I was 320 miles into a great trek, first stop South of France, when a grating noise made an appearance above the already terrific din. You understand, any noise loud enough to get past the normal engine rattles hugely amplified by the Silver Wing's GRP has to be serious. I pulled off the road, a few miles out of the pleasant town of St Quentin.
I felt sure the noise was the ubiquitous CX camchain cum tensioner combination. Sure enough, it was as slack as could be imagined without actually jumping off the sprockets. A few whacks at the tensioner saw it stop sticking and the rattle was much subdued. It was obvious if I wanted to do any kind of mileage, though, that a call at the first Honda dealer I could find would be necessary.
The 1988 GL650 had accumulated 46424 miles at that point. Most of them in my hands. Apart from all too regular maintenance no major work had been done, so it was about due for some serious attention. This may seem quite a long life for a CX engine, but the Silver Wing’s weight and lack of handling finesse means that for the vast majority of that time it was very moderately used.
The few times I went a bit mad with the throttle were enough for me. At 520lbs it's a remarkably heavy beast for what is basically a rather simple water-cooled V-twin. The huge fairing that looked like it was borrowed straight off a Gold Wing tends to pick up on any wind or large vehicle’s slipstreams, radically amplifying the basic tendency to shake about a bit above 75mph.
Speeding along with a mate who was piloting a FZR600, I had the overweight Honda wound up to an indicated ton when we hit a slight bump. The bars shook once, then went absolutely berserk. Flipping from lock to lock so rapidly and violently I thought they were going to rip themselves out of the clamps. I grabbed everything I could that would help me lose speed. After bouncing back and forth across a couple of lanes of motorway, some semblance of stability was restored. I had dropped about half a ton in my underpants!
Thereafter, I always watched my speed with a cautious eye and paranoid mind. The bike was just as easy to fall off when going around corners. The only way it liked to go around curves was under slight acceleration in an ultra smooth manner. Knocking off the throttle, stamping on the brakes or merely changing up a gear could lead to a quick trip into a ditch or stone wall.
As long as you were aware of its limitations, though, the Honda had some virtues that more than made up for the defects. Until that rattle it had been ultra reliable, never giving a moment’s worry on the road. Comfort was also immense. It was like lolling along in an armchair. The fairing made sense of this riding position as it was extremely protective, even in the very worst of weather. Short of adding a roof, I don’t see how it could be improved on in that respect.
The bike was therefore a tireless eater up of miles. I had often done more than ten hours in the saddle in a day without feeling like I'd endured a particularly expensive and degrading form of torture. My mate on the FZR was in agony after a 100 miles, begging for a bike swap, however short the tenure. It would have to be very short to suit me, after the luxury of the Silver Wing, a minute on the FZR left me with screaming muscles. Brilliant handling and lovely motor completely ruined by race replica fashion.
Yet another liability of all the mass and poor aerodynamics was fuel economy that rarely bettered 40mpg. It didn’t need much oil between 1500 mile services. Tyre consumption was conspicuous (about 6000 miles on Avons), although because I planned ahead a lot and didn’t ride like a maniac front pads lasted over 15000 miles on brakes that were both powerful and sensitive, not yet having decided to seize up. The shaft drive was trouble free other than in its effect on the handling, which added to the buckling and wobbling in bends if you backed off the throttle.
My progress through the heartland of France had been reasonable. On a couple of occasions Frog pigs on bikes appeared out of nowhere, threw me a few threatening glances and then roared off ahead, probably to set a speed trap. | never went fast enough for it to bother me! Apart from Paris, which had been a new kind of hell, the roads were relatively deserted and the drivers drove in a predictable manner — as fast as they could get away with.
The mirrors on the GL were pretty good, vibration and elbow free, they afforded a clear view of vehicles speeding up behind. I had to pay more attention to those hurtling up my back end than | did to the machinations of vehicles out front. I rode with the lights turned up high and my hand on the horn button just in case as soon as I set a wheel in France, but my anxieties were for the most part misdirected.
By the time I'd made it down to Dijon the engine rattle was louder than ever. A tiny shop was crammed with Hondas. The owner took one listen to the engine and nodded his head wisely. For 600 francs he stopped all his other work to fit a new tensioner and camchain. It took two hours as a couple of bolts stripped, but the motor sounded transformed. He slapped me on the back heartily, and after I'd picked myself up out of the gutter, I was able to resume the trip. But only as far as the nearest hotel as I'd had enough for the day.
The next day I took a meandering back road route down to Nice, where I had a mate staying in a caravan a few miles out of town. Nearly 600 miles took over twelve hours but most of it was enjoyable with a few stops for snacks. I stayed off the wine, I knew from past experience that a bit of alcohol in my veins turned me into a demon rider; on a heavyweight like the Silver Wing that kind of thing is definitely not highly recommended. Even at moderate speeds, on narrow, bumpy roads in was dead easy to lose concentration and run the machine right off the road.
Nice is a really pleasant place if you can stand all the tourists lolling around. I couldn’t, so it seemed like a good idea to run up the coast into Italy. My mate wanted to leave in a hurry, too, as he had inadvertently caused a fire in the caravan which had left half of one wall badly singed. He had also run out of money and sold various bits that could easily be unbolted and carried into Nice surreptitiously.
So, two up, we followed the curve of the coast, my attention mostly focused on the antics of rich poseurs in big cars and even bigger idiots on flash Paris Dakar replicas. Entering Italy everything became much worse, the GL leaping about like a giant pogo stick, having taken badly to the extra mass of my 16 stone friend on the back. At the first stop he had crawled off and spewed up his guts, which eventually cleared up his hangover. We ended up in Cicina for the night, which was full of randy Italian girls. Thank God!
The next morning our luck faded away. The camchain rattle came back with a vengeance just as we were entering Grosseto, a name which amply described my feelings about the engine noise. The big question was would the bike survive the 120 miles to Rome or not? The sun was burning down so hard that it was inconceivable that we could push the beast half a mile. Close inspection of the chain revealed that it was not new, neither was the tensioner. I bodged a repair that had the tensioner at an absurd angle but tightened up the chain. We rolled forward, not exactly enjoying ourselves but the sea was beautiful and the weather glorious as long as you kept above 60mph which produced a cooling breeze.
With fifty miles to go, clouds of steam started coming out of the radiator. The damn thing had boiled dry. We emptied our bladders into it, accompanied by a chorus of car horns, as their drivers gaped on in amazement. The water temperature remained consistently in the red, however.
By the time we arrived in Civitavecchia there was nothing for it but to spend some money hitching a ride, with the bike and us stuck in the back of this shaking, rattling old skunk of a truck. I sit here writing this in a cafe in the centre of Rome. The GL650 needs a new water pump, camchain and tensioner to get her back on the road. Rome prices are horrendous, so I'm waiting for a mate in England to despatch some good used parts and doing the job myself. When it’s running again, I'm off down to Sicily, then a boat to Tunisia, across to Morocco via Algeria and then god knows. See you there?
George Mann