Honda Gl1200 Gold Wing Limited Edition

HONDA GL1200 GOLD WING LIMITED EDITION

CYCLE WORLD TEST:

For American tourers,all roads still lead to the Gold Wing. Only now the toll is higher.

THERE'S NOTHING QUITE LIKE touring. American style. It's the two-wheel version of a classic American concept: getting away from it all by taking it all with you. It's throwing a 70-mph party on Interstate 10, with the muffled chords of your favorite tune mixing with the sound of the wind and the purr of the exhaust. It's being part of a select fraternity that guarantees you can lind a friend on any road, a kindred spirit at any truckstop. And more than anything else. American touring is a 1 londa Gold Wing.

Indeed, the Gold Wing has been synonymous with touring in the U.S. for most of the 10 years the bike has been in existence. That first Ci LÍ 000 back in 1975 forever altered the way Americans thought about and went about touring, and since then, the GL has almost become an American institution. And to commemorate the 10th anniversary of this fabulously successful motorcycle, Honda is offering the Ciold Wing Limited Edition. a loaded-to-the-gills tourer that> is to touring what a Beverly Hills mansion is to the American dream.

The Limited Edition’s equipment list starts with the full fairing, saddlebags and tour trunk of the Interstate model, goes past the AM/FM/cassette stereo and on-board air compressor of the Aspencade, and throws in computerized fuel injection, an electronic cruise control, a trip computer, two additional stereo speakers and a set of cornering lights. The final result is enough cubic entertainment and open-road accoutrements to give the rider all the comforts that home never had.

Honda isn’t striving for a new degree of wretched excess with the Limited Edition, but rather is exploring the outer limits of the luxuries that touring riders can, and will, take on the road. And, perhaps more than anything else, the company also wants to firmly re-establish itself as the leader in the touring field. That position has been somewhat challenged in recent years by Yamaha’s Venture Royale and Kawasaki’s Voyager, partly because they offered a few features the Honda didn’t, including things like a cruise control (on the Venture) and a trip computer (on the Voyager). So with the Limited Edition, Honda has made it clear that it intends to remain the name in touring. The Limited has it all; and at $10,000, it’s priced accordingly, making it not only Japan’s most expensive motorcycle, but more costly than most of Honda’s car line.

For that price you expect everything on the bike to be the best available. And with rare exception, it seems to be just that. The cruise control. for example, is flawless and dead-simple. With one of the system’s three buttons, you can set the cruising speed anywhere between 30 and 80 mph, and you can increase or decrease the speed in exactly onemph increments. Once the speed is set, the cruise control sticks to it like a guided missile, and the GL never gets more than two mph off the designated pace—unless, of course, the system is canceled, a task that can be accomplished in any one of 14 different ways. When you touch any of the controls—the clutch, brakes or gearshift. or when you manually close the throttle—the cruise control is turned off. It can also cancel itself in a number of ways, such as by sensing a failure in the fuel injection system or in the cruise control itself. And once you cancel the system, you can resume the exact same speed again at any time with the press of a button.

The trip computer isn’t quite as simple as the cruise control just because of the sheer number of buttons and controls involved; it also requires considerable eyes-off-road time because of its location down on the GL’s fake gas tank. As a payback, though, the LCD display offers about every tidbit of information you might want to know about your trip, from your present and average fuel mileage to the number of miles remaining to your destination. There’s even an LCD representation of a U.S./Canadian map on the display that tells you the time in the five time zones affecting North America. You press the clock button until the desired time zone on the map is flashing, and the clock displays the time in that zone.

Also on the trip-computer panel is a tiny joystick that controls the speaker balance for the four-speaker stereo. The Limited Edition’s two additional speakers are back on the tour trunk, right above the passenger armrests, and work in concert with the two in the fairing. But aside from the speaker count, the stereo system is the same auto-search unit (incorporating a speed-sensitive, automatic volume control) that debuted on the Aspencade last year.

All this gadgetry might sound like wretched excess, but it’s not. This equipment actually serves quite a useful purpose out on the open road, and it all works magnificently. Besides, it's the motorcycle itself, not anything bolted onto it, that has made the GL1200 the class-standard that it is today.

One reason why is the engine’s powerband, which just might be the widest, most indistinguishable powerband on two wheels. The 1200cc, horizontally opposed Four pulls steadily and in a linear fashion from idle to redline, without the slightest trace of a blip or dip anywhere in between. But if you're expecting sheer horsepower and mindfogging acceleration from the GL, you’ve brought your stopwatch to the wrong place. Virtually any 550 will walk away from the Gold Wing, and so, too, will most other full-dress touring bikes, especially in top-gear roll-on acceleration.

