CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT
Graham Coleman is selling his 2004 Candy Red GL1800, having ordered a new GoldWing.
Click on the image for an enlargement
Although Honda have not published details of the inspection procedure in UK a copy of Honda America’s Service Bulletin has appeared on the internet and can be viewed by clicking here.
It’s a bit difficult for non-engineers to grasp what the inspection is about from this technical bulletin but it appears to involve rotating the secondary master cylinder (by inserting a special tool in place of one of the mounting bolts) as far as it will go in a clockwise direction (i.e. in an unfavourable way) to see of the rear wheel then drags after a test application of the rear brake. In other words to force the piston alignment of the secondary master cyinder as far as possible in the potentially brake-dragging direction to see if it then causes the brakes to drag.
If the rear wheel locks up after this test or if resistance to rotation (measured as in the third picture) exceeds 5.1 kg (11.2 lbs) the bike has failed the test and the secondary master cyclider requires replacement.
Having done this test of how the secondary master cylinder performs with the most unfavourable piston rod angle which can be contrived, the mounting bolts are tightened up again with rotating force applied in the opposite, counter-clockwise direction, to optimise the piston rod entry angle, as in the fourth picture.
According to this Service bullettin all GL1800s from 2000 -2010 are subject to this recall and even some of the 2012 Model GL1800s are affected, so it’s not just some of them as originally thought – which at least makes it easier for UK GL1800 owners; your 2001-20010 GL1800 will require this inspection and all of us will get a letter from Honda UK eventually. continues………
Petrol to which ethanol has been added is being sold in UK and because this mixture is deemed to be “greener” than petrol alone, is likely to become more common as time goes by. Ethanol for fuel can be made by the industrial processing of agricultural crops and is therefore considered to be renewable energy.
There is an EU Directive which requires than all petrol sold in Europe contains 5 – 10 % ethanol by 2013.
But what does this mean for our precious GoldWings, including our classic bikes, built when four-star leaded petrol was still the norm – how ill they cope?
The move towards ethanol-containing fuels is happening gradually in UK and 5% ethanol has been added to some fuel (without necessarily announcing it) for some time. But 10% ethanol (E10 fuel) is likely to come into wide use in UK over time and it’s already fairly common elsewhere, especially in France and the US.
The good news is that either of these fuels, E5 or E10, can be used in any model of UK or US-spec GoldWing.
With pre-GL1800 GoldWings (mostly carburetors but including the 1985 GL1200 Ltd and the GL1200 Aspencade SEi) models there may be some loss of performance because ethanol has about one third less energy content, volume for volume, than petrol. But the bikes should come to no harm running on this fuel. And because the GL1800 has a clever sort of fuel injection, there should be no noticeable performance loss. When using E10 fuel a 3% decrease in fuel economy compared with petroleum is likely to be noticed with all GoldWing models.
So for E5 and E10 fuel no modification of the GoldWing is necessary and you can simply continues………
For the third year, Members of GoldWings North West and several other GodWing Clubs, including GWOCGB Regions, will be gathering at a Hotel in Leyland, Lancashire, for an evening of fun, food, entertainment and free drinks.
This is very much a non-political, all welcome event at which any Winger, from any club or no club, will be most welcome.
It’s a Dinner Dance and there’s an opportunity for the ladies to dress up if they want to (and the blokes) but posh frocks are not expected or compulsory – especially for the blokes.
Two scrubbed-up Grahams!
The ticket includes drinks and canapes on arrival followed by an all you-can-eat carvery-type buffet with a selection of meats, fish and veggie dishes, folowed by pud and/or cheese with unlimited wine on the tables, a free bar afterwards and a fish & chip supper at 11pm.
Further details are available on the GoldWings North West Website. You can book directly with the Hotel by ringing 01772 422922, quoting reference GW280112.
Accommodation is also available at the Hotel at a special rate if you will be travelling from afar or want to stay in order to make full use of the free bar.
This was my first attempt to use the Blog to conduct an opinion survey and so it was something of an experiment. Hopefully the results will stimulate some discussion.
I asked Blog Readers to assume they are about to buy their next GoldWing, have two equally suitable bikes, one being sold by a Honda Dealer, the other one by a non-Honda dealer. There are no differences in part exchange or guarantee and it didn’t even matter whether the bikes are new or used, the only difference was the price – the Honda Dealer was asking more because he feels he’s offering a better, quality-assured service.
