The Goldwing is Gone :(

Last weekend I sold the 2003 Goldwing.

Today I'm without a motorcycle for the first time in 14 years. Well, not quite without - my son's "crotch rocket" is in the back yard but it lacks insurance and I'm not really all that fond of riding it in any case.

Today I'm putting down why I sold the 'Wing in hopes it will save someone else's life. You see I found that I was getting complacent and, before I got in a real accident, thought I'd better get a different bike or get off them altogether.

As noted above, I've been riding a 'Wing for the past 14 years. I've been riding virtually every day, either to/from customer sites or for an hour or two just to "get away from it all" instead of taking a real vacation each year.

Lately I've found that the scenery around me has been more attractive than the road has been - and my inattention has caused me to have to "duck" a couple of times that should have been foreseen long in advance if I'd been paying attention. So far I have not had a real accident on a motorcycle since back in 1973 when I crashed my Ural and side-chair combination into a parked car after getting the side-chair wheel off the ground going around a corner in the little town in New Zealand I was living in at the time. That was a technical screw-up on my part, and since then I've learned how to balance the combo on just the bike's wheels and happily drive down the street like that.

All the other "drops" have been due to slippery conditions at low or no speed, either putting my foot down on a wet surface at a stop (toppled over with the wife on the back one day) or due to soft ground (Wings and gravel don't mix) and caused minor loss in dignity and a few chrome scratches but that's all.

No, I've been heading for a crash for the past year or so and only the fact that I normally don't ride on busy streets has saved me I'm sure.

So, what's the solution?

I love riding the Honda Goldwing - and I'll probably get another some day. In the mean time I'm looking at the "dual-sport" bikes, starting with Suzuki's V-strom DL650 and similar machines. There are miles and miles of back roads that I want to get onto. I've been on most of the paved roads in Southern BC, Washington State and many in surrounding provinces and states as far away as California and Utah (helped by the fact that business takes me there) but aside from the odd stretch of fairly hard gravel, I've stayed away from the real back roads.

Over the years I've wished I had originally learned riding on a dirt bike as there have been some times when a bit of gravel on the road has spooked me - including one time near Reno, Nevada back in the early '70s when I ended up going out past the guard barrier on a corner with my younger brother on the back. Only the fact that the verge was about 30' wide at that point saved us from a nice long drop to the canyon below. Since then I've gone out of my way to ride anything I've owned on at least some gravel, but I really need a lot more practice, hence the thought of a dual-sport.

Now it's time I think. I'll report on the various machines I try and let you know what I select and why.

Tag: motorcycle honda goldwing suzuki v-strom dual-sport