So first off: the bikes! I got a few decent shots of the blue GL1800 on the floor. I sat on it, and found that it was remarkably comfortable. I have long legs, and my knees were actually not folded up as much as they are on the old GL1800. I tried putting it up on its center stand, and it was MUCH easier to do than previous Goldwings. However I found it a bit more difficult to rock it off the center stand.
One thing that surprised me was just how far forward the engine appears. I knew it had been moved forward a bit, but it really appears farther forward than the old bike.
The handlebars are quite comfortably positioned, and the controls are easily reached. The mirrors give an excellent view. It does look much narrower than I'm used to however.
I have to admit, that in person, I really like the lines of the new bike. It's swoopy and modern, but not Victory crazy.
The seat is narrower at the front, but much wider at the back. I was less than impressed with the comfort of the rear seat.
There seems to be fairly reasonable clearance between your knee and the fairing, a bit more than on the older GL1800. With my long legs, my knees were right up against the fairing on the GL1800. Not so on this new bike, there's a good couple of inches of room between my knees and the fairing.
There is also a little storage cubby right at your knee.
The passenger is not given much in the ways of comfort if there is no trunk in place.
With the trunk, the passenger has much more support.
Although the armrests are miniature little triangles.
I saw several people trying rider and passenger on the bike, and all seemed to have the same complaints - insufficient support for the passenger. Commonly heard comments were that the seatback was "too upright" and that the seat was "too flat."
While there is lots of space front to rear, the passenger ends up with their legs spread wide to fit around the much wider rider's seat.
The single black coil CB antenna looks much like a standard Harley radio antenna.
Wind wings much like standard Baker Built upper and lower Wind Wings are available. You can turn the uppers out for cold weather:
Or inward, for warmer weather:
With the much narrower width of the fairing offering much less wind protection, I would think these upper and lower wings option would be a must:
An electric motorized windshield is standard, and it runs on rails in the front of the fairing.
The windshield retracts automatically to the lowest position when the bike is shut off, and returns to its previous height when the bike is next started. It travels around 3-4 inches, from up:
to down:
There is a larger windshield also available, which moves the same amount:
Of course I checked out the trunk size, and it is noticeably smaller. I have seen pictures of two full-faced helmets in here, but I am not quite sure how they managed it.
Pushing this little rubber button on the top of the saddlebag opens it up.
The sidebags are also very small looking. Both the door and the interior are oddly shaped.
Notice all the protrusions and strange shapes intruding on the interior space.
The massive starter/generator dominates the left side of the bike, notice how much farther forward the cylinder head appears. This powerful engine has been neutered however - Honda has built in a 112 mph speed limiter into the new Goldwing, which seems very low to me. I don't know if this was put in place by lawyers or by engineers, but a massive, powerful bike limited to only 112 mph seems strange.
Many more controls on this higher level model. Notice the keyswitch is replaced with a knob - as long as you have the keyfob on you, you just twist the knob to turn the bike on.
The front suspension is an absolutely massive cast aluminum piece. It looks extremely solid.
Moving slightly to once side, you can see the front shock in behind.
You can see the tie rods connecting the handlebars to the front steering head. This amazing new suspension system has reportedly completely eliminated the famous "Wing Wobble" decelerating through around 35 mph that has affected just about every Goldwing ever made.
The front forks are similarly massive and beefy.
The front tank cubby is actually fairly large, and contains a USB port. On airbag models, this area is used by the airbag, and the USB moves to the trunk.
The passenger grab rails are miniscule, and tucked into the bottom of the seat. They are very hard to reach for the passenger, and you can only tuck your fingertips into the very bottom of them. This would be much harder to do with gloves on. I had to lean over quite a bit to be able to grab them when seated on the rear - which basically makes them pretty much useless. This was a complaint of almost everyone that tried sitting on the back of the bike. I can't imagine trying to use these with gloves on. I also can't imagine that Honda will leave them as is - either Honda or an aftermarket manufacturer will jump in with an alternative to this oversight.
Here you can see just how much farther forward the engine is placed.
I didn't think much of the rear LED brake lights and turn signals. They aren't particularly attractive, nor are they very large. There is no center brake light.
However there is an available wing with a third brake light if you have a trunk:
The dashboard is just gorgeous. The LCD panels on the sides are very clear and easy to read, while the center color LCD is beautiful. A multitude of idiot lights adorn every open space.
I spent about ten minutes paging through the seemingly hundreds of menus and pages of information. Unfortunately Honda did not have navigation maps nor an active Sirius subscription set up on the bikes, so we could not try the maps or listen to the radio. I found the menu system somewhat...laggy. If you pressed the buttons too quickly to move through the menus, it just ignored the button presses that were too quick. When paging or moving through the menus, this meant you had to press; pause; press; pause; in order to work things realistically.
Also something that drove me crazy: When the menu was shown on the screen with two columns of options, you couldn't press the Left/Right buttons to move from one column to the other - instead you have to press the Up/Down buttons to move all the way down through the first column, then up to the top of the second column, and down to your selection. This is user interface at its worst, but fortunately could be fixed with a firmware update.
Speaking of the navigation system, when creating or importing routes, it has a limit of only EIGHT waypoints! For a motorcycle, this is ridiculous, as motorcycle riders generally want to create specific routes that take them on roads they want to ride, and the only way to force the GPS to do this is to use lots of waypoints. Limiting the user to only eight waypoints per route means this is basically not an option - or you have to break each ride up in to many small routes. This is a huge oversight.
