Young and travel-hungry: My early days at Rider Magazine taught me that on the right motorcycle there are no limits. The following story is excerpted from 50th Anniversary Gold Wing, a book released this year by American Honda. It will be provided as a gift to customers who purchase a 2025 50th Anniversary Edition Gold Wing and will be available online and through Honda powersports dealers. What is a motorcycle, if not a companion? You can love a car, sure, but do you ever feel a part of it? On a motorcycle, your physical connection is not unlike what a rider feels on a horse. Your slightest movement impacts the machine, your line of sight guides it. As shared adventures accumulate, that connection can only deepen into something even more profound. A bond. Ask me about Honda’s Gold Wing and I’ll tell you the model has been a great friend to me during my nearly 40-year career as a motorcycle journalist, testing and traveling on the full range of brands and bikes.  Honda’s legendary Gold Wing and I got along right from the start, me a 20-year-old associate editor at Rider trying out a fully dressed tourer for the first time, a 1986 blue-on-blue GL1200 Aspencade. It was by far the largest motorcycle I’d ever ridden, and I remember feeling so nervous, my heart pounding as I throttled away, expecting an unruly ride.  But the Gold Wing immediately did what I now know it always does, its weight evaporating like some magic trick, revealing a machine that is agile and easy to ride. I was done for, my growing appetite for two-wheel travel now matched with a machine that could take me farther and in a glorious amount of comfort. And what about that plush pillion behind me? It presented an opportunity to share the magic of motorcycle touring. Shortly after that first ride, I packed an extra set of gear and motored away from Southern California on that Aspencade, grabbing up my big sister, who had never been on a motorcycle, from the San Francisco Bay Area, and away we went on a weeklong tour of Oregon. Again, the Gold Wing wowed me with its ability to maintain its composure, now carrying two girls, trunk and saddlebag lids straining to contain all our cute outfits and hair curlers.  Oh, how very young and free we were, barely into our 20s, our long, blonde braids in the wind as we dipped and dove our way up Oregon’s winding Pacific Coast Highway. And what a sight, two-up, in a time when women riding motorcycles was a rarity. All these years later, I can’t remember a time when we had more fun together, a situation where we felt closer, all thanks to that Gold Wing Aspencade and all the possibilities a beautifully designed touring bike presents. In 1987, I was tasked with comparing the budget-minded GL1200 Interstate with another tourer, and I chose the backdrop of Tombstone, Arizona. The other editor I invited on the tour, Brent Ross, had been a professional roadracer, and dicing with him in the twisties on those big tourers took my love for the Gold Wing to the next level. Not only was the bike agreeable in everyday situations, it was up for a mad dash, keeling over predictably and roaring off each apex like it was born for the chase. From there, my relationship with Honda’s GLs only deepened, each year the bikes becoming more refined, more exciting to ride, right in step with my improving skills and ever-expanding horizons. Back in 1986, my sister was my first passenger on a two-up tour – a weeklong adventure we still revisit with smiles. In 1988, the long-awaited GL1500 “Super Wing’’ hit the scene, the ferocious growl of its flat-six resonating as much in my chest as in my ears. As soon as we got our hands on one, Rider’s then tech editor, Mark Tuttle, and I headed off toward Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, not on two bikes but two-up on the Wing, switching rider and passenger duties along the way. This was my first time riding pillion for long stints on a Gold Wing, and I remember thinking at the time how on a machine this luxurious, the passenger might enjoy a tour even more than the pilot. When I left Rider later that year to begin a 12-year stint freelancing for a variety of motorcycle publications, the Gold Wing was always there, popping in and out of my life like a favorite friend. I interviewed Nancy Wright, a transport pilot during World War II, who at 82 no longer flew planes but said riding her 1992 GL1500 around the country was just as exciting. A 1987 GL1200 Interstate test to Tombstone, chasing curves and discovering just how spirited a tourer could be. A Gold Wing of any vintage is a dream to ride on the Cherohala Skyway. While