Dropping (and avoiding dropping) a GoldWing

Apologies for the lack of photographs to accompany this Page, these will added as soon as practicable.

This Page aims to give you confidence that although you might drop your GoldWing, because they are heavy bikes and mistakes can happen, even to experienced riders, these bikes are capable of surviving undamaged (or almost undamaged) so it isn’t necesarily the end of the world. Almost always it happens at very low speed and little or no significant damage results except perhaps to the rider’s pride.

The information here will be of particular value to newcomers to riding GoldWings but hopefully even experienced riders will find it worth reading too, even though some of it may seem a bit like teaching granny to suck eggs.  Sometimes it does all of us good to refresh our knowledge of the basics.

Picking up a GoldWing is covered on a separate Page.  Suffice it to say here that GoldWings can be picked up by one person without assistance if necessary: indeed unless the bike is loaded with the weight of lots and lots of accessories, it is usually possible for quite a small person to pick one up.

These notes are based on experience with a GL1800 but they will also apply pretty well to other GoldWing models.

GoldWings can cope with being dropped

GoldWings are well built and they were designed with the possibility of being dropped in mind.

They will normally sit down on their crashguards without leaking any fluids or coming to any other harm and they will sit there for as long as necessary until you pick them up again.  Their automatic tilt switch will kill the engine for you too, so there is absolutely no need for any urgent action.  It would be a bit greedy with parking space to leave your bike on its side unnecessarily for a protracted period but if you need time to collect your thoughts or to gather some help before picking your bike up, your GoldWing won’t suffer.  In other words there’s no need to panic and rush at the process of picking the bike up; it’s not the end of the world.

Indeed some owners deliberately lie their GoldWing down on the ground as the easy way to gain access to the underside or, for example, as the easy way to remove the back wheel.  It can be quicker and easier to lean a GL1800 on the ground to get the back wheel off, especially with Airbag models which have extra stuff in the way of the standard, on-the-centre-stand method of removing the back wheel rearwards, as described in the Manual.

What makes a GoldWing go down uncontrollably?

Crashing or losing control of any bike at any speed is likely to cause it to end up on the ground sooner or later of course, but dropping a GoldWing almost always happens at very low speed, almost stationary in fact, because that’s when a GoldWing’s particularly heavy weight can take charge.

More often than not dropping a GoldWing happens when the rider panics and grabs the front brake when he loses confidence in completing a turning manoeuvre, when either turning slowly or setting off and also turning, for example as you have to do from a Stop Line at a confined T Junction.

Any sudden braking during a slow turn, especially with the front brake, especially when the bike is not perfectly vertical and/or the handlebars are not straight ahead, will tend to pull the bike groundwards like a huge magnet.   (So the golden rule is never to grab the front brake during slow speed manoeuvring, it’s always a very risky thing to do.)

This is because grabbing the front brake jerks the bike into a groundwards dive – and probably far quicker than you can hope to get your foot down to stop it falling.   Once you’ve grabbed the front brake it can be difficult if not impossible to stop a GoldWing going down.  So don’t let yourself grab the front brake, as your instinct will press you to do.  (Grabbing the front brake at slow speed isn’t essential for dropping the bike but it does give you a flying start!)

A loose or slippery surface, such as gravel or a patch of oil, ice or even water, can easily cause a GoldWing to come to grief too, even without help from the front brake.  All it takes is for the front wheel to skid outwards slightly during a slow turn and it can be enough to start the bike going down.  So avoid leaning the bike over into tight turns on gravel to  minimise the risk of this happening. ( On gravel you need to keep the speed down, keep the bike as near vertical as you can when you turn and, of course, avoid using the front brake.)

Once a GoldWing starts to tip over in either of these circumstances, there is very little time available to stop it continuing to fall and more often than not it will have become impossible to prevent the bike going down.  Like any other motorcycle, a GoldWing can be held vertical easily enough (for example while sitting astride it) providing it’s kept close to vertical.  With a lightweight bike it may not matter allowing the bike to lean quite a long way over; the rider will still be able to arrest the fall by putting a foot down and pulling the bike up again with relatively little effort.  But not so with a GoldWing.  Once a GoldWing starts to go down it quickly becomes impossible to stop it doing so.  The best you can then hope to do is break its fall.

You can start to feel this ‘point of no return’ approaching as you lower the bike onto its side stand in the normal way, even on level ground.  As the bike leans over it starts to want to go further over and it feels progressively heavier.  And if the ground slopes down to the left where you are parking (for example because of a marked camber on the road) the effect is even more noticeable.  The further a GoldWing leans over the heavier it feels.

The lean angle which a GoldWing adopts when it’s on the side stand on level ground is comfortably inside the range within which the bike can be controlled without superhuman efforts but fitting a shorter side stand – by as little as one inch – will make a big difference.

So, if you fail to get a GoldWing upright as you come to a stop, and especially if you use the front brake to stop suddenly while it’s off vertical, a GoldWing will try very hard to lie down completely.  It only takes a sudden stop from less than walking pace to cause this problem.

