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volume 8 | issue 10
NOVEMBER 2017
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As you pin your poppy to your lapel, If you prick your finger and bleed, don’t curse, Remember for those who you wear the poppy, Cause they have bled and endured far worse.
2018 Honda Gold Wing Honey, they shrunk the Gold Wing! Actually, that should have read that Honda has shrunk the Gold Wing(s). Honda, realizing what just about everyone else in the motorcycling world already knew, has realized that the Gold Wing name truly is all powerful — there are more than 265,000 of Honda’s previous generations of land yachts still prowling North American highways and bi-ways, says Bill Savino, Honda of America’s motorcycle product manager. So, while the traditional Gold Wing retains its familiar appellation (though officially called the Gold Wing Tour), the
stripped-down bagger version (the former F6B) is now called Gold Wing. Slightly confusing re-naming aside, the all-new Gold Wing, er Gold Wings, really are amazing, the result being sharper, more focused, yet still retaining all the traditional comfort and convenience that Honda’s premier tourer is known for. Indeed, while you’ll be reading about all the new Wings’ technical tour de forces, what is most impressive — especially since the rest of motorcycling’s grand touring fleet seems to be growing ever more portly — is how all those technological tour de forces are aimed making
the 2018 Gold Wing more manageable. The first thing that you notice is how outwardly smaller the 2018s are compared with the outgoing 2017s. The fairing, a bulbous affair on the previous model, is decidedly more svelte, the entire motorcycle is shorter and, indeed, the overall impression is of a 9/10ths scale Gold Wing, the shape familiar, but the dimensions dramatically reduced. But the most incredible news comes when Savino notes that the 2018 model is more than 36 kilograms lighter than the previous generation. That’s an impressive statistic all by continued on PG. 03