Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

Tempting but increasingly tight for a GoldWing?

I have referred to a helpful internet article written by Biker/Solicitor John Measures of Barratts Solicitors previously and this Article was provoked by another one of his.  Filtering past or through standing or slow moving traffic is common practice in UK but is it safe and is it legal?

With our busy and often traffic-clogged roads, the option to filter through standing or slow moving traffic is a potentially valuable aspect of life on two wheels, providing you have the confidence to do it and the perceptiveness to appreciate when it’s a bit too risky.

Not all GoldWing riders are confident enough to take their big bike into the relatively narrow gaps which filtering often involves but plenty are.  When I get the chance to make progress while cars and trucks are stuck in traffic I do so, with contentment which sometimes verges on smugness at my good fortune at being a motorcyclist.  Not only am I riding continues………

Getting this close for a photograph was not ideal

Motorcyclists are more vulnerable than most other road users, who are usually surrounded these days by a protective steel cage, within which multiple airbags are poised to come to their aid if they have a serious collision, even from the side.  So it makes sense for a motorcyclist to feel relatively vulnerable.  Ride a motorcycle like everyone else on the road is actively trying to kill you, so they say.  And sometimes of course that’s precisely what someone is trying to do, even if he or she doesn’t quite realise it.

I was attacked (the only word for it) by a car driver recently who decided he needed to teach me a lesson of some sort by passing very close and cutting in sharply at high speed.  He passed within less than two feet of me and was clearly doing it quite deliberately.  There had been no previous encounter or altercation, so presumably it was because I had dared to be on his road and in his way.  I wasn’t riding as fast as he was driving and I had therefore put him to the trouble of changing lanes to overtake me, so maybe that was it.

But would there be any point in reporting it? Would the police be interested? continues………

Thanks to bifocals, one of us could see where we were going

I’ve never been on a Track Day of the sort you see advertised to UK motorcyclists, when you pay a fee to take your bike on to a race circuit and maybe get some tuition, the idea being to let you explore or develop racing-type skills.  That sort of thing might appeal to sports bike riders but a GoldWing on a race circuit?   I didn’t think so.

I had taken the opportunity to ride my Wing around the Nurnburgring during one of its public access sessions a few years ago when I was touring in the Mosel with some other riders who were keen to do it, but that was a one-off experience of just two laps; the first one in a state of high anxiety getting used to keeping out of the way of the really high speed lunatics among the high volumes of traffic on the circuit and the second one less terrified and experiencing the beginnings of enjoyment of what only a race circuit can provide – bends and sequences of bends which have been specifically designed to provide challenging riding.

The Nurnburgring during public sessions is something of a madhouse and I have no desire to do it again.  But the opportunity to ride on a race circuit for a whole day, free of charge and without having to cope with lots of other traffic on it, well that’s a different matter altogether.  I jumped at the chance.

There are however no free lunches in this world so there was of course a catch.  Access to the circuit for continues………

Good for the motorcycling soul

My first set of confessions about what I have learned by frightening myself riding my GoldWing seems to have pushed viewing figures for this Blog to a new high, over 4,500 unique visits last week which is very gratifying, thank you all.

So it presumably struck a bit of a chord with some of you readers out there, if only to give those of you who don’t suffer any such qualms an opportunity to feel a bit  superior.  The subject may therefore be worth developing a bit more – and my buttocks have, if nothing else, gathered enough experience of motorcycling clenches to provide plenty to write about.

Maybe there are Wingers out there who did all the bike-dropping they needed to do or learned all they need to learn before treating themselves to a GoldWing, but generally speaking there are Wingers who admit to having dropped their bike and Wingers who pretend they have never done so.

So let’s be honest with ourselves; none of us are infallible and if we want to minimise the risk of undignified wobbles and horizontal parking, we need to make sure we understand what can go wrong and how to avoid it.  Then it’s simply a matter of eternal vigilance and sustained concentration when you are riding, as usual!

Having established that there is interest among my Blog Viewers in basic riding skills, or at least in me owning up to failures of skill, I might as well bare my soul by confessing to difficulties I have had with continues………

Despite pulling right up to the line and a well trimmed hedge, this driver's view is still obstructed

Many of us will have had a break from riding over the winter and I had a longer break than usual myself this time, thanks to a bit of surgery followed by a lot more snow and ice ( and therefore salt) than usual.  So coming back to riding might involve for some of you, as it always seems to do for me, recovering riding skills which have gone a bit rusty.

Setting off for the first ride never seems to bother me and it feels quite natural to get back on the bike and start riding it again.  So I am perhaps fortunate in rarely suffering any huge crisis of confidence, although it did happen to me one Spring – ironically after passing my Advanced Riding Test the previous November.  I really did have to go back to basics that year and rebuild confidence in my basic handling skills that year.  Mind you I was still riding my GL1200SEi that year and compared to a GL1800 it is a bit of a handful.  Fortunately that sort of major loss of confidence continues………

Shall we turn right next then chaps?

The Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team, who came to Blackpool for the GoldWing Light Parade in 2008 to display for us, are alive and kicking and they are still World Champions too partly, as i recall, because no one has been brave enough to challenge them for a while.

We became friends with the four Team Members who came over to UK in 2008 and have stayed in contact ever since.   My wife and I (and other members of the Light Parade Organising Team) have met up with them whenever we’ve been in Florida on holiday ever since and their Captain, Randy Rodriguez, will be coming back to UK again for this year’s Parade in  September and bringing his wife, Cat, too.  So we look forward to seeing at least two of them in Blackpool again.

Not as a Display Team this time unfortunately and not to give a Display, but at least Randy will be here and 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………