Just back from our longest motorcycle trip together on the goldwing. The excuse to visit the goldwing rally at Canon City, CO made us do a fantastic 7 day trip covering 3200 miles.

Trip route: Sunnyvale CA – Wells NV – Longmont CO – Salida CO – Tuba City AZ – Needles CA – Sunnyvale CA

Trip summary: Colorado mesmerized us. The rockies are breathtaking. Royal gorge is awesome as well. We also visited Mesa Verde, Four Corners, Grand Canyon and Sunset Crater Volcano national parks. This was supposed to be a camping trip, but we ended up taking motels and a friend’s place. So much for the preparation. A hitch and cooler rack to carry the tent, then the tent got melted by the straight exhausts. Elevated the rack platform as a temporary fix, then bought a 90 degree downward exhaust tip at the wing rally to fix the issue forever, and even bought a new tent. Still we didn’t hit a campsite at the end of a riding day.

Day 1: 615 mi, Total 615 mi, Sunnyvale CA to Wells NV on the boring I-80.

Day 2: 730 mi, Total 1345 mi, Wells NV to Longmont CO (record distance for me in one day so far). Stayed at my school senior’s place, they are a fantastic couple and we had a blast with two most amazing golden retrievers they have.

Day 3: 135 mi, Total 1480 mi, Rocky mountains.

Day 4: 235 mi, Total 1715 mi, Attended goldwing rally at Canon city, then visited Royal gorge bridge and park, then off to Salida CO. Beautiful mountain road (US-160) along the Arkansas river.

Day 5: 485 mi, Total 2200 mi, Mesmerizing US-160 through Colorado, visited Mesa Verde NP, then off to Grand canyon. Saw Four Corners on the way. Reached Tuba city at nightfall after catching magical glimpses of rainbows over the canyons. Windy, thunderstorms, no camping place nearby, barely checked in to Greyhills Inn, a student operated hotel, with common bathrooms downstairs.

Day 6: 435 mi, Total 2635 mi, Visited Grand canyon in the early morning with fantastic views. Spent a few hours hopping to the view points. Saw Little Colorado river gorge as well. Then went to Sunset Crater NP. I have been to both these places back in 2004 with parents, and the memory came up like it was yesterday. Off to home on the I-40. Had patches of rain. The moment we crossed Kingman AZ, the temps began soaring as we approached Needles CA. We watched the temps rise from 91F to 106F and at Needles I could not believe it was 108F at 7:30pm and I wanted to camp in the desert ! Motel 6 had a small pool cramped with people, and we happily jumped there right after checking in.

Day 7: 565 mi, Total 3200 mi, Needles CA to Sunnyvale CA. I finally found a solution to my drowsiness on the road. I could not drive or ride 50 miles without falling asleep, till I figured out that red bull actually works.

This is our best/longest trip together. Would not have been possible without an amazing bike like the goldwing.

Pictures:
- Priti’s flickr set
- My flickr set

Our manager Scott once sent an email outlining some of the finest scenic roads around San Jose, Morgan Hill and Santa Cruz. Piyush wanted to try them out with his brand new tires. We planned to do a relaxed afternoon ride.

The highlight of the trip was the amazing roads as shown in the map: http://tinyurl.com/5dypfv

It was hard to believe we got out of the urban jungle and was out in the country in almost no time at all. We took CA-85 south till just after CA-17 at Los Gatos blvd exit and the fun started right away. Shannon road, Hicks road, McKean road, Watsonville road and then Hecker pass / Mt Madonna, with hardly any traffic made an excellent ride.

We had donuts at a small shop in Santa Cruz before taking CA-17 back to home around 7:30pm. Big mistake ! Most part of the 17 was a parking lot, and splitting lanes was a pain. Nonetheless the 140 mile trip is definitely worth doing any day.

At home Piyush was eager to download movies from his new bike cam, but it turned out that he left the SD card at home after testing the camera before the trip. Poor guy.