That's more or less deliberate, though, for Honda wasn't trying to build the fastest way of getting between state lines on two wheels, just the most comfortable. The engine actually makes competitive levels of horsepower, but the overall gearing is much taller than usual so that the engine is just loafing along happily at highway speeds rather than buzzing annoyingly. That hurts acceleration but reaps benefits in fuel mileage and long-term reliability, as well as in comfort. Engine vibration is practically nil at any rpm but is especially so at cruising speed in the Honda's overdrive top gear.

Fuel consumption is also lowered by the use of a fuel injection system that is exclusive to the Limited Edition this year but similar to the arrangement used two years ago on the CX650 Turbo. Dubbed CFI for Computerized Fuel Injection, this system calculates the proper fuel mixture according to what its sensors tell it about the relevant conditions—throttle position, intake vacuum, atmospheric pressure, engine temperature and rpm. The GL adjusts itself for startups on cold mornings without a manual choke/fast-idle mechanism — that’s all done by computer—and even compensates for differences in altitude. The bike does develop a slight afterfire at altitudes exceeding 6000 feet, but the carburetion is otherwise impeccable. The bike always starts instantly and requires no warm-up time before being ridden off. And although the full-throttle and quarter-mile performance are not perceptibly improved by the injection system, the lower-rpm and around-town performance is noticeably smoother and more responsive than on last year’s carburetorequipped GL 12Ö0.

If the Limited Edition’s computer ever develops a brain tumor, of course, it will result in a sizable bill; a new central processing unit costs $734. Honda claims, however, that there were no reported failures on the CX650’s CFI system. Furthermore, Honda also insists that the total number of warranty claims on last year's entire GL line was next to nothing.

That’s reliability—and one reason why the GL has developed such a strong following among tourers. Another is rider comfort, and the Limited continues the tradition with a smooth ride and a double-bucket seat that is the cushiest in the business, both for rider and passenger. The seat is good enough to almost completely mask perhaps the GL's most criticizable aspect; its comparative harshness over small, abrupt bumps. Both the Venture and the Voyager still are smoother over potholes and pavement joinings. Otherwise, the GL's ride is quite pleasant and non-tiring.

A passenger on a Limited Edition also gets some other creature-comforts, including armrests and floorboards, and both riders are well protected by the full fairing. That fairing has a number of air vents that can be opened to keep the rider from burning up in the summer, and closed to give him almost total wind-protection during cold-weather riding. Only the rider’s hands are exposed to the elements, and even at that, not to an uncomfortable extent. And while tall riders might feel a bit of wind-buffeting around the helmet, shorter riders will notice none at all.

A taller rider might also complain that his knees hit the fairing lowers if he leans forward for more-aggressive riding on twisty roads. But he also might be surprised at how well the GL comports itself during that type of riding, despite the fact that vertical touring is its strong suit. Naturally, it won't challenge Interceptors and Ninjas on canyon roads, but, thanks mostly to the low center of gravity provided by the opposed-Four engine, it is far more agile than either its massive appearance or incredible bulk might lead you to believe. And in situations that are more touringtypical, the Gold Wing’s handling is light and remarkably unintimidating for such a big machine.

Riding the GL aggressively, or with a full load of touring gear, does require that its rider stiffen the suspension, though. The bike tends to wallow and bottom if the fork and shock pressures aren't high enough. And on the Limited Edition, the suspension air pressure can be adjusted either automatically or manually. Three switches in a pod next to the left handlegrip allow the rider to: check suspension pressure (as displayed in a digital readout in the right-side fairing lower); raise or lower the pressure in the fork and dual rear shocks; and automatically level the motorcycle to compensate for a substantial increase or decrease in the load. The auto-leveling feature, which is unique to the Limited, uses a sensor in one of the shocks which registers how far the rear suspension has compressed, then the onboard compressor automatically adds or subtracts air until the machine attains a level attitude.

All of this sounds terribly complicated, but in operation it's quite simple and easy to deal with. And that philosophy of using mechanical complexity to achieve operational simplicity can be found throughout the Gold Wing, right down to its integrated braking system. Normally, hauling such a big machine down to a stop in a hurry can be difficult, requiring a careful balance of front and rear brakes. But on the GL, that, like so many other things, is done for you. When the brake pedal is depressed, not only does the rear brake go to work, but so does the right-front disc brake. And if you need more braking yet, squeezing the front brake lever activates the left-front disc. The result is hard, stable stops that are made easily and quickly. Like much else with the GL. the braking system might seem overcomplicated, but the bottom-line is that it works.

But it’s not surprising that everything about the Limited Edition works. When the game is American touring, there’s absolutely nothing better or, for that matter, even as good as a Honda Gold Wing Limited Edition. It really couldn’t be any other way, though. In this particular game, Honda has an unfair advantage. It wrote the rules. Ejj

HONDA GL1200 GOLD WING LIMITED EDITION

$10,000