Until very recently it wouldn’t have occurred to me to write on this subject and I certainly wouldn’t have considered myself in any way qualified to do so.

in the wake of my second proper session on a race track, when I did 50 plus laps, most of which involved scraping the foot pegs on most of the bends for most of the time, the old brain started ticking and it occurred to me that what I had been doing that day was potentially useful on the roads as well as a fun experience on the track.

So, I’m now a bit better informed but can it really be useful on the road to have had the experience of scraping your foot pegs in this way?  Are there any circumstances in which you would want to touch ground with your foot pegs on a GoldWing on the road, other than for showing off?

During my early days on a Wing, riding a GL1200 and before I developed any sort of appetite for “making progress”, as the IAM calls it, I had no thought at all of leaning over far enough to scraping anything on the ground and thought, as I suppose most Wingers do, that riders who do that sort of thing must be barmy.

I suspect that some of my fellow IAM riders on that day think I was barmy for chucking my GL1800 around on the track like that, especially the guy on a replica Repsol Fireblade, wearing the matching riding gear, whom I tried to overtake on one of our warm up laps because he was getting under my feet.  He didn’t let me, the spoilsport, he just accelerated away.  I had no illusions that I could out perform a Fireblade on a racing circuit riding a GoldWing unless he had been willing to let me come past but I would have claimed the bragging rights anyway at the next IAM Group Meeting.

So scraping foot pegs on a GoldWing is for showing off and nothing else – right?  Well no, actually I don’t think it is.  Being confident that you can scrape your GoldWing’s footpegs can be very useful, as I’ll try to explain. continues………

This GL1500 is a 1991 Canadian import model and is unfortunately for sale due to ill health.

It has 72,449 kilometres on the clock which is just over 44,200 miles.

Taxed until February 2012 and the MOT until September 2011.  It has  only done a few hundred miles since the last MOT and spent most of its time garaged through lack of use.

This is the top model of the year, fitted with reverse gear, not the lower spec one.  It runs perfectly, will make an ideal first GoldWing and is sensibly priced to sell.

This bike has been sold.

Veterans Rally at the Anglia Motel

We have been supporting this rally at the Anglia Motel on the A17 Spalding for several years now.  It was started by Mr Harold Payne to take the Veterans back to France each year to pay their respects to their fallen comrades.  But as the years roll on we have less of this fine generation from the world wars and now there is a need from a younger generation, in the form of The Help The Heroes Fund.

Mr Payne who owns the Anglian Motel raised £23,000.00 last year (2010), this money is controlled by independent accountant and is distributed directly to the Anglian Regiment who currently have sixteen amputees.  Last year’s Presentation Night was a very moving occasion when five Veterans proudly wearing their medals marched in and handed over the cheque for £23,000.00 to ten young solders from the Anglian Regiment, all of whom had been injured in current operation in Iraq and Afghanistan .

This year we had Goldwings solo’s and trike on show plus a BSA Super Road Rocket and a GMC Day Van.

The BSA belongs to Harold Payne but it refused to start.  Reg and myself were a rather exhausted double act after trying to start it, kicking it over and bump starting it in the car park.  All we can say is “thank you Honda for electric start”.  We of course had many good old boys telling us how it should be done and we got to the point where we said “Go on  then you start it” but the BSA had other ideas.

We even had a guy who was dressed up as a Nazi telling us how he used to start his old bikes, so a Nazi tried but the British won again.  We had one guy who’s secret was to spray deoderant into the air intake; needless to say this did not work.

Eventually a man with the right know how got it started, he and Harold decided it would be a good idea to take it out for a run but continues………

The amazing Red Arrows

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

Cloudy, breezy and cool for the early birds but as the day developed, lots more bikes arrived and the flying display got going the sunshine appeared and the temperature rose.

It was an enjoyable day with lots of nice bikes to look at and bikers to chat with – and of course fish & chips and ice cream if you wanted them.

Southport Air Show is an annual event well worth seeking out.  There are lots of places from which to view the flying (at a price) but bike parking was free at the inland end of the Pier where there were also plenty of opportunities to watch the flying from a distance, and plenty of bikers took advantage of this.

Four of us met early and were parked up down the pathway next to the Cafe by the lake by 10 o’clock and although there were twenty or so other bikes already  parked up at the Pierhead above us too, had it not been for some excellent bacon butties we might have decided we were too early.  We had more or less commandeered the parking by the Cafe for GoldWings (it’s amazing how much presence a row of only four GoldWings has) and as more bikes turned up they shied away and parked elsewhere.  Quite right and proper too! continues………

Steve on Bob's 21 yr old GL1500 -thinking why on earth did we make them to last as well as this?