The question you Readers were invited to answer was: How valuable is it to you to buy a GoldWing from a franchised Honda Dealer, in other words how much extra would you pay for your next GoldWing for the benefits of buying from an official Honda Dealer, compared with any other motorcycle dealer?
The response rate was low in relation to the Blog’s readership numbers and this certainly needs to be taken into account when interpreting this result. Respondents could very easily be a biased sample, for example because only those who hold strong feelings (for example of personal disappointment) about Honda bothered to take the survey.
Having said that there is at least a suggestion from this Survey that a surprisingly large proportion of GoldWing owners attach little or no value to buying from a franchised Honda Dealer. Why could that be? continues………
Some bikers tour in winter
Motorcycling is primarily a recreational means of transport in UK, although of course lots of people use bikes to get to and from work, including Wingers. A couple of bikers I know preferred for many years to use their GoldWing to ride long distances in the course of self-employed work right through the winter.
During summer the travelling would sometimes be a joy, although of course even during summer the practicalities and time pressures would often force them to be making predominantly motorway or dual carriageway journeys rather than using more attractive but much slower good riding routes.
These two guys travelled big distances throughout the year because they needed to go where the work was, sometimes moving between far-flung locations and sometimes staying away from home on their travels. In winter this lifestyle was often very hard going and not a little risky.
And indeed both of these riders have since taken up different employment at least partly to escape from the burden of this travelling, one by becoming a minister of religion, possibly to give thanks for his survival through years of winter riding. continues………
A conversation with a Honda Dealer sparked the idea for this opinion survey; he was telling me about a Winger who was considering buying a new GoldWing from him who seemed to attach little or no value to buying from a franchised Honda Dealer.
HondaUK would like us to share their confidence that all franchised Honda dealers can provide good sales and after sales support for all their motorcycles, including GoldWings, and that theirs is a better and therefore more valuable service than we can get elsewhere. It is however possible to buy new as well as used GoldWings without going to a franchised Honda dealer in UK, so I thought it would be interesting to ask Wingers how they feel about the value of franchised Honda dealerships these days.
I haven’t tried doing an opinion survey on the Blog before so it’s also something of an experiment so please spare me a few moments to take part. The more responses we get the more reliable the survey will be. There is only this one question to answer and you won’t have to identify yourself any way unless you want to. The results will be published in due course, once I have had a decent number of responders, hopefully fairly quickly.
Let’s assume for purposes of this survey that you are about to buy your next GoldWing and you have found two equally suitable bikes, one being sold by a Honda Dealer, the other one by a non-Honda dealer. There are no differences in what they will offer as part exchange and the guarantee is the same, so ignore those factors. It doesn’t even matterwhether the bikes are new or used, the only difference is the price – the Honda Dealer is asking more because he feels he’s offering a better, quality-assured service.
The questions was: How valuable is it to you to buy a GoldWing from a franchised Honda Dealer, in other words how much extra would you pay for your next GoldWing for the benefits of buying from an official Honda Dealer, compared with any other motorcycle dealer?
Editorial Note: I dug Steve’s article out of the queue because it speaks with the voice of an ordinary Winger in an uncomplicated way which seems to me to present a useful reminder to all of us of what’s important as we start a new year.
A lot of Wingers reading this Blog must have at sometime or other asked themselves this question, as both organisations offer to cater for the Goldwing owners in the UK, but in different ways.
Irrespective of politics/delusions/snobbery etc, the bare facts are of importance and interest here so having read many articles I want to concentrate on these.
I believe in the present climate everyone is looking for the answer and it is not as straight forward as it looks, the doubt is creeping in and it is spreading a glum over an otherwise once very happy and stable Goldwing community here in the UK. It’s like an “us and them” scenario which upsets me greatly and should not be the case at all.
I do not want to favour one or the other in what I’m writing here, but try to offer a suggestion so that all can move forward together and give our community a fresh start for 2012. The Mayan calender is due to finish on 21 Dec 2012, but it does not mean the end of the world! , or does it? LOL. Well, one thing is for sure we can get through this and move forward.
