Honda GL1800 GoldWing Review - Lessons Learned

hey kids it's mr fly here hope you're well now today i want to bring you my lessons learned video on this the incredible gl 1800 gold wing from honda an absolutely amazing bike you can already tell that this is going to be somewhat of a gushing review i've had this bike for over a month now and i've used it in all sorts of conditions in all sorts of weathers even including a bit of touring with the misses on the back i really got to know the bike and i think it's an absolute brilliant machine it's been with us now in one form or other for 45 years would you believe and it has become somewhat of an icon even people that don't know anything about bikes recognize a honda gold wing when they see one anyway enough of the gushing let's crack on with the lessons i've learned about the bike so this particular example of the machine that i've been riding uh is a 2020 spec bike basically uh the bike has been changed obviously over the 45 years that it's been around and this recent incarnation came out back in 2018 and uh today in 2020 it's still the same bike but uh it is an incredible bit of kit it's kind of a showcase for what you can do technology wise on a motorcycle it's laden with technology uh its handling is incredible for such a big old beast it's uh it's heavy but it's super powerful this particular one i've got is the dct one and i've just been super super impressed with this bike no bike is perfect however are they so uh let me take you through the lessons i've learned starting with the not so good stuff sort of things you may not pick up if you just had say a one hour test ride on one of these things okay let's get on with the negatives then okay to my first thing on the very short negative list about the honda gold wing then and that is something that i learned when i went touring with my misses to wales if you haven't seen those videos by the way they're elsewhere on the channel to remember i'll stick a link to our whales tour and you'll get to see what it's like actually living with a bite over a period of days but one of the things we learned on that tour was that the panniers aren't quite big enough if you want to go on tour one of the criticisms of this recent incarnation the bike is that they did make the panniers and the boot for want of a better word a bit smaller than on the previous bikes and we found that too not only is it small i'll try and see if i can get a helmet in a minute just to demonstrate um the i found that things like getting into the side pannier that was on the downward sloping side so where the bike is lent over you can see this particular panel here is quite low to the ground so it's quite hard to get into the button itself is here and then by the time you've opened it getting in there it's quite quite difficult the access hole isn't very big and actually it's not very large in there if we try to put a helmet in and here we go this is my array rebel which isn't a particularly big helmet in fact it's one of my smallest helmets you can see it's a bit of a struggle especially with one hand to go in in fact let me put the camera down a second in fact no way could i get that helmet in there even using two hands so you can't get a helmet in the side case let's try uh the top one okay all this case is one of the good things by the way is it's completely got central locking on here so i've got the key which is keyless in my pocket it means that i can just undo uh the panties remember where the button is there we go on all these now this one is bigger as you can see but will it pass the helmet test uh yes is the answer look at that so my arrow rebel will fit in there and it looks like i could probably get two helmets in there as well but they're the small ones if you try a bigger helmet like my tor x4 also from our end nicely color coordinated i think you're going to struggle doesn't want to shut with that in there so yeah a bit of a squeeze once you're on to the bigger helmet so uh yeah a bit of a thumbs down is the message on the pannier sizing okay so much for the uh pannier sizing what's the next thing on my short negative list well the next thing is to do with uh traveling again uh if you're out on tour and this one came specifically from mrs floyer my passenger she said that even though she absolutely loved the back of this because this is incredible with this big effectively armchair on the back with these uh with these armrests a really comfortable place to be for your pillion she said that she found it hard to hold on the grab handles are here as you can see um and they're right down your side and you can't really get your hand around them so easy the upside of that is you don't really need to hold on because you can actually you can grab all of that the arms here and you feel very secure on the seat uh if you want to hear more about what it's like to be a passenger on here then again check out my other videos on the bike i do have my missus talking about what it's like to be a passenger on here but yeah she did say grab handles bit of an issue uh otherwise brilliant for a passenger okay next up kind of an obvious one for a bike like this and probably something that is in most people's minds when they're thinking about the honda gold wing and that is the weight of the bike is that an issue well first of all it's not an issue when you're riding it all the way disappears that's always the same on big heavy bikes but it is an issue the weight uh if you're on say a gravel car park there was one occasion where i felt like i may drop the bike it was early on in my tour with the bike and i quickly learned how to handle it um so you do have to be super careful it's over 300 kilograms it's a big old beer moth of a bike if it goes over that critical point you are going to drop it there are some plus sides to that even though even though that's a negative point of course it is a heavy bike and i'm told if you were to drop it it doesn't go over very far because you've got these bits here that are effectively like engine guards both on the back and the front and apparently the bike only tips over that far so it's actually you can lift it up i haven't tested that but that's the theory um and then the other thing is honda thought of this of course and they've equipped the bike with what they call a creep mode so often people talk about the bike having a reverse gear but it doesn't really have a reverse gear what it has is a little switch on the handlebars here see that basically you hit that with the brake