A conversation with a Honda Dealer sparked the idea for this opinion survey; he was telling me about a Winger who was considering buying a new GoldWing from him who seemed to attach little or no value to buying from a franchised Honda Dealer.

HondaUK would like us to share their confidence that all franchised Honda dealers can provide good sales and after sales support for all their motorcycles, including GoldWings, and that theirs is a better and therefore more valuable service than we can get elsewhere.  It is however possible to buy new as well as used GoldWings without going to a franchised Honda dealer in UK,  so I thought it would be interesting to ask Wingers how they feel about the value of franchised Honda dealerships these days.

I haven’t tried doing an opinion survey on the Blog before so it’s also something of an experiment so please spare me a few moments to take part.  The more responses we get the more reliable the survey will be.  There is only this one question to answer and you won’t have to identify yourself any way unless you want to.  The results will be published in due course, once I have had a decent number of responders, hopefully fairly quickly.

Let’s assume for purposes of this survey that you are about to buy your next GoldWing and you have found two equally suitable bikes, one being sold by a Honda Dealer, the other one by a non-Honda dealer.  There are no differences in what they will offer as part exchange and the guarantee is the same, so ignore those factors.  It doesn’t even matterwhether the bikes are new or used, the only difference is the price – the Honda Dealer is asking more because he feels he’s offering a better, quality-assured service.

This Survey is now closed and the result will be announced shortly.

The questions was:  How valuable is it to you to buy a GoldWing from a franchised Honda Dealer, in other words how much extra would you pay for your next GoldWing for the benefits of buying from an official Honda Dealer, compared with any other motorcycle dealer?

Editorial Note:  I dug Steve’s article out of the queue because it speaks with the voice of an ordinary Winger in an uncomplicated way which seems to me to present a useful reminder to all of us of what’s important as we start a new year.

A lot of Wingers reading this Blog must have at sometime or other asked themselves this question, as both organisations offer to cater for the Goldwing owners in the UK, but in different ways.

Irrespective of politics/delusions/snobbery etc, the bare facts are of importance and interest here so having read many articles I want to concentrate on these.

I believe in the present climate everyone is looking for the answer and it is not as straight forward as it looks, the doubt is creeping in and it is spreading a glum over an otherwise once very happy and stable Goldwing community here in the UK.    It’s like an “us and them” scenario which upsets me greatly and should not be the case at all.

I do not want to favour one or the other in what I’m writing here, but try to offer a suggestion so that all can move forward together and give our community a fresh start for 2012.  The Mayan calender is due to finish on 21 Dec 2012, but it does not mean the end of the world! , or does it?  LOL.  Well, one thing is for sure we can get through this and move forward.

Both organisations have advantages for GoldWing owner’s:

Goldwing Owners Club of Great Britain (GWOCGB): is the older club internationally recognised by GWEF and offer centrally and local club run events throughout the year both at home and abroad.  They have a club magazine “Wingspan” and also have a membership directory which lists members willing to offer help if you have a breakdown or need emergency accommodation as part of their membership package.  The central committee have reps which cover most aspects of the regional clubs activities on a national level ie, Treffens, Events, PLI cover etc, they also have national rules which apply to all regional clubs but leave local events more to the regional committees to run as long as they do not breach national policy.  The club membership fees are flat rate for all and reflect this level of service for the national club as a whole.

The Federation of United Kingdom GoldWing Clubs: Formed more recently for Goldwing owners who   want more freedom of choice in what they want.   This concept involves local clubs running themselves totally but under the help and if required guidance of FUKGC which offers PLI cover for all the events which the individual clubs wish to organise.  Membership fees are set by the membership themselves and this is generally minimal depending on how the club intends to run.  As with the former organisation these local clubs have a Chairman, Secretary and a treasurer and meetings are held monthly.

These are the bare facts and I think you should choose which club suits you more to your own personal expectations and who’s to say you can’t join both!

So as can be seen there is light at the end of the tunnel, both offer similar or different benefits and outlooks depending on what you want out of being a member.