Both organisations have advantages for GoldWing owner’s:
Goldwing Owners Club of Great Britain (GWOCGB): is the older club internationally recognised by GWEF and offer centrally and local club run events throughout the year both at home and abroad. They have a club magazine “Wingspan” and also have a membership directory which lists members willing to offer help if you have a breakdown or need emergency accommodation as part of their membership package. The central committee have reps which cover most aspects of the regional clubs activities on a national level ie, Treffens, Events, PLI cover etc, they also have national rules which apply to all regional clubs but leave local events more to the regional committees to run as long as they do not breach national policy. The club membership fees are flat rate for all and reflect this level of service for the national club as a whole.
The Federation of United Kingdom GoldWing Clubs: Formed more recently for Goldwing owners who want more freedom of choice in what they want. This concept involves local clubs running themselves totally but under the help and if required guidance of FUKGC which offers PLI cover for all the events which the individual clubs wish to organise. Membership fees are set by the membership themselves and this is generally minimal depending on how the club intends to run. As with the former organisation these local clubs have a Chairman, Secretary and a treasurer and meetings are held monthly.
These are the bare facts and I think you should choose which club suits you more to your own personal expectations and who’s to say you can’t join both!
So as can be seen there is light at the end of the tunnel, both offer similar or different benefits and outlooks depending on what you want out of being a member.
The bottom line is we all have a great hobby and the friendliness and joy of sharing our passion should not be marred by who’s in what club, we should have a sense of common ground or good foundation on which to build a thriving community as a whole and accept personal preference as to whom we hand over our membership monies to be it GWOCGB or Federation. Let’s just get on with it and have a great time!
Wishing all a bright future in 2012!
The Federation of UK GoldWing Clubs has wished all Wingers a Happy New Year and started the year off with a bang by announcing a reshuffle of its volunteer team.
This reshuffle brings in a new Chairman and involves two other job changes; the official announcement can be viewed here.
Ian Duxbury, already Chariman of GoldWings North West will also now be Chairman of the Federation and Bob Summers, who is reliquishing the Chairman’s job, becomes the Secretary, which is the job I used to do. I will now be taking more of a background role, still one of the Team but concerned with development issues and with trade relations.
Dave Turvey(Treasurer) and Nigel Mackintosh (Webmaster) stay in the same nominal roles but their division of the labour will probably change too.
It helps to understand why and how these changes have been made (and that someone can come straight into the Team as its Chairman) if you bear in mind that the Federation isn’t a conventional bike club. There isn’t a conventional committee structure or any hierarchy and indeed one of the cornerstones of the Federation’s approach is that it exists to provide a service to GoldWing clubs and Wingers in UK, rather than being anything like a ruling or regulating committee.
So Ian will chair the Federation Team Meetings if indeed chairing is needed; in practice the Team meets infrequently and mostly communicates by telephone and email and has never had difficulty achieving consensus without resorting to voting. It’s a small team of volunteers each of whom does what he’s good at doing but consults freely with colleagues as he goes along rather than going solo.
Ian Duxbury is a Training Officer in his Day job and so he brings valuable presentational skills to the party. Bob and Dave are seen as having diplomatic skills as well as good looks, so continues………
Phone Contacts viewable on Garmin SatNav screen in order to make a call
Relatively few riders want to use their phone while riding – apart from anything else linking a mobile phone into a GoldWing’s intercom system is not straightforward and nor is it cheap.
As well as technical obstacles there are also important road safety issues – is it sensible to be using a phone at all while riding, even completely hands-free?
I first looked at hooking up my mobile phone to my GoldWing system six or seven years ago after a friend had done it successfully on his bike, which he used for a lot of business travel and since he was self-employed he needed to be able to take calls while making a journey to avoid losing work.
By connecting a car-type Bluetooth hands-free unit to the bike’s intercom via a purpose-made interface unit and then relying on a Bluetooth connection to the phone, which could therefore stay in his pocket, he had succeeded in establishing a reliable, working system. This approach was possible because unlike most such hand-held devices, he had found one which had external microphone and speaker sockets, to which he was able to connect the interface unit which would then connect to the bike.
I went as far as buying one of these hands-free devices to follow suit but never quite got around to getting the necessary interface unit made; the car hands-free unit is still around somewhere, still in its packaging. I suppose at the time I didn’t have a pressing reason to have the phone available while riding and another friend, with whom I discussed the idea, felt very strongly that phones and motorcycling didn’t mix. Much better, said he, to leave the phone switched off in your pocket so you can concentrate entirely on your riding. continues………
