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.

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………

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………

Parts supplied

CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT

Having read many good reviews about fork braces for the GL1500, it seemed like a good idea to fit one to my trusty Wing.  As my birthday was also approaching, this was a golden opportunity not to be missed when family asked “What do you want for your birthday?”

The question was, though, which one?

The front runner in the brace stakes seemed to be the Superbrace which has been around for a little while, but appeared to have the disadvantage of not allowing the chrome cover above the mudguard (fender?) to fully sit home after fitting, but leaving an ⅛” gap between the two.

Searching a well known auction site, (oh, go on then, Ebay), revealed an alternative in the shape of the Blackwing Brace.  Having read the description of the brace and its advantages over its competitors, I was beginning to warm to the idea.

Further digging showed there to be a video on You Tube which demonstrated the fitting of the brace with the absolute minimum of dismantling and in less than approx 15 minutes.

So, the choice was made and my brace was duly ordered (thanks, Lynette and son, Alex!) and I settled back to eagerly await its arrival. This, I’m pleased to say, happened today, but I should point out just 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………

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………

Just as Honda is in prospect catching up with the ingenuity of after-market suppliers by providing connectivity for digital music players,  the after-market is jumping ahead again by providing improved bike-to-bike communication options.

BikeMP3, a Florida-based Company, has released a new black box gadget which will allow an alternative (and cheaper) CB radio to be installed on to GL1800s.  It uses the same plug-in connections as the OEM CB radio and makes the bike think that an OEM CB radio is present, allowing the bike’s display and controls to behave accordingly.

But there’s more to it.  This black box (pictured) adds very useful additional functionality by allowing alternative radios to be connected to the bike, such as a PMR radio or indeed any of a wide range of hand held radios, either as well as or instead of a CB radio module, which they also supply.   You can connect both the CB and your PMR (or other hand held) radio at the same time and have both of them working at at the same time if you wish.  The bike’s PTT switch will trigger both and reception from both will be heard over the intercom too.

You can also connect the audio output from a sat-nav set to your bike’s intercom into the same black box, to listen to the navigational guidance.  And if your sat-nav has Bluetooth, for example Garmin Street Pilot 2820 or the Zumo, you can connect for speech as well as listening, which will allow you to take and make calls on your Bluetooth mobile phone without taking your helmet off.  You can take calls on the move if you want to.

If your hand held radio will take this type of plug, you're in business

This new product does not solve all bike-to-bike communications for UK Wingers because of course it’s not designed to be used on UK Spec GoldWings, which lack the requisite connectors and controls.

And the CB radio module which compliments the GL2WAY (and comes with if you buy the system package) is an AM Band CB.  These are illegal for use in UK although AM CBs are nevertheless commonly used by UK Wingers and Italian truckers even use illegally boosted AM CBs – and they don’t get caught either because no one enforces this law.

The brains behind BikeMP3 is an expatriate Brit called Pete and I rang him about his clever new device to talk through the problems which UK Wingers have installing CB on their bikes and he came across as both well-informed and helpful.  He’s even prepared to look at developing an adaptation of his device which will connect to a European spec GL1800.  The UK market for GL1800s is of course pitifully small but such a device would be saleable across the whole of Europe, which does perhaps have a GL1800 market big enough to be worth bothering with.

BikeMP3 was the Company which first developed a digital music player to replace the Hondaline CD 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………