How to avoid dropping your GoldWing

Since the highest risk of dropping a GoldWing occurs when manoeuvring, especially turning, at slow speed.turning at slow speed, especially on an uneven or loose or slippery surface – riding into such situations calls for particular care.  Setting off can involve a risk of dropping the bike too, so whenever you are setting off or moving slowly it pays to take careful stock of what faces you and then take special care.

Stopping safely

Making sure you know how to bring a GoldWing to a halt smoothly and safely every time is therefore a good way to reduce that risk of dropping it.

Stopping a big bike like a GoldWing smoothly and precisely, with the bike under positive control throughout doesn’t come naturally; it’s a riding skill that has to be acquired. You probably can teach yourself to do it if you take the trouble to do so, although like most riding skills, it’s potentially quicker and involves less risk of damage to your bike to get someone who knows how to do it to teach you.

All it takes to practise your stopping skills is a bit of clear space on a supermarket car park where you can ride a rectangular course,  stopping and starting again half way along each of the long legs. You should aim to stop in exactly the same place each time, coming to a halt smoothly and also keeping the bike perfectly upright as you put your foot down.  It’s is not easy to do this consistently well, hence the value of practising it.

And note that it should be one foot that goes down on the ground as you stop rather than two.  Or at least that’s what IAM Advanced Motorcyclists are taught, because that way you can use the foot brake to control the speed during the last few feet of motion, which stops the forks diving (so a smoother stop) and reduces the risk of dropping the bike from using the front brake.  The handlebars need to be straight ahead too.

So the expert way to bring a GoldWing to the halt is to put your left foot down, having got the bike perfectly vertical and done the final bit of braking using the foot brake only.  The act of putting your left foot down will tip the bike ever so slightly towards the left, thereby removing any danger of leaning the other way.  (If you want to look like a real expert, practise using your left foot to pop the bike into neutral just before you come to a halt and then put it down, so it looks like one seamless movement.)

Setting off smoothly

Turning a GoldWing as you are setting off from the halt is also an anxious time for some riders and it’s another skill that’s worth developing and also practising form time to time to reduce the risk of dropping the bike.

The key to setting off and turning at the same time is looking (by turning your head, not just your eyes) in the direction you want the bike to go as you set off.  (Conversely looking where you don’t want to go, such as at the far kerb at a T junction or at the parked car you want to turn inside increases the risk of going that way.)

As with smooth and controlled stopping, practising the skill of turning as you set off in a quiet area of a level supermarket car park will pay dividends; you can use the parking bays and the roadways between them as practice T junctions.

If setting off and turning when you have the extra weight of a passenger on the bike bothers you, practise alone to start with and then practise with your passenger in order to gain confidence.

How to minimise damage if dropping becomes unavoidable

Recognising when the bike can no longer be prevented from going down will allow you to switch your efforts to avoiding injury and then, as far as possible, breaking the bike’s fall.

Injury isn’t a big risk when you drop a GoldWing at low speed unless you get your foot or leg trapped under it.  Trapping your foot or ankle under the rear crash guard is a possibility but you will naturally tend to stick your downside leg out sideways as the bike goes down, so a crushing injury is from dropping your bike is pretty unlikely.

Pillion passengers are best briefed to sit still and keep their feet on the footpegs at all times; they will then find themselves still sitting comfortably once the bike touches down.  Only if the bike tips over beyond the crash bars will they get tipped off.

It helps to minimise damage to a GoldWing when it drops if the forward (or backward) speed of the bike is as low as possible – this  prevents scratching damage due to movement while the bike is on the ground.   You are unlikely to have the presence of mind to apply the rear brake in the short time available but ideally you would.  The lower the bike’s forward (or backwards) speed as it touches down the less risk there will be of scratches to chrome or paintwork.

And then it’s a question of  getting your downside foot down and using your strength to reduce the speed of the bike’s fall as it falls to the ground.

Ordinarily a GoldWing which is being dropped will fall on to its crash bars and nothing else will touch the ground.  The crash bars are strong enough to withstand dropping while stationary without bending, especially if you can cushion the fall, even if the bike drops onto a hard surface.  The chrome plating of the crash bars is good enough to cope with ground contact too.

If a GoldWing gathers a lot of momentum during its fall, if it’s fall in not cushioned or if it falls in the direction of a downhill slope, it may go further over, rocking on its crash bars.  Then the bike’s mirror housings and the clutch or brake lever may hit the ground too and may therefore be damaged.  Depending on the contour of the ground the pannier lid may also come into contact too but this is unlikely.  But for low speed drops that’s about as bad as it can get.  Mostly damage will be limited to superficial scratching of the front crash guard (which can probably be polished out) and probably not even that.

Summary

Dropping a GoldWing isn’t the end of the world.  Most commonly it occurs at very low speed and there is unlikely to be much damage to the bike or to the rider, except perhaps to his pride.

Slow speed manoeuvring, including halting the bike and turning as you set off, are times of particular risk. prevention is better than cure; GoldWings are too heavy to catch once they’ve started dropping.

Take special care on slippery or loose surfaces and when turning at slow speed.  Avoid grabbing the front brake, which will tend to jerk the bike down.

If it becomes clear that your GoldWing cannot be prevented from dropping, try to use some muscle power to break its fall if you can because that will reduce the risk of damage.

Try to keep the bike nealry vertical