A cute little Baby Wing.

Howdy from Texas!
I have been riding motorcycles since 1986 and most of the bikes I've had over the years have been Hondas.
My first bike was a '74 CB-360 that I kept in a friends garage for almost a year before my mom found out I owned a motorcycle!
She is STILL complaining about me being on two wheels after 29 years.
I am on my fourth Goldwing and love them. The wife has been wanting to get onto two wheels for a couple of years now and she was looking at some used Ninja 250s. I suggested a scooter so that she could learn how to handle two wheels without the added distraction of shifting gears. We've been looking at Kymco 250 models for about a week and then I stumbled across an '02 Silverwing on Craigslist about 70 miles out of town. It had 41k miles on it but being a Honda I felt confident that the high miles would not be an issue.
Long story short, $1600 later we have another Honda in the family and a baby sister for my GL1800 Goldwing. It needs a battery, a rear tire, a drive belt would be wise, and all the fluids changed. I am looking forward to enjoying learning about the little Silverwing here as much as I enjoy the various Goldwing forums.
Thanks for reading. I am happy to be here, but not nearly as happy as the wife is with her very owns set of two wheels!

Welcome to the forum. You have some beautiful areas to ride in the hill country. Also you should check to see if there are any recalls on the Silver Wing. I think some of the early ones had some. There is a lot of information available by using the search box. Enjoy the ride.

Ahem..."Cute" is not a word to be used on this Silverwing forum. Ya want cute?... go put a wicker basket on the front of a Vespa.

Now that that's out of the way, welcome to the forum.

Tim

Cosmic_Jumper wrote:

Ahem..."Cute" is not a word to be used on this Silverwing forum.

I understand your sentiment. This thing is a MONSTER in the scooter world but after riding Goldwings for 12 years ANYTHING less than 800 pounds feels "cute".
LOL

Welcome to the forum. Personally I would not recommend the Silver Wing to a beginner. It's quite a heavy beast, turning in a tight radius can be a handful.

Welcome RR !! Like that Cosmic_Jumper ... that was a funny definition of cute.

RR, when I took the course, a year ago, my bike of choice was a Kymco 300 downtown. About that time, I found a Silverwing on Kijiji about 100kms away and bought it. Today, like most times out on the bike, I think how much more solid a bike the Silverwing is .... how much more powerful ... than the Downtown 300 or even the new Forazs. I'm extremely happy with the Wing as my first bike and I hope and expect your wife will be too. Some thought it was too big a bike for a beginner bike but with lots of parking lot practice all will be good ! Congratulations on that addition to your fleet.

Mike

Welcome from Dallas. I've owned two Goldwings (1976 and 1979 - older ones) and just picked up a 2012 SWing and believe-it-or-not the SWing is as or almost as smooth as a Goldwing on the interstate. She should be pleased with the purchase and ride.

Hi Rabbit,
From NE Kansas... Been riding my SWing for six years now (as a first time ever two-wheeler starting at age 64); will be 70 in March (and I'm still one of the 'youngsters' around here). My logic was the same as yours... start out with a 'twist'n-go and don't worry 'bout nothin' else. Your wife should do fine with plenty of practice and just going slow enough to get use to it all. The SWing 'is' a handful and the learning curve will be a constant for a beginner (such as I was) but is certainly doable. Good Luck to your wife; know she's going to have lots of fun with this thing!!!

I don't think your wife would have a problem with a SW if she's ridden anything on two wheels even a pedal bike. I've introduced several people to motoring on two wheels with my past SWs. No one seemed to have much difficulty getting the hang of it. I will admit the wife of the man I bought my first SW from managed to drop it but that's kind of unusual. I've had two SWs, a Burgman 650, and now a BMW650GT and never came close to dropping any of them. I can't exactly say that about the many Goldwings I've owned.

Hi there. I have recently started to ride a Silver Wing and thought you may find some of my observations about it to be of use to your wife:

Weight - it seems heavy to me to push about the garage - solution for me was to get husband to reconfigure our stuff in the garage so I have a straight ride in and I can easily walk it out.  I am 8 and a half stone, - about 120 lbs, 5ft 4inches tall, and not very strong.  I find most bikes/scooters to be heavy.   I put both feet down together when I stop unless I am on some odd surface where doing so would cause me to have the scooter away from upright. Having both feet down seems to give me reasonable stability.  

Parking, tight turns - I am very interested to hear what the experienced people think of what I have started to do for parking/slow turns.  I have an ABS version of the scooter if that is important to technique.  When I have to do slow speed tight turns I gently apply the rear brake and drag the brake through the turn.  I am not suggesting that you or your wife should do this, just telling you what seems to help me. I do not know if it is all in my head or if it really helps.  Please, experienced Silver Wingers I very much want your opinion on my brake-drag technique. If I am wrong doing this please tell me.

Smooth - I have just ridden from Atlanta, GA to Knoxville, TN and return. Both ways had some interstate but I chose a route that also twisty roads and sweepers (the 129 Dragon and Cherohala Skyway were both interesting with my preference being the Skyway). The scooter was smooth at all times whilst I was riding at a brisk pace or cruising along. The only time it was a little rough was on the way up the  Dragon but that was probably my fault as I was rather impetuous on the throttle.

Getting happy riding - Maybe your wife could go on the basic bike bonding course offered by MSF. I did this in Atlanta on the Silver Wing, however there were small training bikes available at no extra charge for those who did not have a bike or wanted to learn techniques using a light weight machine.  I found the course to be very helpful.

All the best to the two of you and happy riding

Suzy.

Rear brake drag is fine technique for slow speed stuff---BUT Silverwing has linked brakes!! I know rear comes on first....but front kicks in topple is possibility.

At near 600 lbs SilverWing is probably not good beginner bike in my book. Also after 9 new rubber band drive scooters and over 300,000 miles, I still find as operator not having complete control of clutch take up (other than twist grip) not the greatest arrangement. Be careful.

I hate to disagree with John but I always use rear brake drag to control speed in tight turns at slow speeds. I always did the same thing with my Goldwings which also have linked brakes. As long as you don't use excessive brake pressure on the lever the linking doesn't really come into play. It takes a bit of practice to be able to hold the clutch in the 'slipping range' but not difficult. I don't have any experience riding small 50cc scooters but have ridden motorcycles and scooters for over 55 years now pretty much accident free except for going down once on black ice about forty years ago. I also introduced four women to riding, all on a maxi scooter either one of my two previous SWs or the Burgman 650 I used to have. So far they all are enjoying riding their own maxi scoots.

I say---non-linked are better for the slow stuff. Scooter---400 late model Burgman better than SilverWing, as it has non-linked brakes.

Autoclutches take away some of the fine control of reg. clutches---doesn't matter how you cut it. Fine control is sign of skilled rider.

I prefer non-linked brakes on a bike. But we gotta use what we got. Centrifugal clutches do limit the fine control for slow speed work that a manual clutch provides but overall I'm glad my scooter has a centrifugal clutch which makes it so much handier in town. Unfortunately there's just no free lunch.

Most every motorcycle magazine out carps about the "linked" brakes. But then again most of them are professional riders and that could be the reason. My Goldwing has linked brakes as does the SWing and even though I have been riding since 1969 I have no problems with the linked brakes. We learn to deal with what we have, and for beginners, I am sure linked is the way to go!