Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

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………

Never mind, just pick it up again! It's not difficult

It’s quite normal to approach a GoldWing with sense of anxiety about its weight, wondering how on earth you could pick it up again if you dropped it.

This Page aims to give you confidence that although of course GoldWings can be dropped, there are ways to minimise damage (there is usually none or very little) and they can be picked up by a rider without assistance, as the demonstrations at last year’s Blackpool Light Parade showed.

Indeed one of the things you have to beware of when you are picking up a Wing is helpful bystanders getting too enthusiastic about helping – and doing unnecessary damage continues………

Good roads, well signposted - and really nice views

Click on any picture for a full size image.

For our second Riding Day in the Mosel I offered the group a choice.   I would lead a ride aimed at enjoying some of the Area’s excellent riding roads, which would be a rider’s day out rather than a tourist day, not all hard and fast riding, but an opportunity to ride at pace on good roads for its own sake rather than a leisurely scenic tour.

The alternative would be to spend time as a motorcycling tourist in some nice tourist places, such as Bern Kastel, an attractive town an hour or so up river which is both easy to find and has easy bike parking when you get there.

All the couples chose the tourist option (can’t think why!) leaving continues………

It takes a lot of work to earn the right to wear one of these

On a recent holiday to Florida I had the opportunity to renew friendships made at last year’s Blackpool Light Parade, when the Team Captain and three other Team Riders came over to show us their skills. They ‘re a great bunch to spend time with.

This further contact also gave me the opportunity to learn more of how they go about things, including how they train up new Team Riders. Training to be a Drill Team Rider is quite a complex and prolonged business and building up the level of skill and consistency, especially consistency, takes quite a while.

The Team, still the reigning World Champions, is thriving and busier than ever, with a programme of twenty or so Displays planned for this year.  And in between Display weekends, a regular weekly Practice Session gets a pretty full turn out ever time, so one way and another getting involved with the Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team takes up most of a rider’s leisure time.  They’re off to Americade this week, which is continues………

There's Group Riding and there's GROUP RIDING! The Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team at the 2008 Light Parade

This is the final part of this series of Articles and it’s mostly about how to lead a group ride.  It’s a bit long in order to cover the necessary ground, so if you find it too long to be bothered with please forgive me – and you might still want to read the Summary I have written at the end, which provides a concise summary of the whole subject in the form of a checklist, from which you can choose the things which you think are important.

And by the way this series of Articles was always intended to be a basis for discussion and suggestion, so if you have any experiences or ideas which other Wingers could benefit, or of course criticisms of the ideas I have put forward, please add them as comments.

Leading a group ride can be very satisfying and there are perks – for example continues………

Limited relevance but it is a nice picture! Hardknott Pass last week; it focuses the mind on safety very effectively!

Riding in a group doesn’t absolve any individual rider of the responsibility for handling his own bike safely at all times and this must be his top priority.  But when you are part of a group it helps if everyone does their bit to care for other riders in the group whenever they can too – and of course everyone usually does this, which is what makes the companionship of group riding so valuable and group riding so enjoyable.

So there is a potential conflict between being part of a group ride and also concentrating sufficiently on your own safety, so you need to avoid any situation in which you might feel pressure to sacrifice your own safety because you are thinking of the group. And it’s not just the leader and Sweeper who are at risk, as the following sad story illustrates. continues………

There's more than one way of dropping off

Drop Offs are a way of marking a turning point on the group’s route so that the riders can make the turn reliably, even when they are not in sight of each other as they approach it.   Dropping Off means that a rider stops his bike near the turning point where he can be seen by other riders as they approach in order to indicate the direction to turn.

Even if a group has radio communication between every bike, using a drop off system is the only reliable way to keep a group together, because even the best bike-to-bike radios only have a relatively short range.  Drop Offs cannot be used on motorways and nor, strictly speaking, on Clearways and Red Routes, but on all other roads a drop off system provides an excellent way of keeping a group of bikes on route.

Using a drop off system has the great advantage of liberating riders continues………

A Staggered Formation works well on motorways but don't forget to make room to allow other road users to cross your lane to enter or leave the motorway

The time-honoured way of keeping a Group Ride together, or at least getting them all to stay on route so they can meet up again at the next planned stop, is a system of marking turns on the route by getting a bike to halt at a turning point, so that the other bikes will know which way to turn. In other words a “Drop Off” system. There are several variations on drop off systems and I will come back to that subject in more detail later, in a future Article in this series. This one concentrates on motorway group riding, when of course drop offs cannot be used because it is both illegal and highly dangerous to stop on a motorway – so a very different approach is needed.

A short hop on a motorway in your home locality for your regular group of rider presents relatively little difficulty, although there are potential problems, so there is little need for elaborate planning. But the principles of group riding on motorways are the same however long or short your journey might be, and if you are part of a group which is trying to make a ferry deadline to get back to UK you might face quite a long motorway slog across what is in some parts of Europe quite a complex network of motorways. And then you really will need to give some thought to how to keep your group together.

The only reliable way I know of keeping a group together on motorways requires each rider’s willingness to keep up, willingness to keep a reliable eye on the bike immediately behind (so no swapping around the riding order, so no overtaking) and an understanding of what to do if the bike following you drops back or disappears altogether – which is to slow down, keep it in view for as long as possible, so the Leader gets to know by the knock on slowing down of the whole group that something is up. Of course if you are touch with the Leader by radio you can tell him that way, but not all bikes, and not even all GoldWings have bike-to-bike radios.

Slowing down deliberately should have a fairly rapid continues………

An extreme test of group riding skills -start of the 7,000 bike Wirral Egg Run!

Group riding is popular among Wingers; it can involve anything from two or three bikes going out for an afternoon in their local area to an adventurous European tour for a dozen or more bikes and sometime huge group rides like the Blackpool GoldWing Light Parade, which has involved over 300 bikes.  Large parades like that one require a special type of planning which is beyond the scope of this Article but the other two examples are fairly common, indeed I will be doing both types this coming year, so it’s worth considering how those can best and most safely conducted.

Is there a best way of doing group riding?  Some people seem to think so; they have their continues………

Ian and Denise Cardwell, Founders of Elite-Wings (by the way they didn't ride their bike to the top of this!)

Elite-Wings was formed back in 2001 with just two couples, myself and wife Denise and another couple, Derek and Christine.  After buying a GoldWing in 1998 we had all joined an existing GoldWing club but we were disappointed with what was on offer.  We didn’t want to do tents & camping, which was basically all the existing club seemed to do; we wanted nice long touring rides to new places and a decent standard of overnight accommodation en route.

It became clear that nothing like this was on the agenda of the existing Club or ever likely to be, so we decided to do our own thing.

The very first Elite-Wings event in 2001 was continues………