which is the better of the two?
Some Riding impressions of Gold Wings
Christine and I have been Winging since early in 1988, initially with a
1986 1200 Aspencade, which was unfortunately written off in Austria and then
from November 1988 with a new 1200 Aspencade.
In the nine years since then the bike has covered just over 50,000 miles
taking us on many memorable Holidays to Holland, Germany, Austria and even into
the Czech republic, not to mention the countless weekends away and a few
holidays touring Scotland.
During the summer months I have often got up before six and had my
breakfast in the Lake District, or a bacon buttie at Devils bridge (Kirby
Lonsdale) and arrived home in Southport, well before Lunch.
Another fairly frequent occurrence is for me to ring a friend over in
Hull (where I was born) after work on Fridays, to see if he fancies a ride out
to Huddersfield (about equal distance for both of us) on his Bavarian Brick for
a coffee and a natter, something I cannot ever imagine wanting to do by car!
For the whole of this time the 1500 has been in existence and we have
obviously thought more than once about changing, even on a couple of occasions
having a test ride.
There has always been a short list of reasons why in the end we stayed
with the 1200, in spite of the fact that the 6 cylinder engine is so smooth and
it has more luggage space and a reverse gear and cruise control.
One major drawback has been that if we had changed and then after a while
found we didn’t get on with it, there would be no chance of finding a 1200 in
the same condition as our own.
After sampling a 1500 we both noticed very quickly that there was much
more wind buffeting than we were used to and we got wetter, with large amounts
of rainwater staying on the seat for us to sit in.
I also prefer the instrumentation on the 1200 with its two trip recorders
and the facility to change to Km/h, which is hardly a gimmick when almost one
third of our mileage has been on the Continent.
It
is also more difficult on the 1500 to carry a small tank bag and still have full
use of the audio system.
With all of these things in mind, I decided that I ought to look for a damaged one to repair, keeping the cost down and still being able to afford to keep the 1200 until we had really lived with the 1500 for a full season and then make a decision. I am not usually quite as cautious as this but the 1200 really has been a good friend to us and provided many happy memories.