Goldwings were revolutionary bikes when they first appeared in the mid seventies. Honda planned to sell them as high performance bikes but with water cooling, shaft drive and extreme comfort they ended up being the preferred rides of long distance tourers. People added their own bags and Vetter built a wind shield and eventually Honda stopped building the standard bike and it evolved into the purely touring, fully faired, overly equipped monstrosity we see today with an 1800cc six cylinder engine. By today's standards the modern Goldwing is a marvel of technology with reverse gear and some 800 pounds of weight making it essentially a small car. In the 70's the much simpler 'Wing was still a marvel of technology for the time. My bike was a simpler ride but it did nothing much for me, I have to say, except to leave brown streaks of fear on my underwear anytime I strayed from a straight line trajectory.
I was living in Santa Cruz at the time, married and commuting "over the hill" to the Big City of San Jose where I had a job as a truck driver, a childhood ambition fulfilled at last. I wasn't doing long haul but I was driving short haul around the San Francisco Bay Area going to work early in the morning and coming home late in the evening. I made good money and had superb Teamster benefits. Silicon Valley was booming and I delivered supplies to weird little start ups like a place called Google, a tiny little office tucked away on Pioneer Way in Mountain View, and then there was Sun Systems further up Highway 101, and Advanced Microchips and Xerox and the like. I figured the Goldwing would be a great way to ride Highway 17 over the Santa Cruz Mountains to Silicon Valley to pick up my truck at the start of the work day. This winding nightmare was my route and on the Lead Welly I shit bricks every time I rode Highway 17 with the rubber framed over weight monster. 
Highway 17 used to be known as the most dangerous road in California, because before the median cement barriers were installed this highway was one long series of head on collisions and with no shoulders, traffic back ups were frequently epic involving a cast of thousands as an accident would stop everyone in every direction and motorists would camp out, stuck in a morass of a giant freeway parking lot. I figured a motorcycle in a state that allows lane splitting would be great and the Goldwing known for it's comfort and low maintenance was just the job. I had recently sold my fully dressed Yamaha 650 Maxim, a shaft drive air cooled four cylinder that I had bought in Fort Myers and ridden across the country to return to my home base in California. It was getting old and I needed new wheels. What a mistake! What I actually found with the Lead Welly was that riding the beast after a long day's work was just awful. It was heavy and required immense amounts of concentration, that I didn't have after a long day of dealing with a tractor trailer. It's power was awesome for someone like me used to smaller bikes but the weight made me feel like I was always ready to lose control of the beast. I ended up hardly riding the thing at all. It sat in my garage. I must have owned it for more than a year and never recall changing the oil or replacing a tire, I rode it so little. Which is funny really when you consider how much I love jumping on and riding the Bonneville these days- any excuse for a ride!The man who sold me the Goldwing, a superb motorcycle mechanic and small time trader, did his best for me, I wanted what I wanted but the shame of it was he had another bike for sale that I think would have suited me a whole lot better. This was the era of Turbo everything and Honda had a mid sized bike supposedly set to take on bigger cubic capacity machines with that little extra zing. This beauty, the CX 650 Turbo also had shaft drive and came with saddlebags and I should have snapped it up.
God knows why I felt the need to buy the hugely heavy Gold Wing, I blame that stupid dream. I know I was overwhelmed by my Lead Welly from the first and I kept hoping it would get better and more comfortable but it never did and I was never so glad as when I saw the last of it and sold it on, at a huge loss to some other sap. In reality it wasn't a bad bike and it was exactly what it was sold as, I just wasn't up to the challenge of controlling such a huge lump. I then bought a three cylinder Geo Metro hatchback and saved money and had a blast out-running much more expensive cars in my five speed bare bones little white car, back and forth "over the hill." 
I got fifty miles to the gallon and excellent weather protection and it was fun in it's own way and about as easy to push across my gravel driveway as the gruesome Lead Welly. The best part of this fiasco was that I learned that overly large and overly complex motorcycles do not do it for me. I still regret not buying the CX650, which was God knows overly complex (!). Now that I enjoy riding the Bonneville so much I always know that bigger certainly isn't better for me and that's a useful lesson for me to have learned. I attribute my contentment riding the simple low powered modern Bonneville to memories of my struggles to enjoy riding the enormous Goldwing. I owe the heaving pig of the Lead Welly at least that much, the lesson it taught me, even though it frightened the shit out of me every time I tried to force it round a corner at anything faster than walking pace. Peace through struggle, I guess. What a gruesome interlude in 40 years of riding motorcycles. What a legacy- the absolutely worst motorcycle I ever owned.
Photos from the Internet.
