Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

One switch panel bought, one hand made

Some accessories come with their own switch, some don’t.  Even switches which come with a kit may or may not be suitable to adorn a GoldWing, so for most GoldWing accessories and display lighting it will be necessary to choose and install your own switch or switches.

Although GoldWings are big bikes and most of them have large areas of dashboard available, installing switches tidily,  especially if they need to be in a location where they can be used conveniently and safely while riding, is not always straightforward.

Choosing the type and location of switches for your accessories is worth careful thought, especially if you might be installing more accessories requiring switches later.  In other words don’t plonk your first switch in the most obviously easy and/or attractive place on the bike, in case you regret it later.

We are all inclined, when we get a GoldWing which is new to us, whether or not it’s brand new, to give little or no thought to its resale value, even though in practice we are unlikely to keep it for ever.  So we should give at least a little thought to the implications of what we do for our bike’s resale value, especially if continues………

Fog light, Ring of Fire and lots of LEDs

Under the left glove box of many a GoldWing is a a tangle of unsecured electrical cables and dodgy connections. Wingers are better at some things than others and accessory wiring isn’t always one of them. This article provides some guidance on safe and tidy ways to add accessories and display lighting to your GoldWing’s electrics.

Connecting 12 volt accessories or lighting to a GoldWing is not especially dangerous or difficult and it’s well within the capacity of a reasonably practical individual to do it, and to do it without creating a “rats nest” of loose wires and dodgy connections.

It takes more care and trouble to do it properly and it helps if you have learned some of the basic do’s and dont’s of auto-electrical work, but it isn’t rocket science and any reasonably practical individual can make a decent enough job providing he (or she) takes the trouble to learn.

It is however worth mentioning that even though low voltage (only 12 volts) circuits on motorcycles cannot cause hazardous electrical shocks, short circuits and component failures can cause electrical continues………

Bill & Barb with Bike & Trophies

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We all like to think our own GoldWing is special, i.e. well kept, tastefully accessorised and of course well ridden.  Most GoldWings  are reasonably well kept and tastefully accessorised and many are well ridden.  But a few of them, just a few, are exceptional.

Bill Squires’s GL1800 is an exceptional bike for all sorts of reasons.  It’s a real eye-catcher.

This bike is the one they all pick out as special from a line of GoldWings, whether they are Wingers themselves or members of the public.

Partly it’s because Bill’s bike is always immaculately clean and well polished, but it’s also exceptionally well embellished with shiny bits and it’s got all sorts of gadgets, some of which are one-off, made by Bill himself.  Above all it’s stunningly eye-catching.  Wherever awards or prizes are being offered, Bill’s bike is at the very least in with a chance. continues………

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Oh dear, Big Brother Honda seems to be at it again, chucking a spanner in the works of a seemingly harmless service which benefits GoldWing riders, especially of the older models, which Honda no longer supports itself.

The well known GoldWingDocs reference and bulletin website has long been a very useful internet source of technical reference material for GoldWings, especially for older models, for which all sorts of Service and other Manuals are available for downloading free of charge.

There is some useful information on current models too, for example a complete lest of service bulletins (including recalls) for the GL1800.

Maybe that’s what Honda really objects to; the stuff on current models.  It’s difficult to see what continues………

Crash Testing a GL1800 Airbag System

Honda introduced the first ever motorcycle airbag system in 2006 as an update, and arguably a considerable upgrade of the GL1800 GoldWing. The design and testing effort which went into this development must have been enormous; getting the balance right, so the Airbag goes off when it needs to but not otherwise, is quite an engineering feat.

Honda’s Airbag System is designed to save riders’ lives and it appears genuinely to have done so on at least one occasion already, but it is an expensive addition and it adds significant extra weight. And is there a risk that it could go off inappropriately while riding, in which a crash would almost certainly be caused.  Is it a vital safety aid, is it worthwhile if you can afford it – or would GoldWing riders be as well choosing (in North America at least, where they have a choice) the lighter, cheaper, non-airbag versions of the GL1800 anyway, regardless of budget?

