Steve with his "company wheels" - a GL1800

The interview which I was offered some time ago with Steve Martindale, boss man of HondaUK Motorcycles, took place yesterday at Blackpool Honda.  There had been plans for us to meet some weeks ago but these fell foul of a diary clash and such is Steve’s busy schedule that there was quite a wait to reschedule it.

But it was certainly worth the wait.  I took Bob Summers, Chairman of the Federation of UK GoldWing Clubs, with me and Steve was accompanied by his Area Sales Rep for the North West, Pete Swift.  Bob and I enjoyed a very amicable and informative two hours or so in very good, fellow-biker company and learned a great deal.  Steve was, as I had been led to expect, remarkably open and forthright.

He clearly knows his GoldWings and his affection for his own GL1800, which he rides extensively, and his considerable personal biking enthusiasm and experience all shone through.  He’s nobody’s fool and he’s also obviously capable of being tough when businesslike toughness is called for, but he also turned out to be the sort of man you would enjoy doing some riding with and getting to know personally.

I recorded the interview and because it lasted over two hours it’s going to take me a long time to transcribe and prepare it all for publication – and it will probably need to be split into more than one Blog article, such was the scope of what we discussed.  I had a list of prepared questions but our four way conversation quickly took its own direction and lots of extra stuff came out too.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for the opportunity to read about it but it’s in the bag (or rather on the digital recorder, so I did manage to press the right buttons) and it will be published as soon as practicable.

Steve was also remarkably open and frank about the GoldWing’s future in UK.  Bob and I both left Blackpool Honda feeling quite a buzz; it was quite an experience, even allowing for the fact that as a relative newcomer to internet journalism I’d not done this sort of thing before.

Honda clearly wants to develop good communications and good relations with the bikers who ride its products – and to listen to their ideas and understand what’s on their wish lists.  Bob and I came away understanding a lot better than we did how the various Honda owners clubs, including GoldWing clubs, can help with all this rather than get in the way or end up being ignored.

We covered an awful lot of ground, including insider information about Honda’s testing arrangements and the daunting experiences which Steve has faced himself taking part in some of them – and the benefit to his own riding of off road experience, although of course not on his GL1800.  He’s very much a hands-on biker boss rather than a mere bean-counting “suit”.  He can count beans as well and he takes a primarily businesslike view of things, as his job requires but he’s a biker too and he still uses his tool kit; he’s got a CB750 rebuild project in progress at home in his garage.

You’ll be able to read about it all in much more detail on this Blog shortly.  And thank you readers, by the way, for helping me prepare for this interview by suggesting questions which I should ask.

Honda Staff at their Slough HQ

Staff at Honda’s UK head office came out in force today to take part in a range of two-wheel activities, in support of the annual National Ride To Work Day.

More than fifty riders, many carrying a colleague as a pillion, rode their various Honda machines into the Company’s Head Office near Slough, where everyone gathered for a group photograph and ‘bikers’ breakfast’, joined by hundreds of non-rider colleagues from both the car and power equipment areas within the business as well.

Honda motorcycle models spanning over 30 years, from the Honda 400 Four Supersport from the late 1970s, to a GoldWing took part – highlighting Honda’s diverse range of scooters and motorcycles as well as their impressive longevity in engineering as well as appeal.  (This is based on a Honda Press Release – you’d never guess would you!)

Other staff took the opportunity to experience life on two wheels for the first time either by taking a continues………

LH cam belt and its tensioner roller

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

I mentioned in an earlier article that Gloria, the GL1200 Aspencade SEi which I couldn’t bear to part with when I got a GL1800, was having some life breathed back into her after a period of storage – and that I would describe how I got on changing the cam belts, which for me was going to be a first time experience.

You can read the original article about Gloria, just how special she is and how she got her name, by clicking here.

GL1000, GL1100 and GL1200 GoldWings have exactly the same cam belts at the front of the engine.  They are toothed rubber/fabric belts and they need replacing periodically, including after an engine has been stationary in storage for a long period.  Gloria had been in storage for over three years without the engine turning, so she needed new belts anyway.  As it happens her belts were nearly fifteen years old, so they needed replacing for that reason too, even though they had only done about 12,000 miles.

Changing belts is not rocket science but it comes into the league of DIY mechanic stuff into which I have only very occasionally ventured and not at all for many years.  But having spent money on a hydraulic motorcycle bench as well as having all the necessary tools like a torque wrench, I wanted to do it myself if I could.  My friend Bill had done his belts on a GL1500 and should therefore be able to advise and help if necessary – and I’d changed the timing chains on a V8 Triumph Stag engine in the dim and distant past, so it should be possible providing I was careful.

I also took the precaution of phoning another friend for advice, Graham Whitaker, who is a professional continues………

The 1986 GL1200 Aspencade SEi

One of the entertainments available in our household is that her indoors, or Management, as she seems to like being called, names each new vehicle we acquire – and motorcycles are no exception.