The bottom line is we all have a great hobby and the friendliness and joy of sharing our passion should not be marred by who’s in what club, we should have a sense of common ground or good foundation on which to build a thriving community as a whole and accept personal preference as to whom we hand over our membership monies to be it GWOCGB or Federation.  Let’s just get on with it and have a great time!

Wishing all a bright future in 2012!

The Federation of UK GoldWing Clubs has wished all Wingers a Happy New Year and started the year off with a bang by announcing a reshuffle of its volunteer team.

This reshuffle brings in a new Chairman and involves two other job changes; the official announcement can be viewed here.

Ian Duxbury, already Chariman of GoldWings North West will also now be Chairman of the Federation and Bob Summers, who is reliquishing the Chairman’s job, becomes the Secretary, which is the job I used to do.  I will now be taking more of a background role, still one of the Team but concerned with development issues and with trade relations.

Dave Turvey(Treasurer) and Nigel Mackintosh (Webmaster) stay in the same nominal roles but their division of the labour will probably change too.

It helps to understand why and how these changes have been made (and that someone can come straight into the Team as its Chairman) if you bear in mind that the Federation isn’t a conventional bike club.  There isn’t a conventional committee structure or any hierarchy and indeed one of the cornerstones of the Federation’s approach is that it exists to provide a service to GoldWing clubs and Wingers in UK, rather than being anything like a ruling or regulating committee.

So Ian will chair the Federation Team Meetings if indeed chairing is needed; in practice the Team meets infrequently and mostly communicates by telephone and email and has never had difficulty achieving consensus without resorting to voting.  It’s a small team of volunteers each of whom does what he’s good at doing but consults freely with colleagues as he goes along rather than going solo.

Ian Duxbury is a Training Officer in his Day job and so he brings valuable presentational skills to the party.  Bob and Dave are seen as having diplomatic skills as well as good looks, so continues………

Phone Contacts viewable on Garmin SatNav screen in order to make a call

Relatively few riders want to use their phone while riding – apart from anything else linking a mobile phone into a GoldWing’s intercom system is not straightforward and nor is it cheap.

As well as technical obstacles there are also important road safety issues – is it sensible to be using a phone at all while riding, even completely hands-free?

I first looked at hooking up my mobile phone to my GoldWing system six or seven years ago after a friend had done it successfully on his bike, which he used for a lot of business travel and since he was self-employed he needed to be able to take calls while making a journey to avoid losing work.

By connecting a car-type Bluetooth hands-free unit to the bike’s intercom via a purpose-made interface unit and then relying on a Bluetooth connection to the phone, which could therefore stay in his pocket, he had succeeded in establishing a reliable, working system.  This approach was possible because unlike most such hand-held devices, he had found one which had external microphone and speaker sockets, to which he was able to connect the interface unit which would then connect to the bike.

I went as far as buying one of these hands-free devices to follow suit but never quite got around to getting the necessary interface unit made; the car hands-free unit is still around somewhere, still in its packaging.  I suppose at the time I didn’t have a pressing reason to have the phone available while riding and another friend, with whom I discussed the idea, felt very strongly that phones and motorcycling didn’t mix.  Much better, said he, to leave the phone switched off in your pocket so you can concentrate entirely on your riding. continues………

We’ve probably all experienced the frustrations and obstruction to other road users which elderly drivers cause.  They drive unnecessarily slowly or they proceed with such elaborate and excessive caution through a hazard that they get us grinding our teeth and shouting to them to get on with it.  And of course lots of them wear flat caps, so that the sight of a cap on the driver of the car ahead becomes a harbinger or doom and delay.

How can anyone want to bumble along at only 50 mph on a busy motorway, oblivious or careless of the backing up of traffic behind them, as lorries queue to overtake them, holding up faster traffic for hundreds of yards back, as they are either funnelled into the single remaining lorry-free lane.  And all because some selfish or insensitive idiot wants to bumble along slowly in lane one at an indicated 55 mph or so, slightly less than the 56 mph (true speed) to which lorries are governed these days.

