Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

Picture taken from the BBC website - hope they don't mind!

Sorry the Blog has been a bit quiet lately. This is partly because I got involved in a charity collection for the victims of the Cumbria Floods.

The public have been extremely generous, recognising that this particular disaster is on home territory, a flooded home is a real tragedy to have to deal with and that it could easily have been our home which had been struck.

In the first weekend of collecting at a Garden Centre north of Preston over £5,000 was given. I think this is a really great testimony to the British people’s innate generosity towards others.

We were also collecting in the Centre of Preston and it was clear to see that the generosity went right across the community, all ages and ethnic groups were being generous. We were even getting £20 notes put in the buckets and there were lots of £5 notes.  At least three times as much was going into the buckets as might be expected from an average charity collection.

I was particularly touched when a boy of about ten or eleven, out in Town with his mate on a Sunday morning spotted the “Cumbria Floods Coolection” on my bucket, stopped, dug out the £1.50 or so in his pocket and put in a decent part of it. What a cracking young man; no parents to prompt him, he did it entirely off his own bat.

If your GoldWing or other Bike Club is into charity collections this is a very good opportunity. To make a collection on the streets you need a licence from the local Council but on private land – such as a Shopping Centre or Supermarket all you need is the landowner’s permission. Use sealed collecting cans or buckets if you can get hold of them and display your Club’s name as well as what you are collecting for so the public know you are not working a fiddle.

The money you raise can be sent to the Cumbria Community Foundation Fund.   This Fund was set up during the Foot and Mouth outbreak to support recovery and they have continued to support communities since then, including during the Carlisle floods a few years ago.  They are a very well managed organisation which works closely with communities and businesses in Cumbria and they have an excellent reputation for getting money to those in need quickly and efficiently without huge amounts of red tape.   Instructions for making donations are given on their website.  There are also facilities for individuals to make donations directly on line.

Postscript:  The collection I referred to in this Article has now raised over £10,000 after its second weekend, which is a tremendous testemony to the generosity of the public of the Preston area.  Over £6,000 of this money has already been sent to Cumbria and the rest will follow as quickly as practicable.

The following was sent to me as a Comment on an earlier Article but I think it deserves special attention:

Hi Guys,

I thought you would be interested to know that I had a rude awakening on Thursday morning.  Police banging on my doors and windows, when I opened the door I was arrested and taken to Longsight Police station where I spent hours locked up in a cell and then charged with impersonating a Police Officer.

It was an awful experiance and it may still lose me my bike, all this because I led the Toy run on my well known ex-police bike.

That’s it, I have had enough of charity work, that Toy Run has cost me over £500 in various forms….

I am convinced the police have a different agenda and I just cannot afford the luxury of helping others as leader for all these charity runs, the police have no continuity they want me to help when it suites them and arrest me when it doesn’t, I will miss all the runs but i feel bullied and victimised but thank you all for your support.

Peter

GL1000 Executive 1977

The GoldWing Executive was a special edition of the GL1000 sold only in UK and only 51 bikes were made.

These bikes were commissioned by HondaUK which arranged for a batch of standard GL1000s to be specially adapted by Rickman (a British firm) iincluding special fairings and other accessories and for the bikes to be specially finished in black with gold coach-lining.  Each bike was numbered and they were sold through Honda Dealers in UK only.

This bike was first registered in 1977 and is painted as Number 19 of the series of 51.

It has done 45000 miles.  The frame has been powder coated. The tank panels, radiator shrouds, side panels have been resprayed to original black and gold pin striping by Dream Machine.

New front and rear chrome mudguards. New exhaust pipes. All this work carried out when I acquired it in 1987, but has been kept in garage under cover and looked after.

The bike has not been on the road for six years but it still starts and runs.

It needs someone who can give it a good home and look after it.

Price: Offers over £2,000

Contact the Owner,  Phil Peters, directly on  01295 256518 or by email at ppeters2@sky.com

The Federation of UK GoldWing Clubs has announced a renewed and expanded sponsorship arrangement with Knutsford Honda, complementing their generous sponsorship of the 2009 Blackpool Light Parade.

The amount of money involved is not being released but it’s apparently enough to allow the Federation to cover the whole of its annual administration and IT costs and therefore underpins the services which it is developing for the UK GoldWing Community.

Instead of sucking money out of GoldWing clubs in the form of subscriptions, the Federation will be providing its services to GoldWing Clubs free of charge.  Even PLI cover is virtually free for a Club’s first year of affiliation.  The Federation also plans to make grants to clubs, especially new and newly affiliated clubs, to help them get going.  For further information about the Federation visit its Website.  (GWOCGB subscriptions are again being increased by about 10% for next year.)

For further information about Knutsford Honda (which incidentally has four GL1800s on special offer at present) please ring 01925 752600 or visit their Website.

