2021 Honda Goldwing Review | Well I'm baggerred!

hey folks sebastian fly here hope you're well out about another bike review today on a machine that is of great interest to me for reasons that will become clear a little bit later but the bike i'm on today is the brand new for 2021 honda gold wing so if you're interested in this machine stick around stay tuned i'll tell you what i think of it [Music] okay so why do i say that the honda gold wing is of particular interest to me then well i have to come clean and tell you why i'm a bit of a honda gold wing fan i bought myself uh just before christmas last year a uh 2019 honda goldwing tour dct with airbag which is the kind of uh big touring version of the bike this particular machine is what is known just as the gold wing and some people erroneously i might add call it the bagger version of the bike because it doesn't have the basically the armchair on the back and the boot or the top box on the back and a few of the other features as well that the top spec bike that i own has but this has had a number of upgrades since my bike as well which will maybe cover off later on the review but anyway so i'm just putting my cards on the table to tell you at the outset i'm a fan of gold wings so this is likely to be a good review all right okay that not withstanding let me tell you what i think about it and i'll try and give you as an impartial opinion as i can of this bike so i'm very lucky in that honda uk have led me this machine for the next three weeks to get to know and i will be doing some more videos on the bike of course including a video comparing how the gold wing the standard gold when this bike compares to the gold wing tour that i know so well so if you're interested in the specific differences between the different bikes stick around stay tuned to the channel for that video coming up in a few days time but for this video it's just gonna be my first impressions review of this bike this is actually the first time i've ridden it since i had the bike so it really is a first impressions review the weather today is uh 12 degrees centigrade it's quite dry on the roads as you can see not too much traffic about and i have to say i've already got a grid on my face these bikes are just so comfortable i've got to heat your grips on i've got the screen up i'm sitting in a nice protected bubble of calm air and all is well with the world now the handling of these things is just incredible that's the first thing that strikes you about these bikes if you've never ridden such a big and imposing machine before once you get on and you start to chuck it around the corners you realize just how easy these are to ride look at the way this thing flicks through the corners it's amazing the engine on here 1833cc big six-cylinder boxer engine which means it's a flat horizontally opposed configuration so it's got a lovely low center of gravity i think it's what a van is letting me overtake thank you sir thank you see they're not all bad so yeah on the comfort stakes you just cannot beat a gold wing in my opinion the seat on here is wide and comfortable one of the changes they've made actually for the 2021 gold wing is they've added a bit more padding i think to the seat and they've changed the material that the seat is covered in not a big deal but that is one of the changes that they've made i can't tell the difference between this and mine to be honest but take it as red it's a very very comfortable seat this standard gold wing has a smaller screen on it than the tour version but nonetheless i am still as i said in calm air i thought i was going to be getting quite a bit of turbulence but actually within the fully up position i'm feeling nice and protected i've got no wind on my shoulders whatsoever and i'm doing 55 miles an hour through here i'll put the screen down it's an electric screen just put it down using the button here pop it all the way down yeah now suddenly i've got air hitting me on the top of my head you may be able to hear a bit of wind noise through the mic i don't know so it depends what you like really you're very much looking over the screen in this configuration it feels more like a naked bite like this looks more like something that judge dredd would ride personally i'll rather have it in the up up position that's fully up now and i'm still looking over it but i am properly protected the riding position itself handlebars are lovely and wide on this and quite uh quite close towards you as well so it feels a little bit different to say riding a bmw gs that i'm also used to riding i'd say the handlebars are wider and they're closer to me than that feels much more similar to the bmw rt that sort of rider position well that does feel roomier it feels like a bigger bike on the rt your your legs feel quite tucked up on this you don't feel like that my legs are in the sort of classic armchair position sort of uh almost 90 degrees very very comfortable riding position the mirrors on here work beautifully you have to take my word for it because obviously you can't set up my left hammer because i've got the camera mounted to it but the right hand one here down literally like a wing mirror it's so far away from my hand and arm all i can see is behind me i'm not looking at my elbow and shoulder like you often do on bikes so that's brilliant so the comfort stakes absolutely no problems one of the other things that adds to the comfort on the bike is the rather special suspension on this machine it's got a clever sort of double wishbone set up at the front it's a actually a little