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The Goldwing


micah2074

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Great overview @micah2074, it sounds like an amazing bike.  I think your observations are similar to what I am finding with my VFR, refinement, power, weight, maintenence etc. 

I haven't ridden my VFR as much as you on your Goldwing and only shorter day rides so I will reserve final judgement until after a week long road trip but so far I agree with your assessment, for a spirited day ride through the twisties, I'll use the FJ and on a more relaxed sight-seeing 'vacation' type trip, the more refined bike makes for a nicer experience.  Its nice to have a 2nd bike for different purposes, small, light and agile vs more substantial, planted and refined in addition to manual transmission vs DCT.

Finally the weight; I'm still not sure how Honda does it but they have some black arts going on in the weight distribution and handling department.  Heavy as HELL in the garage but once the wheels start moving its a completely different bike, I'm amazed every time I ride it.

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***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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I have a 2018 DCT Goldwing Tour. I couldn’t get used to the factory seat, so replaced it with a Corbin. It was an expensive upgrade, but worth it. For an 800 pound bike it sure does feel light. I’m still trying to get comfortable on my ‘21 Tracer 9 GT. Hoping the Corbin seat that I ordered will make a big difference. I repositioned the handle bars a bit with heli bars recently, but still not very comfortable on the Tracer. I like the idea of having sport tour bikes on the opposite ends of the weight spectrum. 

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16 minutes ago, tclhb said:

I have a 2018 DCT Goldwing Tour. I couldn’t get used to the factory seat, so replaced it with a Corbin. It was an expensive upgrade, but worth it. For an 800 pound bike it sure does feel light. I’m still trying to get comfortable on my ‘21 Tracer 9 GT. Hoping the Corbin seat that I ordered will make a big difference. I repositioned the handle bars a bit with heli bars recently, but still not very comfortable on the Tracer. I like the idea of having sport tour bikes on the opposite ends of the weight spectrum. 

I went with the Sargent seat(s) on my FJ. That’s about it as far as comfort stuff goes. 
My Goldwing  seat seems to be getting better the more I ride it. Then agin maybe my behind is just getting numb from sitting in the saddle for hours on end. 

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Let’s go Brandon

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1 hour ago, micah2074 said:

I went with the Sargent seat(s) on my FJ. That’s about it as far as comfort stuff goes. 
My Goldwing  seat seems to be getting better the more I ride it. Then agin maybe my behind is just getting numb from sitting in the saddle for hours on end. 

I recently read someone on the GW forum say that if you give the factory seat enough time, it will break in. If it’s working for you, don’t replace it. It’s freakin a thousand dollars or so to go with a Corbin, Ultimate, or a little cheaper, RDL. If you’re doing a really long trip and need a little help you could always do an Airhawk or similar. I do miss the factory seat being controlled with the GW buttons and seeing the settings on the dash. My Corbin has a switch on the side since I got the cooling feature too. 
I do wonder sometimes when people say a seat gets more comfortable in time, how much is due to the seat changing, and how much is due to our butt changing 😜. Good review BTW! Living the dream! 
PS, If you don’t have the latest GW with the larger trunk, you can add the Corbin color matched trunk lid. I did that, and also did the larger doors on the side bags. 

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Nice write up Micah, as a heads up I’m pretty sure that the DCT filter only needs to be changed every 2nd or 3rd oil change. Plan on the oring in the filter cover as well, they stretch and are easy to pinch when reinstalling. 

I’ll own one for sure someday,

Skip

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Couple of things I’ll add. The CarPlay is great.

Also I’ve heard complaints about the built in GPS. The way I use GPS it’s works fine. I make a route on the computer. Load it onto a thumb drive. Then load it onto the bike. No complaints. 

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Let’s go Brandon

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Nice bike and nice write-up!  I took an extended test ride on an '18 DCT 'Wing a while back.  Much different than the previous gen 'Wing.  Better handling, better brakes, slightly lighter.  The updates took an already great touring motorcycle and added sporting flair and modern electronics.

The 'Wing is on my short list for a replacement of my ST-1100, but it only has about 35K miles on it, so it will be a while before a replacement is needed.

And the paint scheme on yours is the one I prefer!

