Winging It
Winging It
CW PROJECT
20,000 MILES WITH HONDA’S KING OF LUXURY TOURING
JON F. THOMPSON
THERE ARE SOME MOTORCYCLING TRUTHS THAT JUST can’t be argued. One of them is that when it comes to luxury touring bikes, Honda’s GL1500 Gold Wing is hard to beat. It’s got comfort, power, carrying capacity and protection from the elements. The machine is so complete as-is that touring riders often add only chrome, pinstripes, running lights and stuffed animals to personalize their machines.
That’s not to say that the Wing is the end-all solution for riders. If you’re a sport-tourer who values a touring bike’s comfort and carrying capacity, you have to put up with the Wing’s size, weight and mushy suspension to get what you want. For those riders-a relatively narrow segment of the overall Gold Wing market-there are a couple of fairly subtle additions that can sharpen up the big Honda.
We know, the Gold Wing, which weighs a whopping 810 pounds with a full fuel tank, isn’t completely appropriate for sport-touring. If you’re convinced that that’s where your two-wheeled future lies, Honda offers its excellent ST 1100. But suppose you love to travel fast over backroads, sit upright at all times with the radio or tape player supplying riding rhythm, experience zero helmet buffeting, and carry the sort of clothing that will see you through any riding and/or social situation? Three strikes for the ST, which offers a sporting riding position and limited carrying capacity, and a home run for the Gold Wing.
But if the Wing is going to travel backroads with a bit more aplomb than a standard-issue touring bike, it needs just a bit of polish, and it is that polish we’ve set about to apply with this project bike. On our list, the first problem that needed to be addressed was a fair amount of flex between the handlebar grips and the front-tire contact patch. This flex indicated the bike’s fork tubes weren’t braced as securely as they might have been. To solve this, we installed a Superbrace fork brace. This fits unseen under a plastic cover atop the bike’s front fender, and that’s too bad. It’s a beautifully machined piece of aircraft-aluminum billet. In any case, installation is simple and quick, and makes the bike steer more crisply.
Our project bike, a ’92 SE, came to us new, with very soft, compliant suspension. This is ideal for riding across the expansion strips that separate the concrete slabs of our favorite interstate highways, but not so good for the occasional backroad riding to which this bike often was subjected. The GL’s fork springs are especially problematic. These started out soft, with lots of initial sack when the rider climbed aboard. As the bike aged, they developed even more sack-up to about 2.5 inches. This meant that it was phenomenally easy to bottom the front suspension, and because of the reduced ground clearance when this happened, it also was easier than usual to drag the bike’s footpegs during cornering.
So we installed a set of Progressive Suspension’s progressively wound fork springs. These reduced the bike’s sack to a manageable inch or so, and provided a generally firmer ride and tauter feel. They also increased cornering clearance. That’s the good part. The not-so-good part is that they imparted to the fork a bit of harshness in the initial part of its travel that was most unwelcome. And they’re noisy-the rider can clearly hear them chafing against the insides of the fork tubes, something he doesn’t hear with the stock springs.
While we were at it, we installed a set of Progressive’s Magnumatic air shocks in place of the bike’s stock units. This was done not because of any real problem with the bike’s stock shocks, which worked very well, but more as an effort to match the bike’s rear suspension to its upgraded front suspension. The Magnumatics plumb nicely into the Gold Wing’s on-board compressor, and like the fork springs, provide a stiffer spring rate than the stock units. They also provide more damping, in both directions. The result is a much firmer, more controlled ride. Frankly, this won’t be to every touring rider’s taste. But for flogging around backroads, two-up, loaded, at a sporting pace, they’re the cat’s meow. These shocks also offer a bit of initial harshness, but they seem to rely less on air pressure as a springing medium than do the stock shocks, and more on the springs themselves, always a good thing. Unladen, with just the rider, we ran 8 pounds of pressure. Laden, with a passenger, luggage and trailer, we found 12 pounds of pressure-down a bunch from the 24-26 pounds we ran in the stock system-to be quite sufficient.
Much as we liked the Wing’s stock seat, we decided to see what the aftermarket had to offer. So we installed a Travelcade saddle, complete with matching passenger backrest. This used very firm foam, velour covering and a large, removable pilot’s backrest that insures that your passenger had better be able to do her shopping in the “petite” sections of department stores. Installation of the seat/backrest is uncomplicated, and results in a very firm feel, thanks to stiff foam that just does not pack down, period. This is the sort of seat that invites 750-mile days, if you’re into that sort of thing. Velour? Nice, until you wash the bike, or until it rains. Then, not so nice. Also, use of the passenger backrest eliminates the hideaway seat raincover Honda so thoughtfully tucks into the passenger backrest of the stock seat.