bit similar to the what you get on the bmw their tele lever system where you've got wishbones on the front this has the same two of them and it's got this amazing situation where you can actually see the tops of the forks look doing their thing here jumping around you can just see the tops here i hope you see that through the camera as they track along the road and although they're jumping up and down like goodens i'm literally on a magic carpet right here i can't feel any of those bumps it's absolutely beautiful some people complain the feeling of being detached from the steering a bit because of that but actually i love it you don't get dive when you brake hard [Music] and it just makes for a lovely smooth cruisey ride right so much for comfort there those practical items what about go i'm just coming up to a national speed limit here i'm in tour mode at the moment which is just the general purpose mode on this bike here we go let's bring her up to 70. there we go so this is sort of the natural habitat of these bikes cruising along at faster speeds and yeah it's just effortless on here so much power on top i say that it's only got something like 126 brake horsepower but it's also got 125 newton meters of torque which is available pretty much throughout the rev range so there's always power on this and this has the dct gearbox so it just selects the gear for you it's in perceptible gear changes you're always in the right gear to have power available to you i know why it goes the shove on this bike is just brilliant not a white van they're everywhere today i've already said the handling is amazing through these roundabouts it absolutely is so much better than the big bike deserves to be well let's pop her into uh sport mode just hit that button there on the right i'm straight into sport mode look and now nothing behind suddenly the bike turns into a bit of an animal absolutely flies along again effortless speed quickly up to slightly illegal speed so we'll slow down this is one of the few bucks that i've ridden that actually the riding modes really do make a big difference on it sport mode turns it into an animal it's brilliant so yeah really lovely uh on faster roads let's go find a slightly more busy area then bit more traffic to play with we'll see what she's like in that situation alrighty i'll head up to uh amazon on the hill which might be might have a little bit more traffic around so we can see what she's like at slower speeds and so on there seems to be loads of traffic about today for some reason i don't know why all right here we are look creeping along 10 miles an hour fueling on the bike feels beautiful there's no jerkiness one of the things i love about this six cylinder engine is it is just so so smooth which again just adds to that waffly effortless experience you get on the gold wing i really have never found a more comfortable bike to ride i don't think i ever will but yeah slow speeds in traffic it's just easy the balance this bike again because it's got that low center of gravity and the way that the weight distribution on the bike and maybe the suspension setup means that it almost rides itself you can ride this really slowly and you don't have to put your feet down and the beauty of it is as well it's quite a low bite so when you do have to put your feet down you can get your feet firmly on the ground even if you're a shorty i'm five foot eight with a 32 inch leg i'll get my feet firmly planted and have a bit of a bend in the knee which on a bike is heavy you do need but uh you rarely if ever feel like you're gonna drop it that's not famous last words but uh i feel quite comfortable on here and i'm not a particularly big fella i'm just 11 stone five for eight not a big guy by any means and uh i can handle this absolutely fine just while we're climbing up the hill here in this bit of slower traffic let me just talk to you a bit about the controls here and what we're looking at i think this is one of the best displays in the industry it has got a modern day tft as you can see it's got all sorts of stuff in there i won't even attempt to go through that it's actually exactly the same as on my bike and i've covered that on my other videos on my bike so go back and check those videos out if you want to know more about what that stuff does just very quickly i mean it's you can control it when you're not on the move you can control it by this big knob here which is also a joystick and you can twist it when you're on the move you use this switch gear here just arrows very easy to get at it's not a fiddly joystick it's quite straightforward to get to so if i prove my point look i go down to navigation hit okay and it'll bring up the built-in sat nav another thing actually that i love about the bike is the fact it has got a fully fully functioned sat nav built in not that many bikes do that let's go this way so from an electronics point of view it's got everything you can possibly need in here even an amazing sound system and that's one of the changes actually for the 2021 model year bike it's got a uh better amplifier apparently than on previous gold wings so it goes louder now personally i don't do radios and music on bikes so that's of no interest to me whatsoever but if you do like that sort of thing and fill your boots you got much louder speakers apparently heated grips on the bike are standard that are controlled by this button here now i've got them on today come on lads well that was the stop start there that was the engine stopping because it has the idle stop facility on the bike that