Today I had the Sabre out and realized that I have never put it up here. I'm not sure if any of you have ridden these. The Honda V4 bikes were a huge jump in technology from the SOHC and DOHC air cooled motors. My 84' Sabre 700 came with 78'hp stock. The small Sabre is quite different from the V65 Sabre in more than styling.
Both are fairly big bikes with the 700 weighing in at 534lbs wet. Sabres were the 80's version of the original CB 750. It is a bike you can cover a bunch of miles on in decent comfort. They are a mid 12 second bike, fast but not the fastest. The motor is awesome, pulls to the 10.5k redline, power starts earlier than an inline 4. The CG is lower as well.
The wheelbase is long but you'll need to lean it way the hell over to scrape a peg. The front end comes stock with a fork brace and crude anti-dive. I swapped out the springs for a set of Progressive springs and the air caps on the fork tubes for adjustable preload caps. The rear is shaft drive with progressive rate mono-shock. I modded in the shock from an 01' CB 1100xx Blackbird for a huge improvement. These bikes don't have any shaft jacking issues that other shaft drive bikes had.
I have the Hondaline fairing and bags which makes it versatile for food and booze runs. I've done road trips on it and it is smooth, comfortable and will get decent mileage if you are just cruising. I bought a new 82' V45 Sabre and put 150k on it in ten years. This one my uncle bought when it was one year old and gave it to me in 2016. It had the bags but I had to find a fairing. It will be my sons first road trip bike in a couple of years.
