So when the time finally came to start ‘er up, I prepared for the worst: perhaps a slow, indifferent inability to turn over, or a maybe a completely dead battery. Turns out I underestimated the bike's resilience-- a turn of the key and a push of the ‘Start’ button, and the engine sprang immediately to life. Lucky me.
I had missed riding the 'Wing, and the nav system’s onscreen greeting may as well have read something like this; it sure felt good to saddle up again, mild sensations of guilt aside.
Memorial Day 2009 found me plotting a course through my local two-wheeled stomping grounds, the Angeles National Forest. A section that had been blocked off for nearly five years re-opened days before, now enabling a riding loop that would take me from the base of Angeles Crest Highway in La Cañada through 66 miles of twisting road past the ski town of Wrightwood… quite possibly the perfect occasion with which I could reacquaint myself with this 886 pound Japanese touring bike. My buddy Paul had just purchased an ‘07 Ducati Multistrada and decided to join me, so we met up and I reminded myself to resist the urge to keep pace with the far nimbler Italian bike.
Aboard the 'Wing, my sense memory almost instantly recalled all of the strange physical sensations associated with maneuvering the beast: the unusually low, cupped saddle, the imposing view over the handlebars, and the vast array of controls on the left and right grips. My iPod plugged into the left storage compartment, I hit the road to the strains of Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Not a bad diversion on a gloriously sunny holiday.
Thankfully, Paul was maintaining a perfectly manageable pace, so keeping up was no problem once I got back into the rhythm of throwing the ‘Wing into smooth arcs across the Crest’s wide sweepers. There’s a certain trick to coaxing the Gold Wing just right into turns; a swing of the hips helps instigate initial turn-in by banking the bike onto its side, and once you’ve shifted its weight, all that momentum accumulates into the general direction the motorcycle is aimed. Get it wrong, and you better hope and pray your entry speed isn’t excessive, since hard parts can touch down and impede your ability to negotiate the turn.
My first couple hundred turns were smooth and confidence inspiring; though it takes patience to get the bike turned-in, once all that weight settles there’s a cushy sort of stability, followed by the incredible rush of torque from the six-cylinder powerplant as you throttle up out of the apex. Great stuff. Push it a bit, and the pegs start to scrape and fold up… nothing surprising there, especially since this happens early enough to become somewhat routine on twisty roads. But therein lies the problem; as I got further into my canyon carving, I started to push the angle of attack deeper and deeper until I was taking everything the ‘Wing had to offer, and then some. And then it happened: one heart-stopping moment in which the bike could lean no more, and the lower corner of the body bottomed out against the asphalt, producing a disconcerting instability that almost felt like a lateral slide. Oh $&@#!
Paul had no idea of my brush with pavement, as his gazelle-like Ducati was skimming along effortlessly. And that was best; I kept the incident to myself, and with a revised angle of attack the Gold Wing once again became a stately, torquey ambassador of comfort. The handlebar reach was just right, the stereo sounded pleasingly loud, and alternating between squat-inducing acceleration and sure-footed linked rear braking didn’t seem to perturb the chassis at all. “What a bike,” I found myself thinking, and Paul must have been reading my mind; shortly thereafter, he signaled that he wanted to give the ‘Wing a go.
The trade was a shock to the system; the Duc felt featherlight and almost bicycle-like in comparison, and I wondered what Paul would say about the Gold Wing once we swapped back. Sure enough, he was similarly surprised. “It felt like I was floating,” he said, describing the Honda. Floating, indeed.
Forging a return route across Pearblossom Highway, an undulating two-laner with dramatic dips and humps that have earned it the affectionate nickname of “Suicide Highway,” we cut through the high desert playing the occasional game of cat and mouse, the ‘Wing holding its own against the fiery red Italian.
164 miles later, I pulled up to my garage with a grin on my face, an eighth of a tank of gas remaining, and a mild desire to refuel and spend the rest of the afternoon chasing the sun.
>>Click here for a photo gallery of the Long Term 2008 Honda Gold Wing<<
