It’s rare to hear of a GoldWing being stolen in UK but this one disappeared from its owner’s garage in Ellesmere Port in Cheshire during the past couple of days.

It’s a Maroon 2007 GL1800 Registration number FE07 OKX.

VIN Number is 1HFSC47N07A600603 and it is a UK-spec bike.

This bike may already be in a van or a box on its way to Eastern Europe or even have arrived there but there is also a possibility that it will be sold or broken for spares in UK.

If you hear or see anything please let me know quickly and I’ll make sure information gets to the right place.

At the risk of teaching granny to suck eggs, if thieves are targetting GoldWings in UK, make sure your bike’s keys are stored seperately from the bike.  Putting the steering lock on in the garage would be a deterrent too.

When the going gets tough ....

Our Indian Summer is over and the leaves are falling big time, even though the air temperatures became mild again temporarily last weeekend.  If you haven’t already done it this is a good time to decide whether to lay the Wing up for the winter or prepare properly for riding in winter conditions.

The risk of snow and ice is still low, unless you live or ride on very high ground, and there are still riding events and activities on the calendar to be enjoyed as well as the occasional day when the weather presnets a glorious riding opportunity.  Last Saturday here in Lancashire was such a day and I’m now kicking myself that I didn’t grab the opportunity.  The Manchester Salvation Army Toy Run is also coming up (November 19th) and there are other worthwhile (and worthy) events still to come too.

If you decide to lay the bike up for the winter, as I might have to do in order to face another hip operation, then it’s important to give it a little care and attention as you do so.   Dave Partridge, proprietor of AwingAway and Tecnical Editor for the Federation Website  wrote a very helpful article on Laying up your GoldWing last year which you might want to read again.

And if you are going to lay the bike up don’t forget that you can surrender your tax disc and get a refund from DVLA; I discovered after an interesting series of encounters with our local DVLA Office that timing your arrival at about ten minutes before they close, so 4.50pm, even on their bsuier days, ensures a short or no queue at all or anyway some pretty snappy service because they all want to go home.  If you haven’t read it, my article about the DVLA has its entertaining moments.

But let’s not get too defeatist that the biking season is over just yet.  Let’s think about continuing to ride as winter approaches – and therefore about the implications for our riding skills and style, the extra things we need to look out for and deal with as hazards on autumn roads. continues………

Dave Partridge

Dave Partridge, who offers mobile servicing for GoldWings , under the trading name of AwingAway, based on Staffordshire, has just come up with some very tempting prices for servicing – including the opportunity to get your MOT done free of charge providing it’s done at the same time.  You get a free 10-point safety check on the bike even if an MOT is not required.

That strikes me as a staggeringly good offer and reason to get your MOT done while Dave’s at it, even if it’s not yet due, so that you can get yourself synchronised for next year.  Giving your bike an annual service and safety check is no bad thing regardless of the mileage you have done and doing it every year at the same time makes it easier to remember to do it.  Dave might even send you a  reminder next year!

Obviously this doesn’t include the cost of any additional work which might be needed, but it’s a fixed price for the service and the fixed prices are very keen at that – substantially lower than you would pay probably elsewhere.

Dave is a qualified motorcycle technician and a GoldWing owner himself.  He’s also th technical Editor of the Federation of UK GoldWing Clubs and you can pick his brains, free of charge, about any GoldWing technical problem you might have by using the Technical Enquiry Service on the Federation’s Website.

I’ve heard nothing but glowing reports of Dave’s work and can therefore thoroughly recommend him.  He will travel reasonable distances to do servicing work, which could also be attractive to you.  Dave is offering an innovative service to Wingers which is proving very popular.

You can contact Dave on 07795 095043 or by email to dave©awingaway•co•uk

You can also view a leaflet about Dave’s services which details his prices by clicking here.

There has been a lot of coverage in the media of new proposals by the EU which are feared to be very threatenning to motorcyclists because they prohibit modifications to the bike, or some parts of it – a freedom which many bikers think is fundamental and also to frustrate owner-maintenance.  Demonstrations have been organised, including slow rides on motorways, to show disapproval of them.  It isn’t like that and although there is threat in some of the ideas, some of the proposals are actually favourable to bikers.

