Well designed and well made
CLICK ON ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGEMENT
Wheel chocks, or wheel grabs, as some riders prefer to call them, can be very useful in a garage as well as for mounting a bike on a trailer for transportation, for which they make life much easier. Providing they do what they’re supposed to for your particular bike, wheel chocks allow you to ride your bike into them and then dismount safely without using the bike’s centre or side stand.
But finding a wheel chock which works well with a GoldWing is not that easy. The selection available from UK suppliers has in the past been limited and some of them don’t really work adequately with a GoldWing.
So this new Chock is particularly welcome because it does work well with a GoldWing. It’s also very well made and has a high quality finish – and to cap it all it is extremely keenly priced at just over £60 including postage!
As you can see from the pictures it’s a “rocker” type chock, designed to capture the front wheel firmly as the bike is ridden into it. The first shoe which the bike touches pivots as the bike rides over it and the wheel then drops slightly, into the firm grip of both shoes.
Look no hands! A well supported GL1800
The bike’s front tyre (and only the tyre) is then held really quite firmly by the Chock, so the bike itself is also held securely in position – well enough for you to dismount from your GoldWing without doing anything else to secure it. The Wing’s front wheel is lifted about two inches or so off the ground when it’s in the Chock. Providing you ride the bike straight into the Chock, it will be (and stay) vertical when you get off it. A GoldWing feels far more securely held by this Chock than with any other wheel chock I have tried.
There is also no contact between the chock and anything on the bike other than the front tyre – so there can be no damage to the rim of the wheel, or to GoldWing accessories such as rotor covers and mudguard extension flaps, which has always been a problem with other chocks I have tried.
This Chock is very robustly constructed and the components are all well finished. It looks like it is robust and durable enough to suit a GoldWing. The shoes are cadmium plated, as are the clevis pins on which they pivot and which supply adjustment to suit different sized bike wheels. The frame is so well finished that you cannot tell by looking at it whether it’s merely painted or powder-coated. I would guess that it’s powder-coated.
A GL1800 front wheel in the Chock
The frame has two holes for securing it to the ground or to the bed of a trailer and it comes with a pair of ground fixing bolts for the purpose. The Chock holds a GoldWing securely without the frame being fixed to the ground once the bike has been ridden into it, but the frame will tend to slide forwards on a smooth surface as the tyre bumps into the first shoe, so you do need to stop it from sliding forwards as you do so if its not fixed down.
Simply getting someone else to stand with both feet on the frame’s front bar was enough to achieve this when Bill and I tried the Chock. And Bill described riding the bike into the frame as very straightforward, no worse than riding over a small bump. So there is no sudden lurching or clanging as the shoe pivots over to grip the bike; it all happens remarkably smoothly. The bike also reverses easily out of the Chock simply by using the bike’s reversing gear, with no tendency for the frame to slide at all.
As long as you have someone to help you by standing on the Chock as you ride into it (or devise some other way of stopping it from sliding forwards) you wouldn’t need to fix this Chock to the bed of a trailer. Once you have lashed the bike down properly on to the trailer the Chock is going to be held in place by the bike lashings and it’s never going to move. Which means that you don’t need to drill any holes in the trailer bed, so you can hire any suitably-sized flatbed or box van trailer to transport your GoldWing when you need to, rather than having to go to the expense of buying one – and then having the additional problem of finding somewhere to store it.
Curiously, although it comes well packed, this Chock has no name, no assembly instructions (they’re not really necessary) and no indication of it’s origins. Presumably it comes from the Far East – but wherever it comes from it’s extremely well made and finished and it works perfectly with a GoldWing.
This Chock is currently being advertised on EBay by several retailers (search on “wheel chock”) and the best deal seems to be around £62 including delivery.
The retailer I bought one of these Chocks from is Race Leathers of Darwen, Lancashire. As the name suggests they also sell leathers. You can buy directly from them as well as via EBay (at the same price) by visiting their Website, ringing them on 01254 704000 or visiting their store, as I did. The address and a map are on their website. They seem to very quick at dealing with orders; Bill and I went round there to buy mine the day after he ordered one via EBay and his Chock had already been dispatched.
If you decide to buy from them please mention hearing about their Chock from this Blog.
One of these was being demonstrated at the BSB Silverstone at the end of September, with a Goldwing, and it does work, the chap kept driving in and out of it, it was easy to get out too, he was doing it without using reverse.
So it wasn’t just Bill’s supreme skill riding on and off the Chock which made it look so good!
I bought this wheel chock from ebay after seeing it on this web site. I fitted it to my garage floor and rode my goldwing onto it it all seemed stable but when I went into the garage I found my goldwing lying on its side.
My front tyre is a brand new Avon Cobra, so do not if that has anything to do with it. But I would just like to warn other owners that it could happen. I may have the settings wrong so if anyone can confirm in which holes the pins should go in. i had the top pin on the back setting and the bottom pin was in the first hole looking at the chock. This gave the widest setting for an 18″ wheel.
Hi Paul and welcome to the Blog.
I am away from home at present but I’ll post a photo of my bike in the chock as soon as practicable, so you can copy the configuration I have used. As I recall the forward shoe is in the forward position.
My chock seems more positive when it grabs the bike and more stable in use that the previous chock I had. As long as you have ensured the bike is vertical once you’ve got off it (i.e. before you leave it) it’s difficult to imagine why it would them fall over. My bike has Avon tyres too and I doubt that is a factor. Bit of a puzzle. Poltergeists?
Hi Stuart,
I have checked the configuration and it is the same as the photo in this blog. The bike was vertical I even played with leaning the bike over before leaving it, and it certainley seemed stable. Definately a puzzle. Will fit a couple of straps to the garage ceiling and tie them to the handlebars, to prevent the bike from falling over, until I get confidence in the chock.
That sounds like a sensible precaution. I haven’t left my bike just standing in the chock. I have mine fitted into a box trailer and I always put the handlebar ties on loosely even if I’m using the trailer as an overnight garage and it’s not going to be moved. As I recall Bill Squires has left his bike in the chock overnight when the trailer is parked up routinely without tie downs so I’ll check with him at the next opportunity if he’s still doing that. This chock certainly feels like it’s taking a more positive grip of the front wheel than the other one I had. These chocks are supposed to hold a bike without being bolted down but could your chock have slipped on the garage floor as the bike leaned sideways in it? My chock is of course bolted down to the trailer floor. Anyone else have any clever thoughts?