10-26-2018, 01:05 PM
It's Friday night and my date is asleep. Thought I would share my experience with the 2018 Goldwing Tour with the automatic transmission - no clutch. My local Honda Dealer offered to let me ride one. "Sure" I said quickly. The first thing I noticed when I sat on it was how easy it was to bring the bike up to centre. With the bike on it's side stand I can lift it to centre with no hands. I couldn't flat foot the bike and that made me a bit nervous. The sales rep spent some time with me going through stuff on that transformer frame-mounted fairing. I didn't remember very much of it once we got going as I kept reaching for the clutch not sure how much throttle to give without the friction zone to temper it a bit. That became quite evident after traversing the gravel Honda dealership parking lot where we were to make a fairly abrupt left unto a paved road. In addition to that I got a little freaked out with the sensation that the bike was not turning left because the fairing was still pointing straight ahead. I figure you would get use to that fairly quickly. Did I mention I was nervous? That kind of fell away once we got going because it was sweeet. It started to rain and I remebered the electric windshield. Visor didn't even get wet by the time we got back. Never thought I would ever ride an automatic bike and so smooth, no disruption from shifting and that six cylinder power plant serving it up graceful and strong. Dream on...