Our first GoldWing she named Gordon, after Flash Gordon, so he was male, but the gender score was evened up by calling the second one Gloria, and therefore female.  Then along came Ruby, our first GL1800, because she was red, then Ruby Two, a direct replacement a year later, courtesy of HondaUK as a result of the frame weld recall.  Finally, in 2008, we imported a US specification Airbag Model GL1800 in Pearl White, so she’s called Pearly.  So although she also named the Honda C90 we had for a while Kevin, the girls have it by a long way.  Silly really, especially Pearly, but when you’re married you have to roll with this sort of thing.

As it happens however the name Gloria does seem to suit my Aspencade SEi and this is her story, or rather part of it, the story of a bike which I couldn’t bear to part with when the GL1800 came along, so that although she was set aside and stored for a while, is now emerging from hibernation for a new lease of life.

My first GoldWing was a 1984 GL1200 Interstate, i.e. a parallel import, although of course I didn’t know continues………

Steve Martindale, General Manager (Motorcycles) HondaUK

Sometime this month I will be interviewing Steve Martindale, who is General Manager (Motorcycles) HondaUK, as the basis of an article for this Blog.

Steve started his working life as a Technician Apprentice in Bolton and he still like restoring old bikes as a hobby but he’s been in management since his early 20s and has been with Honda for many years, in  a variety of increasingly senior jobs.  He’s been in his present job since 2007 and he is also a Director of the Motorcycle Industry Association, so he’s quite a big wheel within the motorcycle industry as well as HondaUK.  And he rides a GoldWing as his Company Bike.

As far as I’m aware this is the first interview which Steve or any other other senior HondaUK Manager will have given specifically for the benefit of the UK GoldWing community, so it’s quite an opportunity.

To make the best of it I need your help.

There are quite a few questions I can think of myself but this is an opportunity for the UK GoldWing community as a whole to put their concerns (and suggestions) to a really top man in HondaUK, so it’s important that we all contribute.  I can’t guarantee to use absolutely every question I receive of course but I will try to ask a representative selection.

There are no restrictions on what you can ask, although I don’t imagine for one minute that Steve will be free to reveal absolutely all, so asking for precise details of the design ideas for the next GoldWing will be unrealistic.  But HondaUK appreciates that communications with GoldWing owners in the UK need improving so Steve may be willing to be much more open about some things than we’ve been used to from HondaUK in the past and it’s certainly a very hopeful sign that he has agreed to be interviewed.

Please don’t assume that someone else will suggest the question which comes to your mind – tell me your question for Steve, so it doesn’t get missed!

You may send me as many questions for Steve as you like but please send them separately – i.e. use the Contact Page once for your first question, again for your second question and so on.

You are welcome to Comment on this article as on any article on the Blog, but for practical I need your questions for Steve to be sent to me using the Contact page.

Management holding Swing Arm, confident that it will go into the suitcase

Swinging arms for Gl1500s are apparently hard to come by in UK these days, so when Ian Duxbury’s Green 1997 failed its MOT because the swinging arm was badly corroded, he was in something of a pickle.

Only the occasional GL1500 is being converted to a trike in UK these days and this was the principal source of used replacement parts.  A new replacement swing arm from Honda costs around £800 which is almost staggeringly expensive, even by Honda standards.  The prospects for Ian of getting his bike back on the road in any reasonable timescale was not looking at all good.

But a chance mention of Ian’s difficulty during a phone call yesterday evening back to UK from Florida, where I am currently on a short holiday, started off something of an impromptu international rescue mission.  A brand new replacement swing arm will be flying back to UK with us this evening and with luck Ian’s bike will be back on the road by the weekend.

Our host in Florida, Randy Rodriguez, is both Captain of the Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team and a resourceful man.  On the basis of a casual mention on my part of Ian’s difficulties along the lines of “I don’t suppose that …” and he was on the trail.   Smitty, another Drill Team Member who also came over for the 2008 Blackpool Light Parade was the first man Randy called because he works as an Insurance Loss Adjuster and would therefore probably at least know where to start looking for used parts.

Swing arms don’t corrode in the Florida climate the way they do in UK so there was a fair chance that someone, somewhere would have one from an accident-damaged bike.  The question was could we locate one in the short time available – I was due to fly back to UK within 24 hours and this was the evening of Easter Monday, a public holiday in UK and, as I expected, a time when Floridians would also be in vacation weekend mode.  Not true; Americans celebrate Easter Sunday as a special religious day but Good Friday and Easter Monday are ordinary working days.

Smitty suggested ringing around the trike builders rather than the bike breakers to start with, since there are plenty of those in Florida and and they might just have a whole pile of used swing arms sitting in a corner waiting to be scrapped.  It was too late to start calling them that evening but an internet search soon yielded a list of telephone numbers and as the working day started this morning, Randy was on the phone.

