EUROPE BY GOLD WING

Honda’s Wing is a triumph. Euro-touring enthusiast M Graham finds out why.

ZERO TRAFFIC ON a Slovenian Sunday, the odd bicycle now and again, but otherwise nothing. Just as well. On their mountain roads, you sometimes need all the tarmac. It can go from grippy, freshly-laid asphalt to gravel-strewn crevasse with negative camber thrown in for fun. You’re on your A-game – or you’re in trouble. Me and Trialmaster are hauling out of Velenje, through the Pohorje Mountains, broadly aiming for Klagenfurt, Austria. As a satnav rookie I’m sending us into farmyards and gardens. Onto unpaved tracks even. It’s getting mildly fraught, but we have time on our hands, and the sun’s gradually drying the odd damp patches that make life interesting, and frequently tense. We’re in no rush. We have a full tank of fuel, water, cigarettes, and a sandwich to share. And we have the 2018 Honda Gold Wing Tour. Trialmaster has only ever been on ’80s Harleys – fairly spartan ones at that – with a couple of inches suspension travel and not much by way of pillion seat. The Wing is an entirely new deal for her: roomy, smooth and fast. Plus we won’t have to backtrack to collect bits that have fallen off. The toolkit in the lefthand pannier will remain unmolested. We are touring, meandering, floating. So often in this life there’s a town to get to, a place to find, people to meet. Not now. Sure, we’ve to be back by Wednesday, but that’s three nights away and Europe is at our immediate disposal. We loaf around Slovenia, admire the clear water, taste the mountain air, then decide to head to Munich for a pint. They’ll do a good pint in Munich. Into the deserted ski country of the Alps and the Wing busts the big climbs wide open. There’s an unearthly amount of urge from the flat-six. Pour on the throttle in full auto DCT and it often stays in the same gear, never bothering to shift down at all. And still it barrels skywards at a big lick. As the tarmac properly dries, we can further relax and enjoy the jaunt. Gaggles of cyclists are a minor hazard on the way up simply because of the speed differential. On the way down less so, some of them can really boogie. It warms up again after the cooler air 1200m above sea level and we drop into the tight turns trailing the brakes, dabbing the pegs, having a laugh, lapping it up.