GoldWings gather for the Annual Toy Run into Manchester

Being grounded still, I was unable to attend last Saturday’s Toy Run in person, but there was a decent turn out of GoldWings, among many, many other bikes.

And it was by all accounts a successful event, in spite of withdrawal of Police assistance and some messing about of the organisers about the route they would be allowed to use.

There is a write up of the Event on Dave Turvey’s Blog and there are some interesting comments about the unhelpfulness of the Police on the GoldWings North West Website.

It would appear that despite three Police cars and two bikes being available to spend two hours accepting Salvation Army hospitality before the run started, Police assistance for this annual Charity Event had already been refused this year on the grounds of insufficient resources.  Police were nevertheless on hand as the Parade started to stop and book the lead bike for looking a bit too much like the real thing for their taste.

There is an unfortunate pattern developing of Police Forces in various parts of the Country being unhelpful to biking charity events during this past year and it might be spreading.  The problems we had at this year’s Blackpool Light Parade were due to a Police error of communication and should not recur next year – and they did not (despite misinformation to the contrary) result in any prosecutions.  Nevertheless it did disrupt our Parade unnecessarily and we could have done without it.

There was a mass “re-occupation” of North Wales by bikers this year in protest at what has been pretty blatant picking-on of bikers for nit-picking routine stops to discourage then from riding in that area.  MCN are currently running another campaign for nominations for a Police Plonker of the Year Award.  Bikers can if necessary organise themselves very effectively to protest.

Hopefully someone somewhere at a senior level in Greater Manchester Police will realise that a charity run of this sort, organised well and run safely at a moderate speed is something the Police should be supporting as best they can rather than disrupting it to prosecute a minor technical Construction & Use offence which, in the circumstances, had road safety value rather than presenting any significant risk or nuisance to anyone.

Well designed and well made

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

Wheel chocks, or wheel grabs, as some riders prefer to call them, can be very useful in a garage as well as for mounting a bike on a trailer for transportation, for which they make life much easier.  Providing they do what they’re supposed to for your particular bike, wheel chocks allow you to ride your bike into them and then dismount safely without using the bike’s centre or side stand.

But finding a wheel chock which works well with a GoldWing is not that easy.  The selection available from UK suppliers has in the past been limited and some of them don’t really work adequately with a GoldWing.

So this new Chock is particularly welcome because it does work well with a GoldWing.  It’s also very well made and has a high quality finish – and to cap it all it is extremely keenly priced at just over £60 including postage!

As you can see from the pictures it’s a “rocker” type chock, designed to capture continues………

Cusworths of Doncaster, a Honda Dealer which sold quite a few GoldWings and made a decent effort to stock GoldWing accessories has closed its doors, at least temporarily, and is understood to be in administration.

If so this is very sad day; Cusworths have been in the trade for over 100 years.  They were supporters of the 2008 Blackpool Light Parade, when they attended with a plentiful stock of GoldWing accessories and they kindly donated some attractive accessories as prizes.  They are also listed as Sponsors of Yorkshire Wings’s website, so they were certainly doing their bit for the GoldWing Community.

Their Website (pictured here) is currentlyis promoting a Sale starting on Monday (November 9th) so this could mean bargains for GoldWing owners if they still have stocks of GoldWing accessories, which seems likely.

If you wish to check what is happening before riding over there to express your sympathies (or maybe to grab a bargain) you could try telephoning 01302 814444 which is, or was, their number.

Their Showroom address, if you need it for your satnav, is Wood Street, Doncaster, DN1 3LH but note that the website is now advertising  a different address: 23-25 Princegate Doncaster, DN1 3EW

The Open Road

The husband and wife team who operate Road Veda, offering both off-the-shelf and bespoke motorcycle tours in India, contacted me with information about their venture.  The tours combine tourism with motorcycling adventure under skilled supervision and with suitable backup.

All the tours start and end in Bangalore, which is easily accessible by direct, low cost  flights from UK with British Airways and other airlines.  Bangladore is now a large and modern city (it is a State Capital) but it’s origins are at least 1,000 years ago, so it combines, from a tourist viewpoint, ancient and very modern.  In recent times has become a hub for English-speaking Call Centres – so there will be no difficulty communicating when you get there either.

You fly out there, Road Veda supplies a suitable bike (a modern, off-road Enfield Bullet) teach you how to ride safely on Indian roads and then lead you on a tour which could be the adventure of a lifetime.

Tours can be as short as one day or last a couple of weeks, according to your appetite and budget.  A ten day tour can cost less than £1,000 per person, excluding flights but including bike, accommodation, food, guide, back up car etc.  There is a special offer for Wingers too (see below) so if you and a few friends fancy a bit of adventure before the nexct UK biking season, read on……. continues………