you can disable but i quite like it it makes for relaxed riding again i hope you heard the engine stop there like that again i've not come across it on a motorcycle before happens on lots of cars of course so yeah hopefully as you can see riding through even the sort of suburban environment is uh very very easy on the bike it's just a relaxed ride wherever you go i mean if you want to ride it like a hooligan and stick it in the sport mode and off you go fill your boots but otherwise it's just a beautiful relaxing ride at all times it's funny isn't it how different bikes get you in different moods if i was on my panigale coming down here i'd just be itching to get to a faster road and to open it up because of the nature of the engine but on this bike you never really want to do that you can do if you want as i say but really it just wants to let you enjoy the ride in a moment i'll park up somewhere and i'll show you around the bike and i'll talk you through the spec in the usual way and show you a bit more in detail what this bike looks like but from where i'm sat it's all looking great and uh yeah super comfortable as well well i say all looking great just while we're talking about the display again not only have you got the big tft in the middle with all the stuff you need there goes that idle stop again which i absolutely love you see the flashing that's what shows you that's engaged and as soon as you want the throttle off you go again but yeah what i love about this not only if you've got a big tft on here but also you've got analog dials so you've got sort of best of both worlds here it's got a bit of old school as well i i am a bit of an old geezer and i just like analog dials on bikes i think this particular setup is the best i've seen yet again i'm probably being biased because as i said at the start of the video i am a gold wing fan but that's partly why i love that display it's got everything you need on here it tells you what gear you're in what mode you're in obviously you've got a fuel gauge this side you've got a temperature gauge trip counters do everything you need is there at a glance in a really clear presentation cool weather's not amounting to much today the uh forecast was it was going to be sunny this afternoon which is why i plan to come out and do this review now but uh it's looking pretty grim alrighty at this point let me edit into the video a little walk around the bike and i'll talk you through the spec in the usual way all right walk around time let me show you this bike let's get the other camera rock and rolling here we go hopefully you can see that okay and uh talk you through the spec on this malusive beast so here she is what'd you make of the color of this uh this one's actually called pearl deep mud grey not the most inspiring name i have to say and then unfortunately perhaps not the most inspiring color i'm not sure if i like that or not it reminds me a bit of airfix models i don't know why you know unpainted ones not actually as nice color as some of the others i think you can get this in black as well um which would probably be better it would match up with all the blacked out details on here so that's one thing i want to point out this is different to the um on the tour bikes you can see you've got blacked out engine we've got blacked out exhaust uh some people like that sort of thing i actually quite like the chrome and stuff but uh but nonetheless that's just a matter of personal taste as to whether you like that or not what do you think but that's how she looks that's the sort of bagger format even though honda don't officially call this a bagger anyway let's get to the spec there so that engine there's that uh flat six eighteen thirty three cc that i've been talking about liquid cooled amazing bit of kit nice and low as you can see which is what makes the handling so good puts out 126 bhp at 5 500 rpm or 93 kilowatts if you're modern and 170 newton meters of torque or 125 foot pounds i got that the wrong way around earlier on when i talked about it so 125 foot pounds 170 newton meters of torque at 4 500 rpm so loads of torque and as i say it's always there that you're always because it's the dct version dual clutch transmission effectively an automatic bike uh you've always got power whenever you need it it's always in the right gear and you don't even you can't even tell it's changing gear half the time it's brilliant uh brakes on here absolutely incredible if we look at these brakes on the front look i've never come across this before on a motorcycle these are actually six pot calipers on here 320 mil dual discs on the front and then the rear it's got a 316 mil disc it's hard to get that because it's hidden underneath everything but it's actually a vented disc if you have a look it's like you're getting a car can you see there's like a double disc under there absolutely incredible amazing stopping power on here i think when you hit the the brake pedal there it actually actuates the front slightly as well as the back um on these bigger bikes you tend to use the rear brake quite a bit and it works really really well on the goldberg uh see on here i mentioned it was nice and low 745 millimeter seat height and here's the uh that super comfy seat i was telling you about um this is apparently a different material to the previous generations it looks much the same to me i can't tell the difference but there we go it's got some nice stitching though that certainly the other gold wigs didn't have so that looks all very cool the panniers on here it's all home central locking