Pictures: priti’s flickr set
Video: will be uploaded soon

I somehow have this habit of tweaking (butchering) things to have them function exactly the way I want. Even a newly acquired fine motorcycle can’t escape that fate. I cut 2 inches off the top of the shield on my Concours just one day after getting it in my hands. Of course its stock shield was just plain horrible. Instead of putting on a regular aftermarket shield like everybody else, I had more fun in trying out my version and finally ended up having a terrible looking but perfectly working 4″x8″ extension bolted on it.

The ST1300 was lucky, it had electrically adjustable shield which worked fine till I started 2-up riding. Ofcourse an aftermarket shield could help, but the bike had to go so I could have my goldwing.

The wing has a manually adjustable shield, but the lowest position was still too high for me to look over. So it went through the same fate today. I was intimidated about doing this on such a fine machine, but after watching a few pics on someone’s blog, it was a matter of pulling the shield out, putting masking tape on and merrily using the jigsaw. The result came out pretty well. Time will tell how good this mod turns out to be.

Pic: cutting the goldwing shield

Update (7-Aug): The modified shield is working perfectly in town and not too noisy on the freeway. I can just pull it out to full height for the long trips if I want to ride without earplugs. So far this has been the best comfort mod on the bike.

We had a fantastic day ride with the CA2Q goldwing chapter last Saturday. The destination was a forest cabin of the GWRRA CAC (Sacramento) chapter director near the town of Kyburz, almost touching South Lake Tahoe. A bunch of loaded goldwings, trikes, 2 ST1300, a PC800 and a Shadow made it there. We had to fight a little bit of gravel road at the destination when I realized what a heavy behemoth this bike is. Wonder how some people ride this machine on the 400 mile unpaved stretch in Alaska ! Anyways, a fantastic BBQ and delicious swiss vanilla ice cream (a must in any wing meet !) filled our hungry potbellies . We had fun chatting with the fellow wingers. Most all of them are in their 40s and 50s but with the energy of 30 somethings.

A small river was right in front of the cabin, and a few of us checked it out. Cold and refreshing water, wish I had time for a soak-in.

It was a 421 mile roundtrip day, but on the wing it seemed much less. We went through pretty decent hot weather, touching 104F in the afternoon on the freeway. Water on the butler cup helped a lot !

The group ride is what I loved the most. Like our chapter director I too believe in small groups, and we rode in a 3-bike group all the time. Perfect synchrony and predefined hand signals made it a pleasurable one.

Pictures:
-Priti’s flickr set
-My flickr set yet to be uploaded

The throttle on my wing was feeling a little sluggish of late. I knew a little bit of cable lubrication would make it much better but the Clymer manual showed the process to be a tad painful so I managed to procrastinate till Friday night. I have a GWRRA chapter ride Saturday (today) and really wanted to have crisp throttle response, so I got down to work at 11:45pm. A little bit of fight to disconnect the return cable from the throttle and the rest seemed pretty easy except putting that darn cable back to its hole. All done by 12:20am. Throttle feels like a sportbike. Can’t wait to get up at 6am to ride. Now this is what I call satisfaction – getting done what itches me, against a bunch of odds.

After getting my bone stock 2005 ABS Goldwing earlier this month, I had to spend a significant time and energy adding up essential touring accessories. Here is a summary of items added on the bike so far:

- Kuryakyn highway pegs
- Utopia backrest
- Khrome Werks armrests
- Big bike parts luggage rack
- Wingrider trunk support system
- Baker mirror wings
- Rear speakers (30w)
- Butler cup holder
- Ram mount for GPS
- 12v cig outlet in left fairing pocket and in trunk for small electronics
- 12v cig outlet tucked under left side cover for air compressor or heated clothing
- Bridgestone tires

Pictures: my flickr set

Update (8-Aug-08): Installed more stuff.
- Vertical hitch and 11×16 cooler rack

We are officially a goldwing couple now. Got our GWRRA family membership through gwrra.org. It is going to be a lot of fun.

Quoting from the GWRRA website:

The Gold Wing Road Riders Association (GWRRA) is the world’s largest single-marque social organization for owners and riders of Honda Gold Wing/Valkyrie motorcycles — and some would say, the world’s largest family. Dedicated to our motto, Friends for Fun, Safety and Knowledge, GWRRA members enjoy the freedom of belonging to a not-for-profit, non-religious and non-political organization.