This is the second part of an interview with Steve Martindale, General Manager (Motorcycles) Honda UK.  Please bear in mind that this interview took place a few weeks ago and Steve would not necessarily have been aware at the time of the information about the 2012 Model GoldWing which came out recently.

If you haven’t read Part 1 it would make sense to do so first.

As with Part 1, this is a plain transcript with only minimal editing, just the odd false start or the odd bit of repetition cut out.  [Words in brackets like these are my additions, for clarification.]  You might have to work a bit harder reading an unedited transcript but at least you are getting a chance to misunderstand for yourself!

Stuart:  I would say that from the viewpoint of the club rider, the  group rider, that [in the past, the lack of bike-to-bike communications on UK GoldWings]  has been the biggest hole in the UK spec and also the biggest reason for bringing in US spec GoldWings.  And there are still, despite the legal pressures you put on dealers, a lot of US spec GoldWings being brought into UK.  And I may as well bring up now that of your sales last year nearly 25% of the bikes you brought into UK last year were sold by a non-franchised dealer.   Doesn’t that ring big bells of some sort?

Steve: The MCI scores on the doors are what we based our figures on and they don’t reflect what you’ve said.  The bikes are all sold by our dealers.  If you’ve got a third party who is acting as an agent for a dealer and there’s a commission changes hands we wouldn’t know about that.

Stuart:  New, unregistered GoldWings were being offered in a non-franchised dealer’s showroom.

Steve:  That would be against our dealer agreement. continues………

At least you won't have to wait ten years for a white one of the re-styled 2012 model!

More information is emerging about the UK version of the 2012 Model GoldWing, for example that it will be offered in a choice of white, black or blue – so only three colours as usual but no red one for a change.

The price is yet to be announced but HGB, now the only franchised GoldWing Dealer, are inviting advance orders for delivery in September (earlier than HondaUK have said they will be here) and advising their customers to expect the price to be over £25,000, compared with the £23,000 predicted in this week’s MCN test report.

As with previous model years, this buys you a fairly plain-looking bike that many Wingers will feel the need to spend another £3,000 or more garnishing it with shiny bits, so getting close to £30,000 altogether, which is about 50% more than a fully loaded BMW K1600GTLE.

There will be only one UK version as usual which will have an airbag, satnav, ABS and an RDS radio, as on earlier UK models and will once again be incompatible with the Hondaline CB radio, which is a plug-and-play option for US-spec bikes.

The Navi system will hopefully have been properly updated for UK versions this time but note that the (allegedly) 2009 and 2010 UK-spec bikes had the same 2 dimensional (and out of date and non-up-datable) mapping system which earlier UK-spec bikes had (i.e. they were 2008 model year bikes) while US-spec 2009 and 2010 bikes already had 3D mapping, which will continue to be up-datable. continues………

Good food, plenty of parking for bikes

Grahame Murray, the Landlord of the White Lion Hotel in Ambleside, is a biker himself and he’s also very hospitable to Wingers.

Bill Squires and I were in Ambleside a few weeks ago doing a couple of charity rides and knowing the White Lion from previous visits, it was the obvious place to spend our brief lunch break.  There’s a nice pub-grub menu and, for Wingers, the extra benefit of a substantial discount on the published prices.  Wearing GoldWing emblazoned biking gear seemed to do the trick and our bill got discretely discounted.  We paid half price for two meals, so two for one.  Pretty generous in a tourist town.

Grahame will do two-for-one on selected meals any time and also on weekday B&B for anyone who arrives on or with a GoldWing and can produce a membership card for a GoldWing club – that’s any GoldWing club, even GWOCGB!    If there’s any difficulty getting the discount ask for Grahame but do it discretely so as not to upset the tourists who will paying full price!.

Grahame doing what he's good at

The White Lion is on the left on the downhill section of the one way circuit around the centre of Ambleside and the car park is on the left just before you reach it.  The car park is signposted as the White Lion’s so it’s not difficult to spot.  Take care, it slopes upwards fairly steeply.  There is garaging available for overnight stayers at the top of the car park too.

Our bikes were parked right outside the window while we ate so we could admire the admiring glances our bike’s were getting from the strolling tourists.   Bill was convinced that his bike got more admiring glances than mine but then he always is.  I think it’s down to curiosity about the yellow tinge.