which is great so as long as i've got the key fob in my pocket which i have i can just press the button here and open the pannier and down she comes very nice and decent there's my gloves they're quite small these have come in for quite some criticism about the size of the panniers on these modern day since 2018 gold wings um but there we go they are quite small and an odd shape but that's just you know like it or not they're still quite big panniers as they go it's all relative isn't it um i think she looks pretty splendid i'm not sure i like the bag quite as much as the tour um but a beautiful looking bike nonetheless all right what i was going to tell you from the spec electronics we've talked about uh tft led lights all around the lights on here are absolutely stonking uh bluetooth audio apple carplay uh android auto cruise control abs traction control heated grips ford and reverse creep modes um when i got some fuel earlier and in fact let me show you what it's like to get fuel on the bike right of course for a bit of reverse neutral brake on select little reversing button and then press the minus button i'll be able to back up here we go just love that about these gold wings the fact that you can maneuver them easily there we go back into neutral and turn her off right the fuel you have to uh press a button there to open this flap and then there's a button at the top you press which opens this flap and then there's the fuel under there so that's where you pump it the fuel tanks themselves on these gold wings is actually under the seat which is part of what uh means that the center of gravity is so low not only the boxer engine keeping the center of gravity low but the fuel way low down as well great feature that right that'll do for my purposes right close that again it's all there so there you go so that's what it's like using the reverse gear when i got the fuel then uh brilliant stuff uh what else to tell you about i think that's probably it in terms of the straightforward spec or curb weight 367 kilograms so that is with fuel on board uh does sound like a lot doesn't it and it is a lot but don't be afraid of it because it's held so low it's actually pretty easy to uh to cope with right so there we go that's the uh the 2021 honda gold wing okay so back on the bike then and yeah there's this first ride there's really not a lot to not like about the bike but there's some things about this bike that it hasn't got that i do have on my tour which i would miss and as i say i'll talk to you about those in that future video where i compare the two bikes so i won't go into them now but this particular if i'd never ridden a gold wing before and i just jumped onto this one and i wasn't aware of what this one's missing and there's nothing about this really to not like the handling through these corners is just sublime you can really lean her over and she never feels unstable the handling is beautiful this engine just has so much power and grunt available at all times the dct gearbox on the gold wing just makes so much sense i have ridden the manual gold wing before and it was absolutely fine but if you want you know relaxing touring riding which is what these bikes are all about and why not go for the dct i wouldn't mind betting that of all the gold wings that are sold 75 percent of dct ones might be more than that in fact even though it has got lots of electronics and stuff to mess about with it's actually pretty intuitive you don't have to read the manual it's easy to operate it all makes great sense visibility is good you're comfortable people can see you coming [Music] just a great great bike and yes they are expensive but this in the in quotes bagger form just over 24 grand it is a lot of money but it is a lot of bike i think once you get a taste for these things nothing else quite compares people always ask me how do i find the gold when compared to say the bmw k 1600 gt and bagger versions or the bmw rt which i suppose are the natural sort of competitors well those others those bmws are lovely bikes too i love those and they are a bit cheaper but for me the bmw sorry their honda is just so much more refined it's all about the engine on this this six cylinder engine is so much nicer than the uh boxer twin on the bmw's and i say that as a bmw boxer fan yeah i'm looking forward to riding this some more over the next few weeks and getting to know some more and bring you some more videos as i say huge thank you to honda uk for letting me borrow the bike once again it's a privilege to be able to ride bikes like this not many people get to do so so i'm very aware of that so thank you to those guys might be an overtaking opportunity here yes there is see you down there and as you can tell i'm spitting by this bike i love it an absolute beast so that's it for this time i hope you've enjoyed that look forward to speak to you again soon until when this has been the mystery fly cheerio

Channel: TheMissendenFlyer

Views: 134,985

Rating: 4.9256349 out of 5

Keywords: The Missenden Flyer, TMF, 2021 Honda Goldwing Review | Well I'm baggerred!, New Honda GL1800 Goldwing Review, 2021 Honda GL1800 Goldwing Review, 2021 honda gold wing automatic dct, 2005 honda goldwing review, New Honda GL1800 Goldwing Review | Top 5 Things I love, 2021 Honda Goldwing Review | Goldwing Test Ride | CruisemansGarage.com, New Honda Goldwing - REVEALED! - 8 Secret quirks and nuances, Wales two up by Honda Goldwing - Episode 1 | Burford to Builth

Id: hyP_C7Bv1KQ

Length: 22min 49sec (1369 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021