They are content to leave the lorry drivers to worry about overtaking them, oblivious to any difficulties a lorry might have with gradients when heavily loaded, which will make for see-sawing progress, almost making the overtake but then dropping back again, as the gradient steepens of the driver of the little car accelerates to maintain his speed up the slope.

Same with the Middle Lane Owners Club; they feel entitled to be lazy and stay in the same continues………

Merry Christmas to all Blog Readers

Today is Christmas Eve and apparently yesterday, the day before Christmas Eve, is the busiest shopping day of the season – but between 12 noon and 1 pm today will be the busiest shopping hour, as lots of blokes rush out to get their ladies something at the last minute.

This has sometimes been my style in the past and I have also had a fall back system when short of ideas involving a friendly local jeweller, who is always willing to exchange whatever I’ve chosen for something she would actualy like to wear – a bit like buying a gift voucher but you get something in a box, all properly wrapped up in Christmas paper with ribon and a fancy bow. Only takes about 10 minutes start to finish and it probably doesn’t matter what you pick as long as the money is about right for her to choose something nice.

I’ve seemed to be able to get into the right ball park by picking earrings or braclets or necklacey type things by turns so it’s not the same thing each year. And she always seems to say she likes what I’ve chosen for her – although of course I don’t really remember what I did buy her, so I wouldn’t know if she’s gone back to change it or not anyway.  As a fallback plan it’s always seemed to be a fairly safe bet.

This year however I’ve taken a bit of a risk and steered clear of the jewellers altogether in favour of armchair shopping with Amazon. Too late to do this on Christmas Eve of course, unless you can think of a credible excuse for having nothing wrapped up to hand over on the actual day and a printed off copy of an Amozon Order propably wouldn’t cut the mustard.  But with a bit of forward planning I’ve saved myself having to go anywhere near an actual shop this year – except when on escort duty, when I can usually contrive to escape to the coffee shop while she does the browsing. continues………

Dave Partridge is selling his purpose-made trailer which he has used to transport both solo GoldWings and trikes in the course of his AwingAway business but is now surplus to requirements.

This is a one-off single axle design with a payload of 540 kg, so enough to transport a GoldWing Trike yet light and manoeuvrable enough to tow behind a family car.

It has a purpose made loading skid and a fitted winch which makes loading a safe and controlled one-man operation.

Enclosed trailers which will carry a trike are very uncommon and trike owners usually have to resort to using a flatbed open trailer.  This one will keep your trike clean and dry in transit as well as providing a temporary garage when you get there.

By the way this doesn’t mean that Dave is giving up his servicing nad repair business, quite the oppoesite, he’s going from strength to strength.

BMF Show Peterborough - a big, big event

The BMF (British Motorcyclists Federation) to which both the Federation of UK GoldWing Clubs and GWOCGB are affialated, are currently offering Three for Two on all 2012 BMF Show Tickets, so if youwill be going to any of their Shows next year you can make worthwhile savings.

The offer only runs until December 23rd, so you will have to be quick.

The offer is for BMF Members only but this includes all Wingers who are members of Federation Clubs or of GWOCGB, since they are, by virtue of their Club’s affiliation, BMF Associate Members.

As an Associate Member you will need to use your Club’s BMF 2011 Discount Code to get the special deal.   This Discount Code was distributed to Federation Clubs late last year and should have been passed on to all Members but in case you’ve lost it it’s FED11M449.  (The 2012 Code has already been distributed to Federation Clubs as well so make sure you use the 2011 Code for this special offer, it’s still 2011 remember!)

I don’t have the equivalent GWOCGB Code of course but you should be able to get it either from your Regional Rep or from the Club’s General Secretary if necessary.

BMF Show Dates for 2012 are:

BMF Peterborough – 19th – 20th May 2012

Bikefest Kelso – 7th – 8th Jul 2012

Tailend Peterborough – 15th – 16th Sep 2012

For a list of ticket types and prices for all these Shows Click Here.

The On Line booking system is not easy to fathom so once you’ve decided what you want to buy I suggest you buy your tickets over the telephone by ringing 0844 884 5151.

The lines are open Mon-Fri 9-6 and Sat 10-5.