Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/936927
2018 HONDA GL1800 GOLD WING TOUR DCT FULL TEST P94 Wing. DCT just makes living life on the road that much simpler and less fatiguing for those really long days in the saddle; plus, it's actually a lot of fun. And, if you want, you can easily switch over to manual mode and chose your own shift points via the shifters on the left handlebar. Another advantage of DCT is that you get both reverse, and Walking (forward) modes; the manual Gold Wing Tour just gets reverse, and the standard manual-transmission Gold Wing model gets neither. Thanks to the bike's new elec- tronic throttle-by-wire system, you get more rider aids with the 2018 Gold Wing, like Honda Selectable Torque Control (aka traction control, which, by the way, can be turned off), Hill Start Assist, fine-tuned cruise con- trol and multiple riding modes. The new Gold Wing has four of them: Touring (for expressway, long-distance cruising), Sport (for winding roads), Economy (for suburbs and cruising) and Rain (for wet or dirt roads). And all four are useful and very distinctive; you can easily tell the difference from one mode to the other. I thought touring mode was a good compromise of all four and the mode I pre- ferred to be in most of the time. Sport mode keeps the engine in a higher rev range, good for immediate throttle response on twisty roads. Suspension damping also automatically adjusts for which- ever mode you're in, such as stiffer for Sport and softest for Rain. I, however, did not notice the suspension changes, which probably means they are tuned well to each mode. A really cool design of the new engine is the Integrated Starter Generator (ISG), which combines generator and starter- motor functions; this alone saves 5.3 pounds and reduces noise during startup. Another cool design is that you can now actually see the exhaust pipes; before, they were completely hidden by the lower cowling. This, in my opinion, gives the Gold Wing an improved look and no one will mistake for an oversized scooter. N E N T E R T A I N M E N T C E N T E R The Gold Wing's new Apple CarPlay—which allows you to connect via a cable to your iPhone and show maps, contacts and music via the bike's seven-inch full-color Thin Film Transistor (TFT) display— works well. Apple CarPlay also gives you access to phone calls and text messages. Android users, your time will come. There is a handy storage compartment for your phone—any phone—which can, of course, also be paired to a Bluetooth head- set, like the new Sena 30K that I used on this ride. There is a bit of a learning curve as to getting the phone paired with the motorcycle and your headset, but once that's been accomplished, you're good to go, and then it's just a matter of pushing buttons and figuring out what does what. By lunch, I pretty much had it all mastered. The most-used buttons are located on the left handlebar so you don't have to take your hands off the bars—Honda does not want you to do that. The center jog wheel is locked out once you start rolling; you can still operate the hard buttons, though. I spent most of my ride listening to Pandora while watching our route roll by in maps