For the last year or so, we’ve been publishing Editor Mark’s profound motorcycle thoughts (Harumph – Ed.) in our weekly newsletter, sent to thousands of subscribers every Monday morning, along with a selection of stories.
Now, two days later and every Wednesday, we’ll also publish those opinions here for anyone to read and comment on, though you’ll be 48 hours behind all the ultra-hip and informed people. Here’s what Mark had to say this week.
The rumour mill’s a-churning for the new motorcycle Honda will reveal next month. We’ve been invited to a “Global Product Reveal” in Santa Barbara, California, on Oct. 24, where we will “attend the unveiling of this innovative new motorcycle” in “what is sure to be a fun and enlightening event and the first of many exhilarating adventures inspired by this important 2018 model.” Sounds like a new Gold Wing to me.
I’m not alone thinking this. As we reported this week, a couple of European magazines published photos that are supposedly the new Wing and its stripper sibling, the F6B. They’re good-looking pictures, too, which show up-to-date bikes with front ends similar to the Duolever design seen on some BMW K1200s. It makes sense for Honda to revise or replace the Wing, since the flat-six-powered GL1800 has been around since 2001 – that’s a lifetime for any automotive product. The challenge is that it’s still a very capable and much desired motorcycle, in only its second generation. How do you improve on something that doesn’t really need improving?
(An aside: All-new reveals and launches are still exciting, even in these days of internet leaks and spoiler alerts. To my jaded mind, the best of them all was the Dodge Tomahawk, a thoughtful concept of what can happen when engineers shoe-horn a 500-hp Dodge Viper V10 engine into a motorcycle frame. It was never road-legal or even close to it, and Dodge sold a few at inflated prices to people who parked them in their collections and left them there. It was ridden onto the stage right in front of me at the 2003 Detroit auto show by a brave and terrified Chrysler vice-president; when he invited media to come up and take a closer look, I was the very first journalist to swing a leg over and sit on it. Still a highlight 14 years later.)
We may be completely wrong and Honda’s mystery bike may be something else entirely but I don’t think so. Keep tuned in to CMG and you’ll find out as soon as we do. Costa’s at the California event and I’m at the (almost) simultaneous reveal at the Tokyo Motor Show, so one way or another, we’ve got you covered.
Of course, if you’re impatient for all the details of another new bike, Costa’s just ridden the BMW G310 GS in Spain and his full report is published this week. Its engine is about the size of only one of the Gold Wing’s cylinders, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less of a motorcycle. It’s the other end of the spectrum, sure, but there’s something for everyone these days, which just happens to be our mantra at Canada Moto Guide.
Keep it pinned at CMG!
Mark Richardson
Editor, Canada Moto Guide
It should be a Euro4-compliant Freddie Spencer superbike replica. I guarantee it would sell at least 3 units, which should easily make it cost-effective, yes?
Gold wing fans are not the only ones interested in this new machine. The ST1300 community is buzzing about what we have seen so far . It appears this new wing is lighter and set somewhere between the Wing and St . Time will tell. St owners have felt abandoned buy Mother Honda since the St was discontinued in 2014. It appears Honda had left the sport touring market to BMW .