A certain rival publication, which has copied the style if not the spirit of this magazine, has described it as that ghastly Silver Wing thing and advised its reader(s) to avoid it. Real Wing owners tend to regard it with the kind of malignant indulgence that Garfield has for Odie (and no, you can’t join the Wing Owners Clubs with one). BMW owners stare at it with barely disguised contempt through their fogged bifocals.
Everybody but everybody looks at it, and, yes, lots of Gold Wings accessories will fit it. If it’s posing on a budget you're after, there is no finer artifact in the known universe than the Honda Silver Wing. I fell in love with it when it first came out, and Honda, in a desperate attempt to boost sales, were holding shows up and down the country. I sat on it and was hooked. Like a favourite pair of jeans if felt just right. Returning to my decrepit Honda CB350K4, I knew that someday, somehow, I would have to own one.
The opportunity did not arise until last year. Having handed back the company car in disgust at what the taxman considered the value of a conveyance used once a week to the collect the shopping, and the current CB550 developing a catalogue of faults that was offering me the choice of either making the local repairman very rich or me a very dead motorcyclist, I went cap in hand to the boss to get an advance on my salary of £1500...
I had, in fact, already put down a deposit on the bike without even seeing it, the dealer assuring me that he had a good one coming in. For once he was right, the bike really had been owned by an old chap who was actually trading in for a new GL650.
The maroon GL500 Silver Wing looked immaculate, free from rust marred only by the most appalling top box I've ever seen in my life. Of sufficient hideousness to have caused Prince Charles to go into apoplexy with his plants had he seen it, the previous owner had attempted to colour coordinate it with the fairing with results that only proved his colour blindness.
Yet more unzipping of the wallet removed the offending item and I had a pair of Krausers fitted. I was then ready to take my pride and joy out on the road. And 20 minutes later, outside the dealers, I was still ready to get on the road. The bike wasn’t. Lesson One in starting a Silver Wing. They don’t. They have an electric fuel pump and flood easier than the cottage I was once conned into buying in Holland (beautiful view of the river which in winter meant from the top of the stairs, as you watched your furniture floating across the lounge). One new set of spark plugs later, fitted by a supercilious mechanic, I was on my way.
The first impression was of its massive size. The skills of navigating a barge seemed more appropriate to the propulsion of the beast than those of motorcycle control. And it was noisy. Everything that could rattle did. The sweet burble so associated with the watercooled, vee twin CX engine increased from cacophony to a symphony by a demented sadist reflected behind the huge fairing.
Honda designed the fairing for the Gold Wing GL1100, a motorcycle of supreme sophistication with all the noisy bits down near the road. The CX engine has slightly less sophistication and has all the noisy bits exactly placed so that the fairing can amplify and bounce the noise up to tortured eardrums.
To compensate, it has one of the most. wonderfully comfortable seats I have ever sat in and once man and beast had, if not learnt to live in harmony, at least come to a wary co-existence, I actually began to enjoy it. People were looking at me; a quick check in the mirror revealed that I did not have an oversize bogey hanging from the left nostril so it must only be the bike. I have now owned her nearly a year and am as much in love as ever. The maroon fairing is slowly disappearing behind a glistening array of chrome, the rattling of which adds melody to the discordant symphony of sound suffered behind the fairing.
I can understand why the previous owner traded in for a 650; Honda Melody owners tend to think you are being kind and protective by riding alongside them. A GPz it is not, although it'll cruise at 80-85 all day without complaint (OK then, half a day... it takes the rest of the time to accelerate to eighty).
The bike returns between 48 and 50mpg regardless of riding style. There's been no oil leaks or consumption. Servicing costs £20 (yes, you did read that right). Total cost of spares in a year has been limited to a rear tyre, a speedo cable and some light bulbs. The bike is reliability incarnate.
The fairing actually works. Caught in a snowstorm riding between Manchester and Birmingham, it was a strange sensation to be completely dry. The handling suits the image and capabilities of the bike.
Ridden sensibly it’s fine if a bit heavy; do 90mph and an alarming weave starts that indicates the upper limits of the chassis and engine. In exchange for the comfort I can accept that. As a reliable tourer with the ability to turn heads, the Silver Wing can’t be bettered.
Colin Anstey