Do you guys think 2008 Honda Goldwing is out of date?not the best choice for young adults?

My dad is on his second Goldwing (First a GL1500 ANNIVERSARY Edition) and now a GL1800, and they're definitely sweet bikes. You couldn't be more right about how deceptively quick they are, damn they have no right to hustle like they do. But I disagree that they're made for cruising at 100. They only have a 5 speed transmission, and man they run high revs on anything over 70-80. (Also the GL1500 was still carburated into the 90s).

Can't afford a Goldwing, but want to reduce rider fatigue a bit for cheap? Get some foam earplugs and insert them as deep as possible. The massive amount of wind noise and engine noise reduction makes the ride so much less stressful for a few pennies. Wind fatigue reduction is pretty difficult on the aftermarket, though.

This bike is what happens when old men have more money to spend than brain cells working. Luxury bike riders are pretentious jerks, BMW, Triumph and such others included, they don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. How do I know? I did road trips in groups several times. You know who were the twat waffles that almost got everyone involved in trouble? The idiots with the 'luxury bikes'. It wasn't even the sports bikes guys that caused the accident half-way through. It was the old man with the oversized touring bike that decided to play Valentino Rossi on the downhill and got himself thrown off the road. In another occasion, a Goldwing riding prick damn nearly hit me while trying to pass. I was in the lane most to the right and he was tailgating the hell out of me, then suddenly guns it inches from me and glares. Like I'm wrong for going under the speed limit on the right of a 2 lane road. A luxury bike from my experience is synonimous with asshole rider.

they really are famously reliable; mine has 146,000 miles and runs like a top. I've personally put fifteen thousand miles on it and so far my only expenses have been two tires for $500 installed, and a $27 annual registration. The 1.8 liter flat six has the torque curve - and speed profile - of a car engine: absolutely flat from 1500 up to its 6000 rpm redline. One of the main things I used to dislike about the other bikes I owned was how low were their top gears. 4000 @ 60!? Why, I used to wonder. 6000 @ 70?! WTF! Not a problem on this baby. 60 is a calm and collected 2500. It could afford to be 500 rpm lower at that speed though. I often wonder now how I ever survived long trips on my previous motorcycles without cruise control or a radio. Other genius goodies Honda included: that big dial on the left fairing adjusts the headlights up or down electrically; a vent in the middle of the windscreen for warm days; storage compartments all over the place; an intercom for talking to your passenger (but you have to have helmets with Honda's proprietary five pin connector) and a CB and weather band all integrated into the radio; dual horns that are about the same tone and loudness as a chevy pickup; and just tons of storage, I usually have my heavy riding jacket and rain gear and boots along just as a matter of course, and there is still room for all my school stuff and more. The 6.9 gallon gas tank gives it a range of well over two hundred miles, which is a nice change from having stop for gas every other hour. And no need to worry about the fairings if you drop it. Honda thought about that, and they've got us covered, because who doesn't drop their bike occasionally? See those chrome bars, two on each side? One wraps around the valve covers, the other sticks out like a D-ring behind the passenger foot-boards. When you drop it, those bars make contact with the ground and take up the weight of the bike, and nothing else will touch the ground. I've dropped mine twice. I needed help to pick it up, but no body work was damaged. There is supposedly a method whereby one relatively robust individual can pick up the Goldwing by himself, there's a YouTube video on it, but I hope I don't have to try it.

Amusingly the Goldwing didn't start out as a straight touring bike, those first couple years of the GL1000 were a bit snappier than their successors due to different gearing in the rear hub. Honda realized they had a gem of a touring bike on their hands and changed the gearing to reduce top speed and increase low end acceleration. Briefly in it's introduction the GL1000 was one of the quickest production motorcycles. Seen one buzzing around my area that has every extraneous piece of equipment removed and it's a real screamer. Also a lot less of a nightmare to keep going than the old Suzuki Water Buffalo.

I have friends that usually rag on anything that isn't some form of a sports bike (supersport, naked or dirt bike). Naturally, bikes like the Goldwing are at the top for picking on. They often list things like the lack of lane-splitting capability and the car-like characteristics, but after a long day they don't lane-split with their bikes and almost wish they were in a car because their R6 is making them sore. It had to be something else. As exciting and temporarily tolerable as riding a well thought-out sports bike can be, they cannot take a back seat in the overall experience of a ride (IMO). People say "why would you want a bike that doesn't draw you in?" You want that sometimes, but bikes that do this really well often can't release their grip on you. A V-strom 650 ain't as exciting; your friends will have more potential on their machines. But when it's been a long day at work or a long ride, you can get on something like a Versys or a Goldwing and say "home, James" and it will do it. A Gixxer will do it, too, but not without shouting at you and wanting to play all the way home.

I am still not sold on the Gold Wing. My mind may change when I get older, but the appeal of motorcycles to me is their minimalistic design. The largest bike I've driven is a 09 Yamaha Royal Star Tour Deluxe followed closely by a 07 Harley Road King. I like those bikes a lot, but I also really appreciate my 06 Yamaha FZ6 more when I get back to it. There really is something to be said about keeping the motorcycle experience as pure as possible. A simple, lightweight machine on two wheels is hard to improve on and you sometimes lose what made it great in the process of trying. It is sort of like trying to improve on the experience of camping by staying in a Ramada.

I remember hearing from a guy who restored a P-51 Mustang that the concentration needed to not die because it was so exhausting and so loud (it requires two pairs of earplugs and even that isn't enough), that he really could only do a half hour or an hour tops before losing focus due to physical and mental exhaustion. Like a modern jet it has bleeding edge fight charecteristics that made it inherently challenging and even dangerous, but that also made it maneuverable and powerful. Unlike a modern jet it has no computers to aid in flying. Some modern jets wouldn't even fly without them. With the P-51 a split second overcorrection or undercorrection could kill you. So you can then imagine these P-51 pilots doing bomber escorts for upwards of 7 or more hours, and that's what made those people the greatest generation. And they didn't have the ear protection to stave off hearing loss, or the cold weather gear to not get hypothermia in extreme cases.

I learned to ride motorcycles on my dads turquoise 1975 goldwing. He still has that bike and has a 2012 goldwing with 80,000 miles that he put all of them on. He's taking it all the way up to Alaska, the Rio Grande in New Mexico, Maine, and everywhere in between. Now Honda has an all new goldwing coming out and he plans to get that.

my dad had a 1982 GL 1100 he took the front ferring off and found out they had a 50lb counter weight in there so that along with the plastic was about a 60lb weight reduction and it looked better too... it was much faster and better handling and the bike never let us down sat all winter go out hit the start button fired right up good old Hondas can never kill them

 

When I'm old and decrepit and can't handle a supersport or aggressive naked bike any more I will buy a 'Wing. That said that weight doesn't show in the corners at times. I was following a bloke on a wing down a road I know quite well and it took me quite a few corners to find a spot I could overtake him on my 500. Now of course he has well over a litre of power and I have under half that but in the bends unless I was dragging knees the difference wasn't huge.