Honda road show has come to town, with cars and bikes on show, and to test and ride - I have an invite to test ride some of the bikes. Sitting on the Goldwing felt so completely different to the Blade that I am not sure that I can ride it. The handlebars are so close to the rider, and there is all this cockpit in front of you, and a tall windscreen - the road is down there somewhere and can only be seen up ahead somewhere - and it must be muscle memory because the only bike that felt right to sit on was the Blade - all the rest were odd. I think I will test ride the Blade That's more like It !
I felt like that when our lass had a moped as I'd never ridden one before, but you soon get used to it as you just re-learn with what you're on. I bet a Goldwing only rider would feel the same about a sports bike too.
I know what you mean, you do get used to things. I had a X-Max 250 scooter for a while, all sorts of bikes really. It is just the difference between the Goldwing and the Blade is so big, that I am not confident about it at all ! - It is probably easier to go from the X-Max scooter to the Goldwing than from a sportsbike. It is so heavy, and all low down - weird, really weird !
If you rode one Mattie I'm sure you would be surprised how easy they are to ride and how quickly you can make progress without all the "hanging off" with sports bikes. I also ride a BMW 1600gt, not quite the behemoth the Golding is but pushing half a ton with me aboard and to be honest these days the blade has become second choice because it is more than fast enough for the road and obviously way more comfortable than the blade but I never feel compelled to ride at licence losing speeds unless it's to embarrass sports bike riders! The slow speed stuff takes dome getting used though,but we don't ride motorcycles to sit in traffic.
It seems to me to be two different approaches, to punching a hole in the air in front of you: 1. To sit upright, almost standing height, have all these gizmos in front of me, big panniers, and not be troubled by the airflow - you will need a big engine to do that at European motorway speeds. To punch a big hole in the air like that, at a comfortable 80 mph requires a relatively heavy powerful object. So you end up with a 1600 cc BMW that probably burns quite a lot of fuel if you keep the speed up, especially into a headwind. 2. The sportsbike, like the Blade, makes a smaller hole through the air. Across France on the autoroute I lay on the tank when it is not busy. Done hundreds of miles laying on the tank, out of the airflow. As soon as I tuck in behind the screen I can feel the difference it makes, and I have to keep pulling back the speed as it just gets quicker. And the Blade is only a 1000 cc. The bonus is that the Blade will happily trundle around here (Guernsey) at low speeds, it loves going round corners, it is relatively small and lightweight. No trouble at all pootling around here. Then put a bag on it, put it on the ferry to France, and easily go anywhere you like - Spain, Italy .... Maybe it is a unique problem living here, as you need something to trundle about on locally, and something to blast across France on - all in one bike. With nearly 11,000 miles on it so far, in less than a year, I would say the Blade is working out okay. (But still got my eye on a ZZR !! )
