I ride with Goldwings all the time... as far as I am concerned.. the Ultimate BIke... 120 HP, 105ft lbs of torque, Handles GREAT.... Fast... dependabl, smooth, and comfortable.... just a little pricey for me at this time... but Some day.....
tt

PS .. GOOGLE Goldwings at Deals Gap.... some racers take a couple of Goldwings through the curves.....

I've been researching the Gold Wing's as well. Great ride with plenty of torque and HP. Great deals out there now for 20 grand with ABS and navigation. Look on Ebay http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=2009+Gold+Wing&_sacat=See-All-Categories.

I decided to add a fairing/stereo/sat radio to my R* for far less.

They are nice but I like the Royal star venture I would love to have one for long road trips with my wife. I haven't ridden either but I have sat on both and the Venture seemed more comfortable but that is my opinion.

I just bought a used venture, talk about night and day, the differences are huge, i havnt had a chance to do any distance on it yet, but i know its one comfortable ride. the pic shows it getting pushy with my roadstar. once again i cant upload pic, i resized then it tells me i have to use a different file ext. now when i try to re edit there is no option to upload pic

Clifford wrote:
As has been said the GW is a sofa on wheels, and is comfortable to make trips with. They can be a nightmare to work on. I recently replaced the stator on an 85; step one is remove the engine from the frame! I have a friend who's father-in-law has one. The starter quit working and he took it off, and found that the brushes were shot. Guess what the next step is? The starter drives the engine through a chain. When you remove the starter the sprocket and chain fall to the bottom and there is noway to reinstall it without removing the engine! There are a couple of years that to get the rear wheel off you have to remove the rear end gearbox with it!
My personal oppinion of the GW is that if you gave me one, I would take it off your hands and find some sucker to pedal it to.

Clifford

Yikes! I am always asking folks"how easy or hard to do this or that" and I had only asked about changing oil and plugs... as well as other service related issues with these riders.

I owned two GL1000 Wings , that I made really cool Cafe racers out of. There are some unusual things about them , but I really enjoyed working on mine. Clifford is right , the starter can be a tough nut to crack , But I rebuilt both of mine (exhaust heat + brushes = short life) and never dropped the chain inside. On the old flat 4 , stator jobs did require you pull the motor (did it once , not too bad...), and clutches are a tight job , but doable with the motor in. All in all , I really like them , but they are definitely built a lot differently than a cruiser. BB

Of course everyone has different opinions, but...
My other bike is a Venture and I can't imagine a Wing being any more comfortable. And it has no problem keeping up with the Wing although the Wing will easily win if you race. Over at the Ventureriders forum there are guys that bought Wings and traded them pretty quickly for Ventures... and vice-versa. Everyone is different.
And, like mentioned before, if you work on your own bike the Venture is almost as simple as our Roadies.

I own an 2008 Goldwing and I recently purchased a new 2007 Roadliner from the Yamaha dealer. I couldn't resist the price of $8700, and I have a disease: I love motorcycles!

Just to say this: From 2001 on up....this is NOT your father's goldwing at ALL. Totally redesigned, and if you think it's a couch on wheels your dead wrong. It handles like a sports bike, is comfortable and it has the power. I have put 17k miles in one year on this bike and from what I can see, this is a bike that is made for 250k miles.

Each bike is different. I am falling in love with the Roadliner. It is a beautiful, well engineered sweet cruiser and is a great bike. But 2 different animals indeed.

If you are looking for a bike that handles like a sports bike, can take on very long runs or want to use it as a 2nd car, then go with the Goldwing. Any other touring bike doesn't even come close PERIOD.

Happy motoring everyone! http://roadstarclinic.com/components/com_fireboard/template/rsc3/images/english/emoticons/w00t.png

I traded my road star in on a wing back in May; wanted to keep both bikes, but just couldn't afford it...I absolutely love the wing; mine already had the catylitic converters removed and replaced with torqloopz, and I recently swapped for torqmaster pipes. Wife and I rented one in April, and when we returned from our trip, within a week I had a new (to me) 2008 gl1800 wing.

At 25, I've been told that it's a old man's bike...well, I think that has a lot to do with the cost, and if they were giving them away at a much lower price, more people would be riding them...definitely feel that its more like a sportbike with bags; not a true sport tourer like a beemer, fjr, st1300 or vfr with luggage, but more than fast enough to get you in trouble, and nimble enough to handle that torque and hp (its a surprisingly great handling bike, even before the aftermarket suspension mods many do to them...I'm thinking Traxxion Dynamics)

Definitely more tedious to work on than the road star...I've become friends with my local dealer wrench, and have saved some cash by doing a lot of it myself with his assistance...there's also a series of dvds that someone sells that show just about every repair job you can do to a wing step by step. The hard part isn't making the repair, its getting to the parts that need repair; with all of the fairing pieces on it, simple maintenance things like air filters take nearly an hour!

Both bikes are great, and they are targeted at two different demographics; if for no other reason, I wish I could have kept the roadie for the gas mileage (the wing drinks it like a car!)

My last GW that i sold back in May I have a condo in Scottsdale and I always rent a new GW while out there and I will buy an 09 in Jan 2010. I can keep up with the best on the 09 going up or down Mt Palomar. I always have loved my Valk.

I made the mistake of taking an offer i could not refuse for the Valk. But it was the smoothest ride and I could ride the mountains with the sportys no worries.

I have three bikes in the garage and am currently totally customizing my R* over the winter. It will be one of the other two rides (Road King 08 or Eliminator) that will go to make room for the new GW. If i could only have one bike to choose from, it would be a GW or a Rune.

I love the flat 6, nothing compares.