We’d been hearing rave reviews of Metzeler’s ML: touring tires, so we scared up a pair and levered them onto the Wing’s rims. Mind you, the Gold Wing comes factoryequipped with premium Dunlop rubber and there is nothing at all wrong with those tires. But our bike was on its second set of Dunlops, and, with 16,500 miles showing on the odo (much of it resulting from the bike’s use in the Iron Butt Rally), was ready for a change. The Metzelers proved to work quite nicely and grip securely in all kinds of weather; now, with 19,700 miles on the bike, they show little sign of tire wear, in spite of hard use. Our one comment is that the heavy, open tread pattern of the front tire is not as quiet as that of the stock Dunlop.
About the Motorvation trailer. To say that we had mixed feelings about it would be an understatement. Traditionalists in CWs offices hold that if you can’t get it into a tankbag, you don’t need to take it with you. Others, however, recognize that when people go luxo-touring, they don’t fool around: They take a complete set of camping gear, including cooler and tent; or, on the other side of the spectrum, sufficient luggage to hold tuxedo and ball gown, plus a set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. We don’t very often haul encyclopedia, and we only climb into tuxedos at gunpoint. Still, we’re forced to admit, the trailer ain’t a bad deal. It comes with independent suspension in a unit that offers 20 cubic feet of carrying capacity, color-matched to your bike, and complete with rear wing and light bar. We hooked ours to our uncomplaining Gold Wing with a Markland receiver-type hitch. This clamps onto the protective and supportive tubing under the Wing’s saddlebags, and is a snap to install and remove. With everything installed, hitched and safety-chained, the result is a rig that measures 15 feet, 9 inches in length.
Now, let’s be honest. We eagerly flogged the daylights out of this project bike as long as it was unencumbered by its, er, wheeled appendage. We are, after all, motorcycle riders. We are not drivers of semi trucks. But we screwed up our courage, hooked up our trailer, and went for a ride. To our astonishment, for much of the time, the feeling of towing this trailer was all but transparent. At steady-state speeds, along straights or through sweeping comers at moderate paces, the pilot forgets he’s towing anything. The trailer does make its presence felt, however, at other times. You feel it when you accelerate hard; the bike doesn’t pull as sharply as it does unladen. You feel it under braking; the trailer doesn’t weigh much-95 pounds, unladen, plus whatever your trailered load weighs-but you definitely feel it pushing against the bike during deceleration. And you feel it in corners taken at a sporting pace, when the trailer works against the hitch, especially under braking, and resists the bike’s lean.
But once we got used to it, we could still haul, in every sense of the word, quickly enough to drag the bike’s footpegs without scaring ourselves silly. And the thing is sufficiently narrow that splitting lanes-legal here in California, where Cycle World is published-is no problem. One final salubrious effect of the trailer has nothing to do with the actual riding. It is that you arrive at your destination having brought with you everything you could possibly need. This is truly a strange and wonderful experience for those of us more used to living out of tankbags.
So, is this project a success? Yes, it most certainly is. With qualifications. For some Wingsters, a trailer clearly is overkill. For others, firmer suspension isn’t the way to go. As for us, well, with our GL1500 so well set up for performance riding, we’re wondering what the all-time touringbike-with-trailer cross-country speed record is....
SUPPLIERS
STD Enterprises 5842 McFadden Ave., Unit 0 Huntington Beach, CA 92649 714/894-2994 or 800/322-4783 Superbrace, $70
Progressive Suspension 11129 G Ave. Hesperia, CA 92345 619/948-4012 Fork springs, $90 Magnumatic air shocks, $290
Travelcade 6325 Alondra Blvd. Paramount, CA 90723 310/630-4522. Velour seat and backrest, $439
Metzeler Motorcycle Tire North America Corp. 4520 107th St. SW Mukilteo, WA 98275 206/348-4000 ML2 tires, $122/front, $161/rear
Motorvation Engineering 3702 Clifton Place Montrose, CA 91020 818/248-9631 Wingliner trailer, $1995
Markland Industries 15365 Barranca Pkwy. Irvine, CA 92718 714/453-0531 or 800/854-6747 Receiver-type hitch, $160