Bobskoot in Canada likes to make fun of me for not having a tachometer on my cheap Bonneville. It was known, before it was phased out, as a standard Bonneville; unlike the more expensive T100 which is still offered there is no chrome, no instrument to measure engine revs and it has a one tone paint job. I threw some luggage and a windshield on it, failed to add any chrome and chose not to modify the engine to increase the standard 65 horsepower produced by the modest air cooled 865cc twin and got riding. Bobskoot is no longer satisfied by his entirely adequate Suzuki 650, farkled and super equipped, and is looking with lust in his heart at a Yamaha Super Tenere that will cost him $17,000 (Canadian) plus delivery charges etc...etc...to reignite his middle aged love affair with motorcycling. 
In the Florida Keys the major mechanical enemy is the salt laden environment which attacks any piece of metal with airborne corrosion. You'd think the second worst enemy would be boredom- yet somehow I still love my ride to work, I revel in the fact before I took off on my spontaneous evening ride to nowhere I was lying on my deck, sunbathing with a book on the last day of January. Then I decided the other way to take advantage of the mild weather was to ride in it. So I did.
Snow? Ice? Mountain passes? Twisting curved roads? What are they?
My wife is bound and determined to save up enough to get us to Italy this summer, where my buddy Giovanni wants to take a motorcycle trip to the Alps, through Italy, France and Montecarlo. I wonder how we will pull such an ambitious vacation off in the year of living on the edge of international economic meltdown, but it's a nice dream, to imagine a few weeks in summer of riding twisting mountain roads with my last best childhood friend. Meanwhile I drift along, skirting tropical downpours watching the drizzle build up on my windshield as I ride. Rain is no problem in the Florida Keys, as I carry lightweight waterproofs and temperatures rarely get into the hypothermia range. Rain is just a little challenge to spice up the ride.
Look at this view! How could you ever get bored with this? 
I know the Overseas Highway is flat and straight, as is much of the riding for 600 miles (1000 kms) north of here, and the winter traffic is crowded and slow, but still, I cannot help but get that cheap thrill from simply going for a ride. 
Even when it's time to commute on the same familiar 26 miles into Key West I pull out onto the Highway wondering what the ride will bring. Some evenings I am feeling in a hurry for no reason and I spend the ride looking for a gap to pass the bored texting driving drones; other evenings I am feeling lazy and slow and I drift along at the speed limit or less counting the leaves on the passing mangroves, pulling aside to let faster traffic pass me by. Some days it rains, some it's windy, some it's sunny and some it's a bit of all three.
I think it's the curse of our age, a curse we are going to have to remedy somehow as money and credit dry up, that of needing fresh stimulation to retain the freshness of the experience. It's no wonder our Lords and Masters on Wall Street call us consumers, because that is all they want us to do, consume. And now, at least here south of the 49th parallel, most of us have lost the ability to consume thoughtlessly and wildly. Now we have to remember to feel and taste and enjoy with what we have, not with what we crave. Not hard to do in the Fabulous Florida Keys.
I said to my wife I wanted to "upgrade to a Triumph Sprint GT," a new sport tourer with 130 horsepower, heated grips, a sporting ride for the 21st century at a modest $13,000. She looked at me real old fashioned and I burst out laughing. She continues to get cheap thrills from riding her 150cc Vespa around town; we are not by nature "upgraders." She's not alone; I spotted this red one in the trailer park on Ohio Key but I'll bet it has far fewer miles than hers. We owe nothing on our rides and basic third party insurance only (we pay for our own damage) is $80 a year for both machines.
I have a couple of Iron Butt rides under my belt, including my raid to Binghamton, New York, in 35 hours last freezing cold October. My Bonneville and I cruised the Catskills immediately after I finished the timed ride, enjoying hills and curves and twisties. Then I finally got to see the famed Hudson River, riding it's banks on my trusty Bonneville. What a bike, it does it all for me. Some people need to own lots of bikes, one to tour, one to ride fast, one for the dirt, one for around town. My Bonneville is an even bigger bargain when you consider that like it's forebears it does everything adequately. I would ride to California tomorrow if I had the time (and it were summer, let's face it).
I hope this Spring I will get another Iron Butt ride under my belt some weekend that I have off. This summer my wife says I can go back up North and see Jack riepe my riding dominatrix who wears a leather skirt and cracks a whip the length of Pennsylvania. In the meantime we buzz back and forth on Highway One my Bonneville and I racking up the miles and not wishing for more horsepower or new paint jobs or any new shopping stimulation. 
And here I am, home sweet home, hidden by trees, off street parking under the house, the promise of more sunshine tomorrow.