Founded in 1977, GWRRA has grown to more than 80,000 U.S., Canadian and international members in 53 foreign countries in just 27 years. Over 800 active Chapters are managed by 4,000 volunteer leaders working with members to foster safe, enjoyable riding while also working to improve the public image of motorcycling.

I was a bit skeptic about a heavy bike like a goldwing doing an Alaska trip due to the 400 mile long gravel road on the way. I find that many people take the wings and it gave me a great deal of hope.

Came across a very nice writeup of a 2-up trip to Alaska from Arizona: http://www.ride2up.com/page2.html

And another guy who is profoundly hearing impaired, teaches ASL at a college, and rides to Alaska every year: http://www.skihi.org/Riders.html

Today was a GWRRA CA2Q chapter meet at Dublin CA. Our first winger meet. Met up with Susie on her red wing at 7:30am and had a fun ride to Athens Burger Restaurant at Dublin. The warm welcome immediately made us feel home. There were ride tips, discussions, tons of fun and laughter and a great breakfast to top it off. Most of the people were well in the 50s and had nicely loaded wings. They all went for a day ride, while Susie stayed back to help me with a tire change.

The tire removal process was easier than I could imagine. A normal car jack to lift up the front wheel an inch is all we needed to remove both the tires together ! Front came off easier than the concours. For the rear, the lug nuts are supposed to be tightened at 80 ft-lb, so Susie had this nifty torque multiplier tool that multiplies torque by 30 times ! The lug nuts came off in 5 minutes.

All were well so far. Then I took the wheels and new tires to get them changed at a shop. Santa Clara cycles were not free till 3pm and it was only 1pm, so I went to Bike World. No mechanic in shop. Went to Honda Ducati Peninsula. Fully booked for the day. Off to GP sport at Santa Clara. They took me in at once. All went fine, except they could not balance the rear wheel and sent me to their bigger shop at San Jose. The SJ Honda shop balanced my rear tire immediately and did not charge anything. I was happy. Back to home, ate lunch. Susie came around 4:45pm. I was trying to pump up the tires to 41psi, when I noticed that the valve stems were both cracked badly and the rear tire was hissing air from the stem !!! Arrghhhh. Susie also didn’t expect that on a 24k mile old bike while she never had a stem go bad in her 100k miles of riding. My bike probably sat a lot in the sun which rotted out the rubber, and owner rode it so gently that the tire was the original one, from 2005.

Anyway, back to Santa Clara shop and I demanded they fix it immediately. No valve stem in shop, so back to the SJ shop. To my disbelief they actually acknowledged that it was a serious mistake by a dealer, and replaced both stems immediately. They did charge me labor ($51) and stems ($30), but told me I would get full labor refund from the Santa Clara shop. Despite the hassle, their gesture made my day.

Back to home. Both tires went up without hassle. And I got to use a torque wrench for the first time. Amazing tool. The rear lug nuts were to be tightened to 80 ft-lb, I could barely manage 70. Have to get them checked again soon.

All in all, a very productive day, thanks to Susie for her time and expertise. Like most of the wingers, wrenching for me is an integral part of the motorcycling experience. The feeling of bonding with a machine is just awesome. And speaking of greasy hands – they just rock.

Spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon with Bhaskar and Sankalita. Had a short trip to Mt Hamilton (tallest mountain overlooking silicon valley) and Lick observatory as part of a 100-mile loop through some great twisties. This is my first time riding 25mph switchbacks on the wing, 2-up, and while it needed a bit of stamina, I can say I needed this exercise. The wing is heavy, and it does take a bit of time to get used to the handling on the curves. I loved the ride all the way, except for the beginning when I was not expecting sharp turns at 30mph and 90F afternoon heat. Eagerly waiting for the mirror air wings to arrive to see how much air I can get when riding slow.

We had 3 hours of mountain riding with hardly any traffic and that was refreshing. Bhaskar used to have a bike in this country and he is planning to get one again soon.

Pictures:
-My flickr set
-Priti’s flickr set

Note the last few seconds in the video how I stopped at the middle of a sharp U-turn. Reminded me of the ride to Ooty in India on my enfield along the Sigur ghats.