There were a few abortive calls, for example to a nice lady who explained that her husband, who used to build trikes, had passed a way so the business was closed down.  Another call was answered by a gruff gentleman who said simply that “We don’t have no Honda parts” and put the phone down.  Oh dear, he was clearly a Harley trike builder.

Eventually however Randy located a trike builder an hour or so’s drive from his home in Port St John on the Space Coast.  There was a trike builder in deepest rural Florida continues………

Illustrating the cut and cupping, visible here as a sharper edge on one side of the valleys of the tread pattern. The grey lines are merely scratch marks.

CLICK ON AN IMAGR FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW

I mentioned in a recent article that when my bike had its first MOT Test recently it was discovered that the front tyre had been fitted the wrong way around.  Apart from a bit of cupping on the edge of the tread pattern the tyre didn’t seem to have suffered any obvious damage and when I rode the bike home – the Dealer’s Techie having kindly re-fitted the tyre the right way round – it seems to handle very well, slightly better than it had on the way there.

I did however take the precaution of ringing Graham Matcham, a contact at Coopers Tyres (the manufacturers of Avon Tyres) to take advice – expecting to be advised not to take any risks and to replace it.

By this time there were two deepish curved circumferential cuts in the tyre too, where I had run over some road debris which suddenly appeared from under a car I was shaping up to overtake, probably a chunk of exhaust system because it sounded like a collapsing metal can as I ran over it.

At Graham’s suggestion I sent photos of the tread cuts to Graham and waited somewhat gloomily for his continues………

Billet valve on a GL1500 wheel

Some of you GL 1500 owners out there may be  aware that the design of the tyre valves on the GL1500 was not one of Honda’s better engineering achievements.   You could even say that they recognised a weakness themselves by providing a separate supporting clip, was to be used in conjunction with the rubber valve itself.

The main problem with the design was that a significant unsupported portion of metal was located at the point on the wheel exactly where it would be subjected to the greatest rotational forces. Although a supporting clip was provided as part of the overall design, it was not uncommon to find that these could work their way loose and disappear, leaving the valve to do its own flexible thing.

Couple this with the natural tendency of rubber to perish after a while, and you had the potential for a very effective time bomb. After a while, the rubber seal at the base of the valve would have had enough of all this extra work and would give up the ghost. Not something that you’d want to happen whilst riding the M6 at 70mph with your significant other on the back.  This risk was brought home to me forcibly this week.  I’d been using my Wing to commute to work, my car being off the road for a while and I’d diligently checked water, oil, tyres, etc, weekly.  All seemed well. continues………

During the past two weeks or so, while the Blog’s had to do without me except for approving the odd Comment, I hadn’t actually been transported to the colonies for a stint of hard labour, it just felt a bit like it. I was merely in Suffolk, without broadband internet access, finishing off a DIY project.

It’s not Suffolk’s fault that I felt this way of course, they do have broadband, and electricity and stuff like that, and Adnams local beverages are very palatable; it was just the grind of doing a lot of odd jobs and having to de-clutter the accumulated unnecessaries of ten years of occupation, when I wanted to be out on the bike.  Driving around the country lanes in Suffolk, which are not all flat and boring, quite the opposite, made it even worse; the weather was good and these were good biking roads – it was purgatory!

But the bike was in Lancashire and despite my successful struggle, eventually, to re-tax it, the bike needed to have an MOT before my riding season could get going properly.  This was top of the list of things to do as soon as I got back home.

Well, a three year old GL1800 with only 13,000 miles on the clock which has been properly serviced regularly serviced would take that in its stride wouldn’t it? continues………

Discordant or what?

As a very committed GoldWing fan (I’ve got three of them) it’s almost heartbreaking to have to write this report.

The developments in the 2012 Model GoldWing are not entirely without merit but the response from Wingers and motorcyclists generally on the internet forums to the release of the first pictures and information has been almost entirely unfavourable.  In many cases it’s been damning.

The new saddlebags are widely seen as a discordant mismatch with the trunk.

Although some see beauty in the re-shaped front fairing, the majority view is that it does little or nothing to improve the bike’s appearance and it looks almost like like a lift from BMW’s styling manual.  Likewise the new saddlebags look to many like a patched on set from the Victory or Harley parts department. 

A GL1500 trunk would match the new saddlebags better?

At least everyone seems to like the re-shaped windshield garnish, which shows that re-styling of an existing model can compliment the original styling approach. What a pity that quality of design effort comes across only in this minor element of the 2012 GoldWing’s features.

Electronically the “new” Model is widely seen as disappointing too, with the changes boiling down to sorting (hopefully) the serious design weaknesses of the original GL1800 sat-nav system and provision for a digital music player, the latter being something of a catch-up exercise, after-market accessory suppliers having beaten Honda to it by a couple of years or so.

What on earth have Honda’s designers been doing over the ten years since the GL1800 was launched, while BMW’s designers were working on a genuinely innovative replacement for their K12ooLT? continues………