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Always enjoy reading about different bikes.  I've thought about lots of bike and been tempted by some including the new Wings, VFRs, BMW R1250RS, etc.  New Wings are very nice.  Ran across three a few years ago riding up 93 going north towards Salmon Idaho.  I was on my BMW F800GT with full sidecases and a 58 liter duffle on the rear seat.  I was quicker in the tight curves, medium we were about the same but they were faster on the straights and open sweepers.  2 of the riders were very good and the 3rd not so much but keeping up. They were not loaded and running 1 up but still amazing performance from a big bike.  

A new Wing would be fantastic for most of my trips most of the time.  I'm a super sport guy at heart and love the curves.  All the time looking at what I could get or ride but still happy with the compromise of my Tracer 900 GT.  Light and fast enough to be lots of fun in the curves but good enough for all the miles getting there.  

 

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On 4/16/2022 at 8:52 AM, betoney said:

Finally the weight; I'm still not sure how Honda does it but they have some black arts going on in the weight distribution and handling department.  Heavy as HELL in the garage but once the wheels start moving its a completely different bike, I'm amazed every time I ride it.

Honestly, though, same can be said for every motorcycle, and airplane for that matter. They heavy like stone at a stop but lighten up beautifully once rolling above a walking speed. And therein lies the Big Problem for a geezer rider, or anyone with a disability. You put yours and the wife’s bodies on board, tank of gas, bags full of “stuff” and in no time at all you’re heaving more than a half ton of dead weight at the stop light, or in the parking lot. On a hot day. And you be 73 years old!  That’s why Tracer9GT and leave the wife at home 

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  • 2 months later...