I can’t remember precisely what we ate but it was contraband food for  both of us (being on a diet at the time) involving something like steak & ale pie and chips and it was very, very good.  Grahame won’t mind you leaving your bike parked there while you do a bit of strolling yourself and there’s room enough to park 20 or more bikes, so it’s a good place to stop on a group ride too.

It’s probably best to give Grahame a ring if you want accommodation or if you’re planning to turn up with a big group and his number is:

01539 439901

“When will they ever learn?” goes the song – and really,  isn’t it about time that the small band of GWOCGB members who think they are helping their Club by mounting jehad paused for enough thought to realise it isn’t helping, indeed it’s clearly been counter-productive every time?

That’s fundamentally why GWOCGB’s membership continues to fall.

You can’t attract Wingers to join or stay in a so-called friendly club if it keeps behaving in a conspicuously unfriendly way.  Despite an even steeper decline in membership last year, despite a clear request from one of the Club’s Directors to stop making things worse and let the Club’s Committee work out how to deal with a critical situation for the Club’s future, the belligerence, the bad-mouthing, the bullying and the intimidation continues.

I reported recently on the unwarranted personal attacks which had been made on Barry Walton and Eric Warburton on the GWOCGB Forum and explained how they would likely to be counter-productive to the Club’s interests.  In a follow up attack on Barry and his Club, members of ‘Appy Wanderers who attended GWOCGB events have been hassled about having anything to do with the Federation – at any price.  Barry has also been offered payment of the full cost of PLI cover for five years if he would pull out of the Federation, so this time it was a combination of bribery and bullying.

Is that what they are spending the Club’s diminishing reserves on?  Someone in GWOCGB is willing to spend over £800 per year rather than see ‘Appy Wanderers buy it from the Federation for £10?   It sounds like pretty desperate stuff.

Of course ‘Appy Wanderers have no fight with GWOCGB and ‘Appy Wanderers have, at least nominally, promoted GWOCGB membership among its own members since it was formed.   The decision on behalf of ‘Appy Wanderers to join the Federation was continues………

Last week's viewing figures - click on the image for an enlargement

Viewing figures for this Blog are keeping up nicely, so thank to you, my readers for your continuing interest.

I get two different sets of figures, one from our web hosting company and another from Google.  They are not remotely compatible so as with all statistics, you have to take them with a piunch of salt.

The table of figures here is however from the same source I’ve always quoted when I’ve reported viewing figures, so you are getting a change to compare apples with apples.

The readership extends beyond UK although thankfully it is still mostly UK-based; since that’s the Blog’s main purpose.  But Hi There to Hong Kong, the Phillipines and Austr’salia; I hope you enjoy visiting, please keep it up and don’t be frightened of making Comments on Articles either.

2012 Model GL1800

Motorcycle News have published a report about the 2012 Model GL1800 in this week’s edition on pages 14-17.  The reporter was one of half a dozen who flew over there to ride the new model in the US – starting in Kentucky at GWRRA’s 30th WingDing, which is a sight bigger than we have or are ever likely to have in UK.  The reported had a chance to ride the bike for two full days, including through Deal’s Gap, the famous set of twisties.

The new  Model is described as a re-styling effort and an update rather than anything more, which is consistent with what Steve Martindale,  HondaUK’s motorcycle boss, has acknowledged on this Blog.

It wasn’t clear that this particular reporter had much experience of GoldWings, so his review is superficial and he wouldn’t know how to evaluate the revisions to the satnav system, about which there is still some uncertainty.  I understand that it’s a new Garmin unit which has two SD card slots rather than one, the second presumably being to allow pre-planned routes to be downloaded but we don’t know that for sure yet.

Pre-planning routes is done using a Honda-badged version of Garmin’s Mapsource, which will be familiar to many UK Wingers – except that this Honda version is said to be not so good as the proper Mapsource.   We’ll have to reserve judgement until we see it ‘in the plastic’.  The first personal import of a 2012 Model is being shipped as I write this, so I should be able to report on it myself within the next few weeks.

The MCN article also includes a brief interview with Steve Martindale’s opposite number in Honda America which is very revealing.  According to him the 2012 Model was an attempt to restyle but also to keep the price down in these hard times.  It will be interesting to see how it competes in the UK with the BMW K1600GTL’s price of £17, 000.  The UK-specification of the 2012 Model will once more be an airbag model with satnav and ABS,  so equivalent to the top level of the US-spec options.  The MCN reporter expects the 2012 Model to sell in UK for over £23,000.

If you don’t always buy MCN this is an edition might well want to treat yourself to.  This issue also contains a brief mo9del history of the GoldWing on page 52.