Under more usual circumstances after a few of hours on the road Trialmaster would be digging me gently in the ribs, then making a polite let’s-have-a-cup-of coffee hand gesture. Not so far today. Not until we reach the flatter stuff and the altitude hilarity abates. We stop for a coffee and a fag. ‘There’s almost too much room at the back,’ says Trialmaster. ‘Can you feel me moving about? It’s like a sofa. You need a telly in the back of your head.’ Maybe one day. The Wing is so stable you barely notice any sidewinds, even the ones that blast you from gaps in truck convoys or ambush you from breaks in roadside furniture. It’s stable not just because it’s heavy (at 379kg wet), but because the double wishbone/pro Link chassis is so composed. Yes, it’s 48kg lighter than the outgoing model, but it’s still a lump. It doesn’t feel big on the go, but wait until you have to filter through a jammed-up autobahn and a 905mm mirror-to-mirror keeps your depth/distance perception on its mettle. With that low c of g though, it’ll crawl along with the merest weightshift on a footpeg, or twitch of the ’bars to stay dead in line. It’s a cinch to pilot. And a delight. Munich city limits are so slow-moving on an early Sunday evening that we hit a plan B and head below Bavaria’s big burg for whatever comes our way. There’s a limit to how much lane-splitting you can do on full beam on high alert when there’s a stein with your name on it somewhere in the sticks. Trialmaster’s a dab hand at sniffing out digs in the boondocks and as we roll into Weidmoosweg she urgently points a gloved finger at a substantial square white building surrounded by Fendt agricultural equipment, and then hops off before the Wing’s even stopped. While it cools its jets in the low evening sun, she emerges from this deep rural gasthaüs casually lofting a tiny key on a huge brass fob. We’re in. The local Dons are in full effect, all gingham shirts, felt waistcoats and feathered Tyrolean pork pie titfers. The leather bib ‘n’ brace hot pants, it seems, have been put away until next Saturday night. No matter. We’re shortly served two handled, ceramic forty-gallon drums of local lager (without the hinged lids) by a young woman in a tartan nightie in a huge bar with a vaulted ceiling. This is the life. Life is in short supply on the Monday morning however. Being a sensible man I opted out of the shnapps tasting obligations that Trialmaster fell prey to later that night, so had to walk her gently around the graveyard of the local Lutheran church feeding her wren-sized bites of vegetarian weisswürst to get some colour into her cheeks. Bloody motorcycle touring… I ask you… She’s made of stern stuff though. No sooner has the new destination facility of the satellite navigation system been fired-up than there’s an animated discussion about where, precisely, we should head. ‘I’m not going to some bloody tax haven with a tin-pot royal family. I’ve seen them on It’s A Knockout – no way,’ protests Trialmaster. ‘It’ll be like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [Luxembourg]. Let’s go to Cologne. There’s loads of good stuff there.’ Fair point. ‘It’s just somewhere to aim for babe, Cologne’s a bit too northeast for us. We could do it if you want. What about Namur? There’s the remains of the old Citadel motocross track there – that’d be worth a look. And your mate Dave Thorpe’s won there. That takes some doing. What do you reckon?’ Trialmaster met three-times World MX legend at a Honda do a few years back and was quite understandably wowed by his unassuming demeanour and uncommon modesty over his standout race record. ‘Yeah, Dave Thorpe. Go on then.’ We saddle up and aim the Wing at Wallonia’s capital via the quickest no-toll route. It’s 450 miles away: mere bagatelle for this machine. The thing hits its straps as soon as we get onto the fast stuff. Not sure if these are yer actual unrestricted autobahns, but everyone’s piling along at a ton and it seems rude not to join them. The adjustable screen’s set high and we sit in what seems like a pocket of still air as we crank it up a bit. Some sort of souped-up Audi is closing fast, so we roll on a good fistful and keep it at bay until we hit 115mph. And that’s as far as it goes, we slide into the middle lane and let the car past. Back into its wake and no amount of changing modes, or swapping to button shift will take the Wing past 115. It’s speed-limited across the board. Damn. With 124 horses and 125 lb.ft of tug this thing should sail up to 140mph. But no. It transpires Honda think it best that a health and safety-bound 180km/h is all we should be allowed. Whatever happened to fun and games? The chassis can plainly handle more, the engine can do it, so why cap the entertainment when everyone else can play? Seems a bit churlish. If all it could manage was 115 you’d accept that. But with 1800ccs it should be a bit quicker than a 2-litre Capri. Honda, unsurprisingly, would not say anything about derestriction. Let’s hope it involves no more than snipping a couple of wires. It turns out Namur was a tad ambitious, what with traffic and the capped top whack. We’d have been stopping every five minutes for fuel flat out anyway. At modest speeds you’ve got a 250 range from a four and a half gallon tank, which is perfectly respectable. Less respectable is luggage capacity. This Wing is designed to lure riders who eschewed the previous pantechnicon versions. It’s also aimed at weaning people off Pan Europeans too. There will be no more Pans from here on out. It’s much more compact than anything before it, but hard luggage has its limitations, especially when sculpted as angularly as this. If you pack lots of little bits and bobs carefully into the various recesses, it works. Not so well when you’ve got two big bags. The optional rack for the topbox top is more an essential. We haul into Florenville, Belgium and find a bijou hotel. The bloke in charge is besotted with the Wing and insists we park it in his garage. I have to explain I’d prefer to have it where I can see it and he couldn’t be prouder of having it outside his gaff.

‘I’m not going to some bloody tax haven with a tin-pot royal family. I’ve seen them on It’s A Knockout – no way’

We leave our new best friend at a fairly ungodly hour next day to hit the tunnel early doors. In the cool morning air we waft through farm country in lonely splendour, punctuated only by the occasional plasticky death thunk of a large insect on a visor. The engine notes are beguiling: low down it’s big marine diesel, then it goes to two T150 Triumphs getting on the cam, and finally to half a Porsche 917 at the top end. The powerhouse is utterly majestic. We queue up for a ticket in the midday heat and as we inch towards the booth, there’s no heat soak from the engine. Honda have cleverly ducted it away. It’s about as civilised as a motorcycle can be, yet still delivers the more visceral requirements via its mighty engine (top speed notwithstanding). It is built to a magnificently high standard and the finish everywhere is exemplary. In 1972, when Soichiro Irimajiri, creator of Honda’s Grand Prix sixes, the CBX, and their V12 Formula 1 engine was planning the first Gold Wing, he imagined it as a 1470cc liquid-cooled flat six, and aimed for a top speed of 140mph. That machine proved too cramped when sketched out and so two cylinders were lopped off and the first 1975 Wing ended up as a flat four. This incarnation, the apotheosis of his first draft, is no doubt everything he imagined it as way back when. Honda are eager to change the Wing’s demographic to enlightened youth, and they make much of the new bike’s agility and reduced bulk. They have delivered commendably on those counts. The sticking point will be price. This version, the Gold Wing Tour, with DCT and an airbag, costs £29,699. PCP deals will take some of the sting out of that tag, but whichever way you look at it that’s more than a whole year’s money for the average UK citizen. It’s a heavenly bike yes, but that’s a hell of a lot of dough.