The British Motorcyclists Federation has done some serious homework and posted a set of notes on Facebook about these EU Proposals in order to demystify them. The proposals do include a plan to prohibit modifications to the engine and drive train of motorcycles but they will not prohibit changing components (i.e. doing any work yourself on your engine or drive train) so the idea that the proposals will stop bikers doing thier own maintenance doesn’t stack up.  Our Goverment is against this proposal anyway and BMF will continue to lobby and campaign against it so it might never happen.

The EU also proposes to make ABS compulsory on all large motorcycles but this will only affect new ones (in due course) and may also never quite happen.

The proposed compulsory On Board Diagnostic equipment will not monitor speed etc but merely keep a record of faults and “out of range” occurances as an aid to maintenance and repair.  The proposals include requiring manufacturers to allow bike owners to be able to access the information and the release fault codes and other maintenance information outside the manufacturers’ dealer networks, which will prevent them cornering the servicing market on their bikes.

So there are aspects which are a potential threat but some of the proposals are good ones.

You can read the BMF post in full (and comment on it if you wish) by clicking here.

Ian Cardwell has reported on the first 2012 Model GoldWings to arrive in UK  on the GoldWing Riders Forum where you can see more pictures and read about his impressions.

Ian started his GoldWing life with a GL1500, shortly before the GL1800 came out but he bought an Illusion Red GL1800 more or less as soon as they became available.  He has since owned a long series of them, changing his bike for a new one almost annually.  Maybe it speaks volumes that he won’t be rushing to buy one of these for himself.

As I commented in a previous aricle about the 2012 Model, when details first emerged in the US, it’s the re-styling of back end that’s the problem and having seen the bike in the flesh Ian seems to agree.  On a brighter note the updating of the satnav seems to be worthwhile and the new MP3 music player system is also useful.

During my interview with Steve Martindale, General Manager (Motorcycles) of HondaUK, he described the 2012 Model as a restyling of the GoldWing rather than a new model.

These two bikes are of course US spec bikes but they are Level Four versions (ABS, Navi System and Airbag) so broadly equivalent to the models which HondaUK will be bringing in.  No word of HondaUK’s price for the 2012 Model in UK (which they are not expecting to get for another 2 months or so) but these US Spec bikes were brought in as personal imports by their new owners, shipping and tax paid, for around £24,000.

Postscript:  HondaUK have confrimed that they will be showinga 2012 Model GoldWing at the NEC in November.

Similar to this available for under £8,000

Lots of Wingers buy a motorhomes or caravans these days, often because they want to combine their GoldWing hobby with going to a camping rally but feeling the need for a bit more comfort than a tent will provide. It’s all very well having youthful ideals of touring on your bike with everything you need on it, including a nubile wench and the sleeping accommodation you will be sharing, but times change – especially of course the capacity to attract (or cope with) a nubile wench.

We had owned a motorhome for a few years before I went back to biking and I hadn’t slept in a tent since my twenties.  Although when I bought my first GoldWing, a GL1200 Interstate, I did entertain fanciful ideas of loading it with camping gear and flexing my free spirits I never got farther than buying a small gas stove and a set of billycans, neither of which ever got used.  Management, as she’s referred to in our household, soon put paid to any thoughts I might have had that she might sleep in a tent; she’d done it once in a previous incarnation (and presumably as a nubile wench) and that was enough.

However we had sold our motorhome soon after buying the GoldWing because we weren’t really using it; when we weren’t visiting our then brand-new first grandchild we were touring on the bike with Elite Wings and therefore staying in hotels.  This seemed to me at the time to be the proper way to tour on a GoldWing; the bike was capable of carrying plenty but, especially if you were riding accompanied by the lady in your life, certainly not camping gear as well.  We needed all the available luggage space on the bike plus a trunk rack and bag just to carry our clothing etc.  We covered fairly long distances each day on enjoyable biking roads during our touring holidays with only the occasional rest day, so by the time we reached our night stops a shower followed by a beer or the other way around  was far more attractive than pitching a tent.