in and then it enables you to press this button to take you backwards or the button on the front will allow you to creep forward and it uses i think it's the starter motor to do that so it goes very slowly it starts slowly and gets faster as you keep the button held down and you go forwards or backwards in a nicely damped way so even if you are on a horrible gravel car park and you've got other you know you're afraid you're going to drop the bike then you probably won't because you use the ford and reverse creep boat absolutely thumbs up for them so uh even though it's a negative the weight they thought of it and they kind of counteract it so even that's not an issue one thing that very definitely is an issue with the bike though uh along with the wind keep blowing my list away so sorry about that is uh is the cost of the bike it is an expensive machine if you want to buy a brand new one it's called the website it'll cost you in the region of 30 grand 30 000 pounds for a motorcycle i think in anybody's book is a lot of money but it is you know it's a it's the starship enterprise of bikes i can understand why it's expensive when you ride one of these you uh well i guess you love it or hate it i definitely i'm obviously in the love it cap i never thought i'd say that about a goldbring but if you're in the hate it camp and you ever get a chance to ride one have a go one i think you'll be quickly converted so yeah the cost is very definitely a negative and then linked with that uh is the image of the bike for some reason but a bit like um with harley-davidsons and even bmw gs's people don't like harley's or they don't regard them as bikes or proper bikes not sure why that is i like all two-wheeled uh motorcycles personally uh but i also had a little bit of that prejudice i've seen these before on ferries and things with trailers and thought what is going on there and didn't really get it but within the first time i ever wrote one of these within 10 seconds of me riding the bike i thought this is the best bike i've ever ridden uh and i still kind of think like that so uh yeah i'm very much a gold wing convert as you can tell okay so it may not have sounded like it much but that actually was the negative list the things i found out about the bike that i didn't like but even those as you saw i've got some mitigating circumstances around them what about the things that really stood out to me as positives then well as ever i've written them on the list to make sure i don't forget anything and again not in any particular order first thing i want to mention here this engine very smooth powerful six cylinder engine turbine like power and acceleration that just keeps on pulling is what i said here that is a standout feature for me i mean not the engine looks beautiful on the way they've styled it on the bike but my goodness me the thing has so much shove it's incredible it sounds lovely it's just a wave of torque in all usable speeds and well into illegal speeds as well don't ask me how i know this bike just pulls and pulls like a train so it should do with an 1836 cc six-cylinder engine but yeah a beautiful beautiful engine i really love that about the bike next thing i mentioned here supremely comfortable for passenger and rider uh seats are hugely and nicely padded the backrests and arms and passengers are excellent and both seats are heated and that is a great thing and even on the tour that we did in the height of summer to wales it was lovely most of the time there were some occasions but it got a bit chilly and me and mrs floyd did turn the heated seats on and it made all the difference you may ask why do you need a heated seat i've never felt that my backside is getting cold again it's one of those things until you try it you don't realise having your backside kept warm means your whole core keeps warm so in the depths of winter in countries like this in the uk where we have some cold days you can still ride this in supreme comfort so uh yeah the comfort the bike second to none as far as i'm concerned great seats great padding for both rider and passenger really really like the comfort of the bike next up great wind protection uh with for visor up travelling is what i said here the screen on here is amazing electrically adjustable goes up and down not so much of that kind of suction effect that you sometimes get on big tours when you put them in there fully up position sometimes the wind can tumble around you and it pushes you towards the screen not so with this one if you do suffer from that you can even buy little winglets i understand that fit on here and and counteract that effect i didn't find that a problem what i did notice is with the screen even in his down position i could ride all day long with my visor up even at motorway speeds uh and not have any wind blast in my face so the protection on the front list with this big old fairing absolutely second to none really really good uh next up uh passenger feels secure now that is a big thing again if you're going to buy on these bikes but i would suggest you're going to bike because you're going to do cross-continent touring two-up and it's very important that your passenger feels safe and secure and my missus reported feeling very secure on the back of this bike she said she barely knew when the bike was leaning over because the passenger seat is such that he kind of kept on there she didn't have to think about leaning with me she's a good passenger anyway to be fair uh but she just found it supremely comfortable and one of the biggest issues was stopping and nodding off next up good range for the bike 259 mile range out of the tank i can't remember the top my head how big the tank is but uh obviously it's got a fuel computer on it i didn't do this by brimming the bike up and then seeing how long it went so i ran it to empty but the bike reported at 259 mile range i have no reason to doubt that um so again great when touring you're not stopping for fuel fills very often next thing great headlights i mean the headlights on here just super powerful they're as good as any car uh that i've that i've seen so headlights are amazing and allied to that the presence of the bike on the road if you're in a car and you see this behind you the thing has incredible road presence uh you don't have to be in a car you'll be you know standing on the street and sit come by and people look at it and gawk and think my goodness me look at the size of that now they might be having some of that unwarranted gold wing hate but yeah it's