A Wing thread,,, lmao.... I own a 2018 Tour 6MT bought new in 2019. It's name and job description is "Wife Taxi". It's the best boring motorcycle I have ever owned. If my 2017 M8 POS RoadKing wasn't complete junk I would still be on it. Wing will eat miles like a kid eats candy and it is smooth and comfortable for the most part. But it's not perfect or even near perfect. Somethings you just don't learn about until you own the product. It's almost as if Honda does not want to build motorcycles or cars anymore and would prefer marketing there intellectual property, robots and jets now days. I test rode and had loaner 2018 Wings while going through all the never ending death throws with my M8 King. My dealer is a Harley, Honda, Suzuki multiline dealer. So I had exposure to Wing from launch day. And like many I got duped by Hondas marketing and all the claims of Wing super powers and reliability. I rode DCT's and 6MT's so I knew hands down I wanted the slipper clutch 6MT. If your carving up two lanes and grinding pegs the DCT will lock you out of fast multi-gear down shifts when you blow by Jesus as a brake marker if you want to back the big girl into a corner. At that point manual mode is no help. Being a dual clutch there is no slipper clutch function. And in my minds eye that possible lock out is why the Wing has such good brakes for a bike of it's size. They are impressive! And front end dive during hard/panic braking is controlled very good because of the geometry of the multilink up front. And Hondas Pro-arm out back while not the best for handling over all, shaft jack is controlled pretty darn good. But Honda knowing they could get away with being half assed ruined the suspension. There is no preload adjustment on the front shock and all it has for damping control is 1980's single point damping control in predefined BS Honda settings. That's cross tied together between the modes which are kind of BS and rear shock preload. So the bike can become out of balance suspension wise front to rear if you over do the rear preload and still have front suspension that can bottom out on a very small bump,,, really strange. Or the bike can get to porpasing(sp) on expansion joint cuts on the freeway or interstate because the front and back don't have a clue what the other is doing and gets out of sync. And one has to dig around in the old outdated navi menu system to change some settings. I like to turn off tq. control and adjust some of the nanny settings which is a pain to start with and then when you kill the bike and start it back up all the settings revert back to nanny/default. The Wing is underpowered pretty bad. To be kind lets just say it's 125hp/125tq at the crank give or take a couple of either here or there. A K1600, big bore Harley or Indian Challenger will eat it alive. They all have there pro and con's. But Honda knows how to build reliable, good mpg, epa/euro trash spec shattering greenie weenie internal combustion engines and they left there best tech out of the Wing. And locked it down as a turd motor. Kind of a bummer. Fit and finish is not very good on the 6th gen Wings either. Paint is very thin, extremely soft some trash in the paint and other issues. I've seen these production issues in every 6th gen Wing I've looked at closely. With very tacky decals for pinstripes and accents. Great looking bike at 20',,, tacky at 5'. Yeah it's a sign of the times but Honda could have done far better on a so called Halo bike. And the biggest gaf concerning Wing is the horribly outdated and PITA navi, audio, bluetooth, usb system. Honda went and pulled completely outdated tech out of the tech trash can concerning this system. The navi dates back to Honda car navi's of the mid 2000's less the dvd base map system with even less over all function than the old car navi systems. The bluetooth version is 2.1+edr which went obsolete in 2007 along with the out of date usb 2.0 which went obsolete in 2008. It's all very very old tech with no hope for use in the future. Sena and Cardo are going to stop putting dual radio's in there systems at some point and then Wing owners will be out of luck. So the end result is a overly complicated slow and very out of date tech system Honda should have to fall on there sword over. And no wifi to update the navi system or other software on the bike. It's more out of date than my 2018 simple low cost 2018 Ford Fusion SE. Honda reliability,,, well,,, it's not what it use to be. Started seeing the decline in Honda cars in reliability and over all quality of engineering, thus the 2018 Fusion purchase instead of a Accord or Civic of which I've owned many of. A 4th gen Accord EX was the best car I ever owned and quality kept slipping until I could no longer buy there cars with the last 2009 Civic being a major let down. My Wing is not a all weather touring bike. I've had issues with the electric windshield getting dirty because of riding in the rain and not functioning right. Resulting in pulling the fairing completely apart and having to clean the unit out of road grit and grime. Handle bar switch gear has been a issue. 6MT's are known to have the clutch switch's go bad that cause a Hill Start Assist error. There is also a cruise control switch they call it that can fail and cause issues. It's a interlock switch that effects the cruise control, but not part of the cruise control switch set,,, go figure. Front brake switch can go bad as well as the side stand switch and rear brake light switch. I've also had issue with the start stop switch getting dirty and having to clean it out of road grime and relube. And as of late the finale drive unit has started to leak. Bike only has 13k miles on it. So it's got to go in and have the min. of a finale drive unit seal replaced or the the whole unit. I bought a 5 year Honda extended warranty after lving with the bike. So I will let Honda deal with the leaking finale drive. With none of this being isolated issues. Honda knows about all of them. The low mileage for a 2018 bike is not because I don't like riding the bike. It is a one of a kind. I get the pleasure of riding a lot of bikes. Friends, family, loaners or refreshing bikes I built and sold on to other people come back to me, some for extended stays I ride. And the reason I joined this forum is because I'm more than likely going to by a 2022 Tracer GT or a MT-09 variant as a personal short hop play bike and keep the Wing as a Grand Tourer/Wife Taxi after all it still have 5 years of warranty. I would never pay MSRP or anything close to MSRP for any motorcycle and Wing is no exception. Honda half assed far to much stuff on the 6th gen Wing. I paid $18k cash for my 2018 new with 1 mile June of 2019 and it's not worth a cent more. But good value for money at $18k. Many and most Wingers think I hate the bike. Which is not true at all. I've just owned a lot of motorcycles and have spent more money on bikes than most sane people in my life and am very critical and keep a very close eye on manufactures engineering, design, production identities and results. I still have my first gas powered two wheeler a Honda 50 MiniTrail in Yellow/White I got Christmas of 1968. I have a soft spot for Honda but they have slipped and offer nothing at all that I want to purchase to stable with the Wing or park in my driveway anymore. Kind of sad. Yamaha is another story. I've owned RD 350's/400's, RZ 350's/500's, FJ's/FJR's and a few big twins with Patrick Racing engine work. So a MT-09 variant sounds fun!

632707316_psywing(Medium).thumb.jpg.194d6fbc644bdce2347f58149c377b0d.jpg

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That’s a lot of words. I find the Bluetooth, navigation, etc to work fine. As far as reliability goes, I’ve put 12k miles on her since late February. No issues. 
Power… I haven’t ridden with anyone with the big beemer so I can’t say. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bmw is faster though.
Indians, roadkings, glides, Ultra limited’s…I ride with regularly. The wing will eat their lunches and beg for seconds. 

Let’s go Brandon

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