hits 6,000 rpm, it gets angry and gives a unique deep throaty V4 growl, almost MotorGP like. The V4 loves to climb the rev range and with its linear torque and a light smooth gearbox and clutch, you find yourself playing the rev and the gears as you tackle corner to corner. The quickest bike is the one with the ability to stop best, the mantra goes. And the STX’s quick stopping power allows you to fully utilize its V4 power to go fast and remained confident of stopping in time.

NorthSouth Highway Riding

Some bikes make you look forward to the excitement of trunk road riding but makes the long NorthSouth riding boring and even uncomfortable. The STX is a bike that lets you play with trunk roads and also makes long NorthSouth riding a pleasure.

The electrically adjustable windscreen, the broad comfortable seat and the great riding position all contribute to allow you to ride all day long and yet remain fresh, composed and alert when you get to your destination.

The STX’s engine is optimized for cruising speed from 90 to 180kmh. While it’s top speed is around 240kmh, it takes a while to get there from 180. Between 90 to180, the STX has great acceleration power. Sure, there are other bikes that have more power at above 180 speeds, but with all the travel around you, it would be foolhardy and risky to travel at such speeds for long distances.

The STX gives a plush luxurious feel. It is Mercedes Benz of motorcycle. At the press of the button on your left hand, the STX’s windshield glides up. All of a sudden, all the wind noise and windblast gets shut off, just like in a car, when you wind up the car window. In this quietness, you can now hear the low gentle drone of the V4 pulling at 3.4k rpm at 100kmh, barely breaking a sweat. No, at this speed, you still can’t feel any vibrations from the engine. The STX can be Lexus quiet and smooth.

The STX has many nice touches such as two very useful pockets in the front fairing. The STX has an on-board compute that tells you everything from the outside air temperature, to the fuel consumption at that moment and the remaining distance to dry tank once the reserve light is on. After all, the STX is about excesses and refinement.

STX1300, the Lexus of motorcycling.

Parting Shots

I named my STX, Vice.

Why vICE?
Because:
- It's V-shaped headlight looks inspire a name starting with V.
- It's such a cool bike, it needs a cool name. (My previous bike had a cool name too. It was called Frost).
- The STX has a solid build to it. It feels like the vice that you use to clamp your works during your technical classes.



The Japanese Gatsby Commercial



I was told it was performed by some famouse japanese actor.
But I think he looks so gay in the ad.

Original Performance

Play and dance along to the cheesy Gatsby song in its original form.
Thanks to Angkuguay.blogspot.com for pointing out.