Comparison

Its been a long time coming but I will keep it brief my little sv has a gem of a motor very smooth and quite quick, steering is precise and can hold a much tighter line at higher speeds(scraped the hero blobs once or twice)having said all this the fun soon fades and it becomes uncomfortable rode 180 miles on saturday in the rain so you have the choice rain in the face or chest or try and get behind the screen and it goes down your back I am 6'2 so was aware that this was going to be the situation so im not complaining (much)
I do miss the wing a lot for 95% of my riding and am now saving for the new one ,it is so much more comfortable ,does more miles till the light comes on the wing was around 138miles the sv is 128miles and i miss the storage, i can get a box of matches on the sv ....The new one should be over here next year so need to save and convince the wife the sv is a future classic(2001 with only 10000 on the clock) and thats why i dont ride it as much as the wing .................Anyway the conclusion is I need both (no suprises then)but if someone said you could only own one for the next 5 years hands down the wing wins . .......Keep safe and again you are all top guys and girls ,great forum

mr fish wrote:

IAnyway the conclusion is I need both (no suprises then)but if someone said you could only own one for the next 5 years hands down the wing wins .

This seems to happen a lot ... a lot of people return back to the SWing or wish they had also kept the SWing.

So the moral of the story seems to be ... if at all possible delay selling the SWing till you have fully and complete side-by-side comparison under all conditions.

Or you can do what Bernado does test ride all the motorcycles you want and trade the other motorcyle .

I've put a couple thousand miles on my Silverwing and thoroughly enjoy it but if one of them had to go it would be the SW and the Goldwing would stay. Luckily there's no reason for that dilemma to occur so they both share the garage. In bad weather or longer distances there just isn't any comparison, the big 'Wing wins hands down.

riding in montana i saw a goldwing and a helix pull out onto the road ahead of me. i was doing about 50. they both pulled away from me (they were riding together) and just kept going. i wondered how many rpm's the helix had to turn to keep up with the goldwing but it must have been able to do it. it had to be close to the redline. the goldwing was, of course, just loping along without much apparent effort. i never tried to catch up; they were clearly going much faster than i.

honda_silver wrote:

mr fish wrote:

IAnyway the conclusion is I need both (no suprises then)but if someone said you could only own one for the next 5 years hands down the wing wins .

This seems to happen a lot ... a lot of people return back to the SWing or wish they had also kept the SWing.

So the moral of the story seems to be ... if at all possible delay selling the SWing till you have fully and complete side-by-side comparison under all conditions.

Or you can do what Bernado does test ride all the motorcycles you want and trade the other motorcyle .

Hi there... That is a lovely looking SV650 Mr Fish..... But I really do know what you mean about tyhe comparison...

What has been interesting for me was that when I bought my S'wing, it was based on lots of on-line research, and I had already decided on getting an older and thus cheaper machine. I had also firmly decided on a scoot.... At the time the big three were the S'wing, the Burgie 650, and the T-Max. The S'wing was the first bike I'd ridden in about ten years...... I loved it from the moment I climbed aboard....My plan was to use it as a fun commuter, and instead I got hooked back on bikes, and spent loads of money on my S'wing to make it go faster only to get another bike aswell... Mind you all the while I test rode loads of bikes, including the SV650 (a whole load of fun..... but not an ideal commuter....!) and IMHO as a genuine all-rounder the S'wing takes some beating..... The more bikes I rode, the more obvious this became...... The really interesting part was when I first got a bike aswell, and one reknowned as a solid all rounder/ commuter/cheap tourer, it was winter, and I hardly used it as it just did not have the the same versatility as the S'wing..... The only thing it really did better was accelerate faster, and with a higher top end. It was only in the summer that I used it more.....

So for me I realised the best thing to do was the keep the S'wing and get a more powerful / sportier bike aswell..... which I did.... And now the the weather is getting colder again you can guess which machine I am using more.....

Another thing I have found is that I enjoy the scoot forums more than the bike ones.... Don't get me wrong there are some great folk out there on the bike forums aswell, just that there seems to be a bigger scope of interest and variety of riders within the scoot community, and less "attitude" about riding a humble scoot (even if it is a maxi!) This even includes those more "enlightened bikers" who ride scoots...

What really summed it up for me was one day last winter was when I met up with my sister and brother-in-law, we both did about 120 miles or so to meet up (they were on a 650 burgie).... We met up at a popular biker haunt surrounded by mostly crotch rockets and leather clad bikers.... I was actually on my bike that day and not the S'wing.... and was cursing myself for not using the S'wing as I was cold and numb, and walking around the car park like John Wayne as I had done the 120 miles in one go... When I was warm enough to walk and talk properly I asked the local traffic warden about parking, and where to pay and get a ticket... He asked how far we'd come, and after we'd replied, said in a loud voice (so the other riders around could hear) Aha..... proper bikers... don't worry, you'll not get a ticket....

The S'wing for me anyway, has to be one of the best....!

I use the Swing as my every day commuter, and for that job, I haven't found another piece of two-wheeled machinery that can beat it. It is comfortable, it has the storage I need, provides good all-weather protection, has decent fuel economy, is easy to handle in stop and go traffic, and it is fun to take through the twisties. I may at some point add another bike to my garage, but I doubt that I would sell the Swing to do it - it would need to be "in addition to". There are plenty of faster, cooler, better cornering bikes out there, but none of them can do the tasks required for commuting as well as the Swing, so for that job I plan to keep the Swing.

I have my '08 Silver Wing and a '07 Suzuki Boulevard S50. The S50 sits in the garage it got a total of 17 miles on it in 2009. The Silver Wing traveled about 3100 miles so far this year.

The Silver Wing is my commuter, when I don't drive my Escape. Commuting puts about 25,000 miles annually (35+ miles each way, so 70+ miles daily). Now that I am feeling better the Silver Wing will get more use.

I participate in a very popular Goldwing website that doesn't have an attitude about scooters. When I first got my Silverwing I posted about it there. It ended up generating a fairly long thread concerning maxi-scooters. None of it disparaging. Most of the posts were from members asking about the SW's performance, one member said his GW shared space with his SW for the past four years. There was another member who had a Burgman 650 as a second, or maybe it was a third bike. I think it's the members of that website who make it pleasant to belong, non-judgemental about what you ride and no flaming. It's much like this one even though it has over 25,000 registered members. I think this site will grow as the big scooters become more popular because it has many of the same attributes as the Saunders Goldwing site, pleasant folks discussing their enjoyment of good machinery, riding and general chatting without nastiness.

exavid wrote:

I think it's the members of that website who make it pleasant to belong, non-judgemental about what you ride and no flaming. It's much like this one even though it has over 25,000 registered members. I think this site will grow as the big scooters become more popular because it has many of the same attributes as the Saunders Goldwing site, pleasant folks discussing their enjoyment of good machinery, riding and general chatting without nastiness.

That is a lot of registered members.

I would be curious how they are able to maintain decorum and personality even with that many members. I am am sure there have been challenges, but the key would be how they address their challenges.

Steve Saunders himself with the aid of four moderators keep things on the up and up but members are pretty self policing. We have had four of five people banned in the five years I've been on their website. Those people were reminded of the rules several times before such drastic action was taken. The usual causes were violations of the rules of allowed subjects which basically are no politics, no gun stuff, and no negative or heavy religious threads. It's a lot of work for moderators due to the 300 or more postings per day. On the other hand the moderators are mostly retired people with time to do it... It is a Goldwing (old man's bike) site after all.