Faults:

* Brake oil started to slightly drip from my front brakes, even though my braking power was just fine.

Nothing else ever happened in its 40,000km!!

General Comments:

* I bought this bike on December 2010, cruised with it along the Red Sea and all, but then had to "properly" garage it for a while since I had my final college exams, and right after that was the Egyptian Revolution until this very moment. So you all don't get confused with the little KMs I did.

* I bought this bike based on the reviews listed on this website (especially this website) as well as many others, and they all were right when they mentioned the bike is very reliable, economical, durable, and easy to ride.

* Riding this bike makes you feel like you're riding a Harley Sportster or some sort of muscle bike, due to its seating position, which isn't so laid back.

* Its hidden (soft-tail) rear suspension is perfect for someone who wights 100kg or less, but it's very weak if you ride with a passenger and will hit its limit! Bang!

* One of the best things about this bike, is that it isn't under-powered, so you can cruise with all the way up to a Shadow 750cc; but you'll face high vibration at high speeds, and sadly you only have 4 gears, which are easy to memorize, but hard to cope with.

* The bike never heats up, even though I live in Egypt with heavy traffic jams and high temperatures of 30 to 45 degrees Celsius, it never ever heats up (I have the stock exhaust system, but without baffles), but at the same time it takes forever to warm up. I asked several VLX owners and they all have this same warm up issues; I'm guessing it's a normal thing. NOTE: if you have straight pipes on your VLX, it will heat up in traffic jams or high speeds for a long time.

* My one and only problem with this bike, is that I am 2 meters tall (6'8 feet) and I get cramps in my feet everyyyyytime I ride (I don't have leg extensions) and it ruins the day because it doesn't stop, plus my back hurts evvvverytime I ride, because of all the after-math of the suspension working goes all the way up my spine. So once again, my day is ruined completely. Unlike riding a Honda CB for example, where if you ever meet a hole in the street (which is a common thing in Egypt), you can just stand up and it won't vibe all the way to your spine...

P.s. If I am to buy another bike, it'll be 100% Honda manufactured, but will probably go for a street or sport bike.

If you have any further questions, I would love to answer them on my email, which reads kheiashy007@hotmail.com and I'll reply ASAP.

Thank you for reading my survey.

Ride Safe. Ride Forever.

Faults:

The clutch started slipping at around 45000 miles, due to my dad doing burn outs all the time. Not the bike's fault at all; with 45000 miles he should have known better.

Coolant leak after being dropped, not a hard fix at all.

General Comments:

This was my 1st Honda road bike. I have had a few dirt bikes before this one, but this was my 1st one on the road. I paid a little more than I wanted to for this bike with the miles it had on it, but I just had to have this bike.

I bought it with 37000 miles for $1700, and I put another 13000 miles on this bike in 11 months with NO break downs at all. I'd have to say I got my money out of it. The bike ran like a champ every day I rode it, and it was ridden for the most part every day.

My only issue out of it was if the temp. was lower than freezing (32 F), it was hard to start, but once it got warmed up, you couldn't stop it. This bike was one that was ridden hard, and put up wet almost every time it was ridden, left out in the rain, dropped, and even one time wrecked, yet some how every time I hit that starter button, it fired right up.

I loved this bike, and it is still to this day my favorite bike I have ever ridden. I didn't treat this bike good at all, and I didn't maintain the bike nowhere near as much as I should have, actually not really at all. I might have changed the oil twice maybe the whole time I owned it.

For example, I took the pipes off of it, and ran it wide open until it wouldn't rev any higher, then shifted gears through every gear just to hear it. This turned out to be bad when I caught my leather saddle bags on fire on the right side. Me and my father did smokey burn outs, rode it in the rain, down dirt roads wide open, and nothing ever broke or came off, not even the saddle bags I caught on fire.

This bike was tough and never let me down, and still got around 60 MPG every tank.

I have since moved on from this bike. I traded it in on a newer Shadow 1100, but I would give it back just to have my old VLX back.