definitely the case that this bike has incredible road presence and i love that about it that's also a safety feature i think okay next up on my list i've written down here satnav is intuitive um and it's uh and that is true the sat nav is properly integrated into this bike um which i like it's the only bar i've ever seen that does that not only does it have the built-in honda sat now but you can also hook up with your android or your apple phone and you can use apple carplay for example if you want to i never bothered with that because i found the honda uh sat nav perfectly usable and there were one or two occasions when there are locations that didn't exist in the map for some reason but on the whole i found the integrated sat nav absolutely brilliant i don't know why more bike manufacturers don't do that [Music] god this really is a comfy place to be all right continue with the positives then next thing i noted here i've already mentioned the great creep mode both frontwards and backwards and the central locking which is much more useful than you might think um the fact that you can you can have the key in your pocket or the fob i should say walk away from the bike and you know the bike is secure close to the bike within about a meter you can access all the panniers and the boot but as soon as you walk away they become locked so you've got to remember the person with the key in the pocket has to be standing near the bar if your passenger is going to go in and out but yeah that's really really useful on this the first part where i've actually felt that keyless locking was useful and it's also handy because the key in your pocket you can twist the button on the on the dash and you can lock the steering and stuff like that so uh yeah so that works really well uh next up here displays an instrumentation i've already talked about the sat nav but the displays and instrumentation on this in general they look very car like uh but i just love them they're easy to read they're they're obvious they've got jupiter they're duplicated as well a lot of the buttons so you've got all these buttons on the central tank here now they're duplicated on the handlebars so you don't have to start pressing about in the center tank if you don't want to uh it just all works and looks beautiful i think it what's uh you know again i don't be too gushing about motorcycle but big thumbs up the honda for the way the displays and instrumentation work next on my list thing i've written here balance at slow speed you can ride feet up at very slow speeds not feet up like that but it's true you can walk ride this at basically walking pace and this is as i say the dct one so i'm not feathering a clash or anything i'm just winding the throttle on slightly and a barely walking place with two people on it the bike is absolutely stable and stays nicely balanced it's beautifully balanced his bike at slow speeds next on the list sports mode goodness me what a difference that makes in the main i had this in tour mode while i had the bike because it just uh it has a nice sort of trade-off between uh go and smooth riding but if you need to get an extra bit of poke because you want to do a cheeky overtake or something it's very easy to pop it into sport mode you just hit the mode button while you're on the fly and it changes it into sport this being the dct one you don't even have to bring the clutch in it just changes straight to sport mode and then the bike absolutely flies you can feel it changing down a few cogs it's a bit like when you kick down an automatic car and suddenly it becomes a snarling beast so yeah the sport mode on this uh absolutely love that on the bike next on my list and i mentioned it already is the adjustable screen i love the fact that it's electrically adjustable that's always amusing isn't it for some reason but it just works well now over a long period of time there is no windscreen wiper oddly on the bike i did think once or twice i could do with one so maybe there's something for the future because it can get um in the summer it got covered in flyers and i forgot to take any cleaner with me to clean the screen and you are looking through the screen quite a lot of time but the big screen does such a good job at keeping the weather and wind off you uh big thumbs up for that and then last on my list just the looks of the bike i think they've done a great job it's still unmistakably a gold wing but i think this particular incarnation of it just looks good it looks like a touring bike should look if you ask me all right let's move forward to the pilot's area so that's it for basically the lessons i've learned on the bike i mean it's uh it is an incredible machine i hope you've enjoyed uh the videos that i've brought you on the gold wing i'm absolutely smitten by as you can tell i never thought i would be until i first rode one of these a couple of years ago and from that point on i've always been a gold wing fan so thank you again to honda for lending me this bike i absolutely love it i'm hoping they might be able to give it to him again at some point in the future for another tour you never know i have to put a little word in um but yeah i mean it's expensive and it's heavy um we'd take that as red it's not the sort of bike to have if you want to do it all it's not a bike that you're going to commute on well i'm sure you could it wouldn't be ideal for that it's not a you know a do-it-all bike by any means it really is sort of a one-trick pony it's a big touring cross-continent bike but if that's what you want to do that's where you get your fun and you've got the money for it then there really is no better bike than the honda gold wing as far as i'm concerned so i hope you've enjoyed that as much as i have i've had a great time with this bike and i look forward to speaking to you again soon until then this has been the mystery you

Channel: TheMissendenFlyer

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Rating: 4.9241705 out of 5

Keywords: The Missenden Flyer, TMF, Honda GL1800 GoldWing Review - Lessons Learned, New Honda Goldwing Review, 2020 Honda Goldwing, How much does a Honda Goldwing Cost?, 2018 Honda Goldwing Review, 2018 Honda GL1800 Gold Wing Review, You WILL NOT believe what the new Goldwing can do, 2018 Honda Gold Wing Tour vs. 2018 BMW K1600 Grand America | On Two Wheels, 2019 Honda Gold Wing vs. BMW K1600GT - The Luxury Touring Review, 2018 DCT Goldwing first Test Drive: watch before you buy

Id: uIaH3MUzueI

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 29 2020