But  five years or so later we’d been there and done that with hotel-based touring and Management was no longer keen on riding at all, so we became more active with our local continues………

Building a GL1800 at Honda's Marysville Factory in Ohio - which had ended by March 2009

The official reason for closing down all motorcycle manufacturing at Marysville, Ohio, was that future development of motorcycles would involve technological advances which required co-location of all motorcycle manufacture in Japan for its efficient exploitation.  The Marysville Motorcycle Plant, built in 1979 and now a Parts Consolidation Area (i.e. a parts holding area) for the co-located car factory, was also said to be unsuitable and too costly to modernise to allow is to continue in use.

As I reported in a previous Article some time ago, a huge expansion of the Honda Factory at Kumamoto was constructed as part of this process of centralising motorcycle manufacture in Japan.  This announcement led to expectations of a completely new GoldWing for the 2012 Model Year, which of course we now know didn’t happen.

The 2012 Model has turned out to be merely, in the words of Steve Martindale, boss of HondaUK’s Motorcycle Department, “re-styling and a few adaptations”.   Honda, according to Steve, sees the big bike market shrinking rapidly in both America and Europe.  Having paid for the tooling of the GL1800, and seeing limited potential for continuing to develop the GoldWing concept anyway, it makes business sense to Steve to keep making the GL1800 without major changes for the foreseeable future.

In this context there would appear to have been no good and purely economic reason for incurring the costs and disruption of transferring the tooling for a largely unchanged model away from its main market, North America.  So it must have been done, primarily at least, for other reasons.  What were these I wonder?

Whether this analysis of the big bike market trend is valid for the long term remains to be seen and whether it makes business sense for Honda to put big touring bikes on the back burner at a time when their competition is doing the opposite is also debatable and I’ll be commenting on that  in more detail shortly in a separate article.

However something Steve said during our recent interview may shine a bit of light on the time scale and rationale of what is now, in the light of the absence – and maybe the abandonment – of a genuinely new GoldWing Model,  a puzzling decision to close the Marysville Factory.    If it wasn’t done to pave the way for new technology for the GoldWing and it cannot sensibly have been for purely economic reasons, why did Honda take responsibility for GoldWing development and manufacture away from Honda America?

And precisely when did they strip Honda America of these responsibilities?  That would also perhaps provide a clue to what had really been going on and what the real reasons were? continues………

Old and new, wear markers indicated by arrows

I’ve always taken a lead on these things from my motorcycling Guru, Ian Cardwell, and until recently my understanding of best practice from him was to change both tyres as soon as the rear tyre was flatting off enough to affect the handling, even though the tread depth was still good and the wear indicators had not been reached.

The idea behind this was that a flatted tyre rides up on to a ridge as you lean, reducing the area of contact with the road and thereby reducing grip.  You would start to notice this loss of grip on a roundabout where the back end would become prone to suddenly break away; not so much as to cause loss of control but you would feel an unnerving outwards twitch of the back end, or at least that’s what I tended to associate with a well worn rear tyre.

It’s OK to go for a better safe than sorry approach if you can afford it and if want to keep your tyres capable of their peak performance but I’m quite a bit more cost-conscious in retirement and I’m not really concerned about peak performance either. So when should I be changing tyres and do I really need to change both tyres at the same time?

The first picture shows a worn rear Avon Cobra tyre side by side with a new one of the same make, taken by Ian at my request when he told me that he had just worn out his rear tyre unexpectedly quickly on a touring holiday to Portugal.  The picture was taken at a bit of an angle which makes the tyres look distorted but this is an artefact which should be ignored.

What matters and what the photo shows is that the old tyre was flatted but only slightly and that two wear indicators are showing on the centreline, as marked by arrows.  The bottom one in the photo illustrates the wear marker as a narrow band bridging the rain groove, i.e. just beginning to appear, and the upper one shows a wider bridging band across the rain groove, so more wear.  Click on the photo to get an enlarged view of the photo which makes it easier to see these wear bands. 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………