I'm not sure I like the chrome rings around the speedometer - I hate chrome in the cockpit reflecting sunlight into my eyes.
Same goes for the tachometer. The backlit numbers and divisions are great however.
The bridge panel is a shortcut way to get to many functions on the screen. You can page through menus with the controller on the left handgrip, or access many of the same functions with these larger buttons and spinny jog dial/enter button. The jog dial is disabled when riding, so menu options such as suspension preload and damping, bluetooth setup, etc. are not available. However commonly used functions such as grip and seat heat have their own buttons next to the jog dial, and these function when under way.
The cruise control and a rather large, dedicated Mode button (to change between throttle/suspension mode) as well as the kill switch are on the right side. Do you notice anything missing? That's right, the dedicated start switch is gone. To start the bike, you now press the top of the kill switch forward. I'm not sure I like this idea - I have always wanted the start switch close at hand so that the bike can be restarted in an instant in case of emergency.
The left side is bristling with buttons - volume and windshield on top, phone controls, the menu control buttons, turn signal, audio source, and a horn button nestled on the side. I would have liked to see a larger, more distinct horn button. The buttons on both grips are backlit, which is great - Honda has traditionally reserved backlit buttons for the top-of-the-line versions of the Goldwing only. I'm supremely disappointed at Honda's decision to support only the iPhone on the new GL1800. With only 30% (and steadily shrinking) of market share belonging to iPhone, and Android owning 50% (and growing) of the market, why Honda would decide to exclude Android users from their integrated telematic system is just flabbergasting. Hopefully this will be resolved with a future firmware upgrade.
The DCT upshift toggle button can be seen on the back of the left handgrip control cluster.
To turn your high beams on, you push this little toggle forwards:
To turn them off, or flash them briefly, you pull it in towards you.
The passsenger can also control the audio system with buttons tucked beneath the grab rail. They can listen to the radio, while you can listen to Sirius, etc - the passenger can select their own audio source.
Or control their own seat heat.
Or with a model with CB, also transmit with a push to talk:
Some photos of various screen modes that I paged through...
Quite a few status indicators show at the edge of the dashboard.
Notice with no passenger cubbies or trunk, the rear speakers have to be buried in the saddlebags.
The speaker and its ported enclosure use the saddlebag as a resonant chamber for bass enhancement.
However this does cut into the already precious space inside the saddlebag. The standard audio system features only 20 watts of power, and on the road, reports are that it is woefully underpowered, and that the speakers are maxed out trying to cover up the road noise. A 200 watt amplifier with upgraded speaker package is available from Honda, but these speakers are larger and use up more precious cargo space, and the 200 watt amplifier lives inside the left saddlebag - again taking up even more cargo space.
For bikes with a trunk, the ported rear speaker is located in the trunk.
Which again takes up precious cargo space.
The mirrors have LED turn signals on the fronts of them.
And can be easily rotated by hand inward to prevent damage.
The DCT models have a parking brake located by your left knee, which is a "pull on, pull off" affair. When the parking brake is on, the handle is out, like this:
When you pull it and release, it pops back in, releasing the parking brake. To me, that looks like something that a random passer-by could too-easily grab and pull just for fun or curiousity.
Some very nice weld on the massive aluminum frame.
No indication of what is beneath the covers other than the fact that there are three of "something." The engine crash bar at the bottom is covered in a plastic cover, which would no doubt be destroyed if one were to drop the bike. As I own a PC800 Pacific Coast with the same exact feature, and whose plastic covers have been unavailable from Honda for MANY years, I am definitely not a fan of this "feature."
I'm also not a fan of this: It is the helmet lock. The bike has only one, and you need an optional accessory to connect to it in order to secure your helmet to it. It pops out of the left grab rail.
In order to release/unlock it, you open the left saddlebag and pull this little silver lever. The helmet lock pops out. You use your adapter to secure your helmet, then push it back in to lock it. With the lack of cargo space, I definitely do not like the lack of helmet carrying ability - and instead of dangling from your trunk, out of the rain as has been done on Goldwings for the last 37 years, your helmet is left sitting in the sun, resting on the paint of your saddlebag. Not exactly a design triumph.
A view of the bike from the rear, with all available lights in place.
An odd decision to represent a six cylinder motorcycle engine with four exhaust pipes.
The back end of the bike in its entirety.
The front end of the bike. The headlights are all LED, but gone is the electric headlight height adjustment that GL1800 owners have been used to for years. Height adjustment is now manual, like it was on the GL1500 - but unlike the GL1500, the headlight height on the new bike cannot be changed while riding.
Optional driving lights are also available.
This is a video I took of the suspension in action, as well as showing the windshield raising and lowering, and a look a the handgrips and dashboard:
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So...what's my overall impression of the new 2018 Goldwing? I went to the show with a few preconceptions based on all the reviews and information that have been out there. And I have to say...I actually really like this bike. I mean I REALLY like this bike. Despite some obvious shortcomings, the small fuel tank and tiny storage chief at the top of that list, overall it's very comfortable, attractive, obviously well thought-out, and from all reports, it's a blast to drive. I love the technology, I love the front suspension. So what about it Honda, care to lend me one to test for oh, say a year or two?
