DESTINATION SLOVENIA
The Gold Wing was like something from another planet in 1975. Me and the old man nipped into Cheltenham to buy plugs for his Yamaha AS3 and when we pitched up at Williams bike shop, the old boy couldn’t believe what he was seeing. ‘It’s a bloody flat four,’ he kept repeating. This was something else. And it still is… No individual model has a following like the Gold Wing’s. With 795,000 sold since 1975, there is no shortage of owners. And they like to get together. A lot. At the European Federation Treffen in Slovenia, there are 1000 bikes, trikes, combos and what have you. We run into Jeff Sheppard from Gloucester. Jeff is 72 and bought his Wing in 2011. ‘I had some pension money so I invested it in a 1500 Gold Wing,’ he says. ‘The camaraderie is second to none. If you need help you just look up the nearest people in the Help Guide and you’re done.’ Oddly enough we met Wingers Dave And Margaret from Deal at a petrol station in Germany and before the chat had gone two minutes they’d offered to put us up if we ever needed it and gave us their number. So if it’s camaraderie you’re after Jeff’s not joking.