Full-Dress Heavyweight Tourers - Motorcycle.com
In the early days, anyone who could ride more than a couple hundred miles in a day was made of iron. And probably an exceptional mechanic, because the bikes were made of iron, too. Nowadays, with the current crop of high-mileage, big-rig touring bikes, it's not uncommon for a touring rider to see a thousand miles in a single day's worth of saddle time. Which luxo-touring motorcycle is best suited for this task? We decided to sample the best offerings from Japan, America and Europe to find the answer.
Surprisingly, the only common ground our three heavyweight tourers (a Honda Gold Wing SE, Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic Electra Glide and BMW K1100LT) have was how much they cost; you'll lay out at least fifteen big ones for any of them. You see, while the Honda has always been a purpose-built tourer, both the Harley and BMW are adapted from standard motorcycles, and the resulting differences in how they roll down the road is amazing.
Ride along as we put these behemoths through the paces on a 2500 mile tour up California's coastline to San Francisco, across to Yosemite National Park, through the Sierra Nevada mountain range at altitudes up to 10,000 feet, then over to Arizona and its blazing desert heat, all before returning to the concrete canyons of L.A. to test their mettle as daily commuter mounts.
3. Honda GL-1500 Gold Wing SE
Used to be that if you wanted to turn a motorcycle into a touring bike, even a Gold Wing, you had to put it together yourself. Buy the fairing, saddle bags, trunk, and spend countless hours trying to make it all fit to a bike that wasn't designed for the stuff.
Then, with the introduction of the 1980 Gold Wing Interstate, you suddenly had all the tools you needed for a long-distance touring mount. Air suspension, wide, high-mileage tires, adjustable seating, an integrated full fairing, saddlebags, and trunk. Even came with an optional stereo. The evolution of the Gold Wing, now in its fourth generation, has taken it to a point where it is now one of the top selling motorcycles in Honda's vast lineup, sharing top billing with the hot-selling CBR600F3 sport bike. Through the years no other touring motorcycle has enjoyed the popularity of the Wing.
All this performance, though, combined with the Wing's portly 816-pound profile, extracts a toll on fuel economy, and you'll see the Honda's reserve fuel light come on after only 150 miles or so. In short, the Gold Wing sucks gas. On one particularly long, blazingly hot stretch of Arizona two-lane, we had to refuel after 138 miles, netting only 26 mpg.
All of these accessories, though, force a compromise. If there's ever been a recurring complaint about the Wing, it has been its weight, which has increased more than 250 pounds since that original model in '75. The SE's handling, although respectable for a machine this size, never feels completely planted in turns, and it exhibits a ponderous, unwieldy feel while riding around town, with both problems accentuated by an overly soft, Cadillac-style suspension that lets the Wing wobble when the going gets twisty.
Is touring boring? It shouldn't be, yet the Wing is a shade characterless compared to the other two bikes. And when the road starts to wind and twist, its limited ground clearance and heavy weight consign it to the back of the pack. If touring was all interstates -- well, we'd probably buy cars.
2. Harley-Davidson FLHTCUI Ultra Classic Electra Glide (w/EFI)
Plus, of course, the eighty inch motor rumbling around somewhere in the engine room adds a distinct character to this touring beast. Out on the road, other Harley riders wave at you. Whenever you stop, little old men appear as if from cracks in the sidewalk to tell you about their model JD and the ride to Phoenix in 1930. And you'll never be short of something to talk about in the coffee shop, that essential component of every motorcycle tour.
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