DATELINE NOVEMBER 2010: Our Burt Munro coverage this year allowed us to do a proper tou- test aboard Honda’s flagship GL1800 Gold Wing.
The test ride started at Hampton Honda in Christchurch.
We flew down to ‘shaky town’ from Auckland and met Robin and Ryan Hampton at their very pleasant Hornby showrooms. There they introduced us to our ride, a beautiful GL1800 Goldwing – henceforth referred to as ‘The Wing’.
The franchise is a purpose built facility (that came through the earthquake unscathed), offering a range of Motorcycle, Farm and Automotive services across the Honda range.
The star of the show was Metallic Sky-Blue in colour and parked right out front, waiting for us to unload our suitcase, backpack full of sundry camera items, laptop and personals for a week, into the ample luggage. It all fitted with a six-pack to spare.
Robin gave me a brief re-acquaintance with the myriad of ‘Wing controls and we soon had it pointed south. Fizzing. I was driving co-pilot mad with ‘how good is this???’ and was keen to add to the 200km currently showing on the odometer.
And we were off on another New Zealand epic. Over the next 8 days we covered New Zealand's biggest motorcycle in depth for Kiwi Rider and racked up nearly 2000km exploring the wonders of Southland.
Real world extensive testing
I think the biggest injustice you can inflict on a Gold Wing is call it ‘soft’ or an ‘old man’s bike’, but that’s what people who haven’t ridden the 1800cc luxury tourer in the situations it was made for, tend to do – or rather, call me so for being enthusiastic about riding one.
And I must admit that I was a little sceptical too, until this ride, touring Southern Godzone, where I could easily have continued for another 5,000km and am now all-in on the machine.
It’s just not soft y’hear!
This machine is simply not the domain of some old dodderer. It takes a skilful smaller bloke, or a full man-size unit to deal with its stationary mass for starters.
Starter motor driven reverse gear notwithstanding.
But once the wheels are turning and your feet are up, then it’s as well-mannered as any traditional heavyweight tourer.
Big bike, big load
The machine has a curb weight of 405kg, add a Big Dave and Co-pilot, their gear for a week, several cameras and lenses, a laptop, all the chargers – and we’re talking well over 600kg.
I mostly treated it like a ‘normal’ bike and parked it off the tarmac and on gravel quite a lot, where it needs a good size foothold on terra firma for getting the passenger on and off, or should I say ‘in and out’ of its consecutive lounge chairs.
And as noted, it does have a reverse gear operated by the starter motor, but I hardly used it on tour, it’s quicker (smarter) to park it facing uphill or wheel it back out of a flat spot by foot. And there were a few ‘oops’ occasions that I did find it useful too.
There is no denying that it’s a very easy bike to live on, but soft? Nah.
Flat-six mumbo
It has a 1,832cc, liquid cooled, SOHC flat six pumping out 167nm or torque at 4,000 rpm and a lazy 87kw at 5,500rpm.
‘Lazy’ as in it doesn’t need a lot of effort to get it wound up, but wind it up you can and it will scoot along quite rapidly. Drop it down a few cogs and there is no shortage of overtaking mumbo.
Transmission is via a 5-speed overdrive gearbox that needed quite a thorough click into gear, and the final drive is by a tidy shaft. Like most modern shaft drives you can make it slap – but it takes a dedicated effort or a botched change (who – me?) to happen.
Because the flat six sits so low in the chassis and all the running gear is equally low-down, the bike is far nimbler when mobile than it looks.
Lovely ride, delightful brakes
It has 45mm air assist forks (with anti-dive) and 122mm of travel up front and ‘Pro-Link Pro-Arm’ with electronically controlled spring preload adjustment and 105mm of travel at the rear. It makes for a lovely ride. It really does. You sit in these beautifully comfortable lounge chairs, that just happen to have good overtaking prowess, handling and simply wonderful brakes.
Delightful brakes.
I found throwing it in to some of the Catlin’s twisties a joyous thing. Hauling all that bike and cargo up from a good clip is a one finger, effortless, is an ‘oh yes!’, affair.
The linked system, with ABS, on 296mm three piston full floaters front and 316mmm single pot rear is superb. The only time I noticed the brake linkage was when stomping on the rear brake for the novelty of watching the front-end dip slightly. Only slightly because that Honda Anti-dive front end works.
Keeping it all in contact with the tarmac is a 130/70R-18 front tyre and a conventional 180/60R-16 rear.
Stable, but not limitless
Along with the low COM, the 1690mm wheelbase adds to the package’s stability and the way it feels ‘wallow free’ and quite stable when cornering, almost despite the massive payload. It doesn’t deviate from a line unless you tell it to.
Its limitation is lean angle. Whilst how far it can tip does benefit from the pair of broad rider footpegs (rather than the footboards that other bikes in the class offer), but the sheer size and girth of the machine means that it runs out of lean angle well before it runs out of handling capability.
