Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

You don't have to own a white bike!

Dave Turvey and his wife Janet enjoyed the 2009 Mosel Tour so much they are doing it again, this time as Tour Leaders!

Same excellent Hotel with really great food,  nice rooms, a garage for the bikes and above all the same fabulous biking area which is only one day’s ride from your Channel Port.

This Tour is therefore an easy and attractive way for Wingers who haven”t been abroad before to give it a go.  It’s also suitable for experienced motorcycle tourers too of course; the combination of some Winger company and mutual support when you want it and the freedom to do your own thing when you feel like it too works very well.

Dave is crossing overnight Hull to Rotterdam but you can use a different crossing and meet up en route or at the Hotel if you prefer.  The Hotel rates are only slightly increased on last year, so it’s still very good value.

The Tour is open to any GoldWing of any age or type (solo, trike or combination) and you don’t need to be a member of any Club to join in.  Dave will lead the ride from Rotterdam to the Hotel and back, so you don’t need to be an ace navigator either.

The dates are June 5th to 14th 2010 and places on the Tour are limited, so contact Dave fairly quickly to express your interest in order not to be disappointed.  Further details and how to contact Dave can be found on his GoldWings North Wales  Chairman’s Blog.

If you would like to read about last year’s Tour to whet your appetite there is a series of four Articles about it on this Blog:  Part 1, Part 2, Part3 and Part 4.

The Open Road

The husband and wife team who operate Road Veda, offering both off-the-shelf and bespoke motorcycle tours in India, contacted me with information about their venture.  The tours combine tourism with motorcycling adventure under skilled supervision and with suitable backup.

All the tours start and end in Bangalore, which is easily accessible by direct, low cost  flights from UK with British Airways and other airlines.  Bangladore is now a large and modern city (it is a State Capital) but it’s origins are at least 1,000 years ago, so it combines, from a tourist viewpoint, ancient and very modern.  In recent times has become a hub for English-speaking Call Centres – so there will be no difficulty communicating when you get there either.

You fly out there, Road Veda supplies a suitable bike (a modern, off-road Enfield Bullet) teach you how to ride safely on Indian roads and then lead you on a tour which could be the adventure of a lifetime.

Tours can be as short as one day or last a couple of weeks, according to your appetite and budget.  A ten day tour can cost less than £1,000 per person, excluding flights but including bike, accommodation, food, guide, back up car etc.  There is a special offer for Wingers too (see below) so if you and a few friends fancy a bit of adventure before the nexct UK biking season, read on……. 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………

Having a good day!

Our second full day in the Mosel Region was forecast to be showery but we came down to a pleasant and clear morning for breakfast with a plan already formed to be on the road for a Ride Out without delay.

Rob Ellis, a seasoned Mosel tourer, had co-operated with me the night before in planning a circular ride for the group which would take in a useful sample of the area’s attractive places and also provide a gentle introduction to the riding opportunities provided by its magnificent roads.

We settled on a route heading across the river from Klotten via the continues………

Nice scenery, wonderful motorcycling

Three of us who live in the Preston Area met at my home to make the 130 miles afternoon journey to our Ferryport at Hull.  Since we were all fairly experienced riders, we simply rode as mates for the first half hour, making progress through the relatively slow-moving Saturday traffic on the A59 without difficulty – although Bill, who was bringing up the rear, did complain afterwards that he was having to leg it somewhat to keep up.

Up front I was sticking to the speed limit apart from brief spurts to complete an overtake with dispatch, so I didn’t think I would be hurrying continues………

It’s the time of year when many of us are booking touring holidays and other trips abroad although maybe, because of the weakness of the Pound against the Euro, not quite so many as last year. As readers of this Blog may be aware, I will be off to Germany for a week in mid June with a group of Wingers.  having a trip like that all booked up gives you something to really look forward to.

However, ensuring you have adequate insurance cover for a trip to Europe is very important.  You have to be a bit of an anorak to enjoy reading about insurance, so I won’t pretend this will be the most interesting or enjoyable Article on the Blog, but there are somethings you should probably know.  So here are a few tips to help you check that your cover is adequate.

I approached two of the major suppliers of insurance to the UK GoldWing market for up to date information and their helpful responses forms the basis of this Article.  Thanks therefore 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………