$2,500
Victorville, California
Category
-
Engine
800 cc
Posted Over 1 Month
Very rare, Honda 800cc Pacific Coast !!! Very dependable motorcycle, good commuter bike. If you are looking for having fun riding to work and cut time in half from sitting idle on the freeway, this bike is for you. "It looks like a scooter on steroids." A yuppie wanna-be stockbroker friend, who's wife wouldn't invite us to a cotillion of aging, preppy, former sorority-girls if we showed up on bikes, absolutely loved the Pacific Coast. They both did. "This is the nicest bike you've ever had, but you still can't come to the cotillion." Hard core bikers had a different take. "It's looks like a port-o-pottie on wheels," sniffed one staffer. "It looks like a scooter on steroids," said another. "And this cotillion sucks. Lets go over to the garbage dump and break things." Cool. The PC 800 is comfortable and the weather and wind protection are very good. But it's a porky bike, weighing in at 640 pounds wet. Still, it handles well in slow corners with a good turning radius and at straightaway speeds the soft suspension soaks up the bumps; faster corners feel mushy. The rear suspension offers four-way spring preload, but the 41mm front fork is non-adjustable. We did find it to be relatively flickable, but because of its long wheelbase it preferred to stand up. Like a Weeble, it wobbled but it didn't fall down. The brakes, two twin-piston front discs and a drum at the rear, are very average. Fade was non-existent, but then there isn't an overabundance of stopping power, so there's not much there to fade. The front rotors are designed in such a way so that most disc locks will not fit. The engine is a 45-degree V-Twin, and except for displacement it's essentially the same engine as found on the Shadow ACE and the ACE 750. As with Gold Wings, the PC 800 comes with hydraulic valve adjusters for easy maintenance. The engine is not particularly strong, and it has a very narrow powerband -- from approximately 4500 to 6500 rpms. While the engine feels as though it wants to explore the upper limits of the rpm range, the rev limiter kicks in at just after 7000. With a lack of both high end and low range power, shifts are frequent, up and down. Top speed as indicated was close to 105 mph. We wanted to put it on the dyno, but we couldn't figure out how to get to the plugs without disassembling the bodywork. "If you're looking for a real-world commuter and you expect to be hauling more than can fit in a tank bag, then give the PC 800 a thought." The Pacific Coast 800 fills a market niche currently unoccupied in the U.S. -- the sensible urban commuter. It may be an option for an older entry level rider or the occasional weekend tourer unable or unwilling to fork over $12,000 USD for an ST1100. Hard-core bikers, like everyone else on MO's staff, will still sniff and make jokes, and the PC 800 certainly ain't a sex magnet, you're just not going to look bad-assed and cool on a Pacific Coast.