That said – it will still go around the 70’s at 100 and is a joy doing so, considering long distance work is its real forte.
I only scraped the well-integrated fairing pucks a few times on the tour and considering where we were riding that’s pretty good.
Accoutrement
My dictionary defines that as ‘additional items of dress or equipment’.
Then the ‘Wing is the granddaddy, boss, and big mamba.
It has accoutrements for the accoutrements.
If it exists for a motorcycle, it’s probably on this bike. On an earlier ‘Quick Spin’ test bike I counted nearly 60 buttons and controls in the cockpit. Some of those are a full phone keypad.
Air bag, sat nav, cruise control, stereo, radio, premium infotainment front and rear, electronic preload adjustment, self-cancelling blinkers, heated ‘everything’, right down to illuminated handlebar controls.
Luxury.
Even living on it for a week, we didn’t use all of its luxury touches, but I did appreciate those things that I managed to get my head around.
Co-pilot reluctantly admitted she liked the big dashboard thermometer and the rear seat storage compartments (glove boxes) and is now a fan of heated seats (but don’t tell anyone). She’s ‘ard.
The only thing still missing from the list is a power operated windscreen, but that said, once sussed, I didn’t have any issues with slowing and manually adjusting it.
I did really like the way the capacious luggage dealt with our personal and production kit – and still had room for a six pack and a shandy to spare.
Days on the road
I liked how I could roll off some mainland touring distances and feel like I could keep going and going and going when I got to the destination. Wanted to.
Fuel stops are well spread too. We got around 300km before the fuel light appeared and there’s still 4 litres of the 25 it carries available at that point.
Overall, it was a great real-word test.
After a solid week on a Gold Wing, it’s no wonder that some owners have racked up massive milage on their machines.
They roll away big distances with remarkable ease and have built a solid reputation as one that keeps going and going and going, far beyond the 2 year, unlimited km warranty offered by Honda.
If your idea of the good life is days on the road in comfort, with equipment to do it with optimum efficiently, and bit-time style then you should check out the new ‘Wings.
Don’t listen to any of the ‘soft or old’ malarkey that gets thrown at these magnificent machines.
At around $46k retail they are a significant investment, but wow, don’t they do what they do well.
Awesome machine. With accoutrement.
Honda Gold Wing GL1800
Performance
Power87kW @ 5,500rpm
Torque167Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel rangeAround 300km before fuel light
Engine
Type1,832cc liquid-cooled SOHC flat six
Transmission5-speed overdrive
Final driveShaft
Frame
Front suspension45mm air assist forks with anti-dive, 122mm travel
Rear suspensionPro-Link Pro-Arm, electronic preload, 105mm travel
Wheelbase1690mm
Brakes & tyres
BrakesLinked ABS, 296mm front / 316mm rear
Front tyre130/70R-18
Rear tyre180/60R-16
Co-Pilot’s Honda Review
You won’t get any technical jargon from me, nor will you get a rider’s handling perspective, however, for all you Co-pilots out there, you will get a comfort rating and a back seat rider’s perspective on how this motorcycle performs.
Riding conditions were almost perfect, no rain, snow, hail, sleet or gale force winds like last years’ Burt. Instead, we had temperatures from say, 18o – 32o C, with an occasional gust of wind that took me by surprise (woke me from a therapeutic slumber). From my point of view co-pilots, the comfort of this motorcycle is off the radar!! Out of all the motorcycles I have had the pleasure to co-pilot test ride, this is the Shangri-La of them all.
My only concern is that in the state of half sleep, in that moment before sound sleep arrives and the body makes its final comfort adjustment, you simply cannot tuck your feet up on the lounge next to you – you have a nanosecond of disappointment in the half sleep world, before you wake up and realise you are not on your favourite lounge at home, instead you are out doing what you love the most, from the comfort of your own lounge chair.
Luggage accommodation is important whilst touring. My only criticism is that when you arrive at you digs for the night, you can’t take the panniers inside with you. Instead, your clothing is unceremoniously extracted from the panniers in old supermarket bags – good look when entering a 5-star motel (or any motel for that matter).
The great thing about the Gold Wing, is we easily fitted 3 movie cameras, 1 (pretty special) camera with an assortment of lenses, laptop, microphone and the paraphernalia that goes along with it to make it all work; plus Big Dave’s assorted favourite T-Shirts, dragin' jeans, smalls, sandals, shorts and a “good” shirt, as well as my clothing pile that was half the size of his pile, my toiletries (which was twice the size of his pile) – plus copies of Kiwi Rider magazine which all fitted with ease!
I will leave Big Dave to tell you the rest of the story, but for me – this is the best and the most comfortable motorcycle touring experience I have had in 30 years of touring. It was a pretty colour too – matched my nail polish!!