How can an airbag system work safely and reliably on a motorcycle? continues………

Honda’s new motorcycle mega-factory, built on its huge Kumamoto Site in Japan, is already producing bikes, indeed that’s where the new VFR1200, unveiled in UK February 14th, is being built.

But Honda has announced to its US Dealers that production of GoldWings will not start at Kumamoto until 2011 and that the GoldWings to be made there will be designated a 2012 Model – indicating that the (presumed) new design is unlikely to be unveiled before late 2011.

Quite what this means for UK Wingers remains to be seen because although it is now virtually certain that a new model GoldWing will be on sale somewhere in the world for the 2012 Model Year, it may not be available in Europe until a year or so later, so 2013 – or maybe not at all.

Meanwhile HondaUK has a stock of 200 or so GL1800s in UK, all of which were manufactured at Maryville Ohio before that Factory closed in March 2009, which it will use to fill what will hopefully be a gap rather than the end of a UK model line.  These stockpiled GL1800s include some in a new colour (or at least new for UK) called continues………

Well designed and well made

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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………

Waiting for a second lease of life - Steve';s GL1000

I recently was watching TV with the family, in fact it was the film Charlie’s Angel’s to be honest and I was trying to compare it to the original series in the 70’s (That’s my excuse anyway!).  As it turned out it was a good film, the kids loved it and it had some excellent songs on the soundtrack too.

But what grabbed my attention was a song playing in the background during the restaurant scene.  I had heard it so many times but never knew who sung it.  All I knew was it was sung in Japanese and the tune had been playing over in my mind again and again for years.  It eventually got to the stage in the film where I was eagerly reading down the credits to find out the song title, but it was not there!

Anyhow a few days later I was on line and I thought I would check out the soundtrack through Amazon (being a bit of a computer nerd) and to my dismay the song was not listed on the movie soundtrack CD.   I played the 25 second previews of each track and began to get really frustrated.

So the next step was to Google it and eventually 2 hours later I had found the song I’d been searching for.  Amazing what you find with a little perseverance and patience.  It is called “Ue O Muite Aruko”, or in English “I look up when I walk” and was originally continues………

Ian astride a 2001 GL1800 shod with early Bridgestones

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To put my experiences and views into context, I’ve ridden Goldwings continuously and exclusively since 1998 and I am now on my seventh. The first Wing was a GL1500SE but the rest have all been GL1800s, all US models and all with ABS – as of course do all UK model GL1800s.

I’ve ridden upwards of 160,000miles on a Wing, some of it in straight lines but as much as possible on non-motorway roads.  I enjoy exploiting the excellent handling of a GL1800 and I ride to make progress more often than I dawdle along.  So my tyres are sometimes working hard for their living.

I have used tyres from four different manufacturers including two different designs of tyre from two of them, so continues………

Oh dear, hit a tree

In a previous Article on this Blog I wrote about my adventures using a motorhome as a base for GoldWing touring, towing the bike in a trailer in order to enjoy exploring the Alps or some other distant motorcycling area with the advantage of sleeping in your own bed every night.

Unfortunately my motorhome, a Hymer, suffered minor damage a while ago and I had to get it fixed.  The firm who did the repair, Motorhomes UK Ltd,  did such a good job at such a reasonable price that I thought they deserved a bit of public praise.

My “van” has a fibreglass moulding across the top rear and, not uncommonly with production mouldings, must have had an air bubble under the gel coat on the corner, where the underlying woven rovings had not been pressed firmly into contact when it was being constructed.  The result was a very thin and fragile gel coat skin over a hole which was prone to damage.  From feint witness marks near the hole it was probably contact with a tree branch which broke the gel coat “roof” of this hole.  Whatever it was it needed repairing. continues………