testing a GL1500 SE in the late ’90s, I rode into a monstrous sandstorm near Death Valley that was blowing sand sideways so hard you couldn’t see three feet ahead. When I emerged on the other side nearly an hour later, I found the Gold Wing’s pretty Pearl Glacier White paint had been stripped clean off the left side, but thanks to the tourer’s steady nature, I was unscathed. Rallies celebrating the Gold Wing were attended, factory tours were enjoyed, and all the while the bike kept improving. I like to think I was evolving right alongside it, now married and the mother of a young daughter, a circumstance that didn’t keep me from riding but did make me appreciate the stability and emerging rider aids on this legendary tourer even more. In the early aughts and now approaching 40, I created a magazine called Motorcycle Escape, the physical manifestation of my long-time passion for road travel. It was about motorcycles, but even more so about the places they could take you. The 2012 Gold Wing held its crown in a showdown with BMW’s then-new GTL. By now, the Gold Wing had been reborn as the kingly GL1800, the definition of a super-tourer that came with a boatload of innovations, including a nice stereo with CD changer, optional ABS, and a much-welcomed stiffer aluminum frame. GL1800 test units loaned to the magazine became my secret weapon, carrying me as far and wide and as fast as I cared, allowing me to grab up stories from all over the continent in comfort, style, and with plenty of room for camping and camera equipment. One GL1800, a fully loaded 25th Anniversary Edition, carried me so many thousands of miles it earned a nickname: Zeus, an endearment that came to me just after I’d passed a couple of young guys on sportbikes on the outside of a fast corner on the way to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, a shower of sparks adding to their surprise. I remember laughing out loud in my helmet and reveling in how connected I felt to that machine. I put more than 6,000 miles on that bike in just 10 days, reporting on world-class roads and travel destinations in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, including exploring high-elevation dirt and gravel passes like Cinnamon and Engineer. Over the many years of testing Gold Wings, I’d come to understand there is nothing it won’t do well, including light off-road use, as the bike’s tractor-like torque, low center of gravity, and supple suspension work together to glide you across every imaginable landscape. A tour along the Pacific coast two-up with my daughter on a Gold Wing nicknamed Zeus became another treasured memory. It was always so amusing to me to pull up at a scenic overlook of a high-altitude dirt pass on a machine that looked so completely inappropriate for the conditions. I remember one older man getting out of a Jeep and asking, “Did you ride that thing up here all by yourself?” After Colorado, I pointed Zeus northwest, where I met up with long-distance riding legend and Ayres Adventures founder, Ron Ayres, for a SaddleSore 1000 (1,000 miles in 24 hours) from Seattle, Washington, to Hyder, Alaska. Since my bum was already pretty famous for being iron-clad, I thought it would be a piece of cake, but we started extremely late, so most of that 1,000-plus miles was spent in the dark, dodging elk and moose on torn-up Canadian high-country backroads. I’m not sure there was ever a time I was more relieved to be on a Gold Wing, hurtling so precariously through that cold, ink-black night. Watching Hannah, then 13, smiling in her helmet and developing her own signature wave, I knew I’d chosen the perfect bike to grow her love for motorcycling. The next day kicked off an interesting event in town, the Hyder Seek Rally, which used to be the culmination of an annual Iron Butt Association-sanctioned run called a “48 Plus” where riders had to pass into 48 states plus Alaska in just 10 days. Reaching Hyder, the closest pinch of U.S. soil from the lower 48, was the only possible means to complete the challenge. And what bike were the majority of the 25 finishers riding? Gold Wings, of course.  I immediately felt at home in the company of these men and women, riders who understood the hypnotic pull of a long-distance ride, as well as the powerful advantage of choosing the right bike for the job. Running late on my return to Southern California, with a magazine needing to be shipped to the printer, my long-term test Wing was parked at the Seattle airport for a few weeks as I flew home to work. When I returned to retrieve it, I brought along an eager passenger, the epitome of precious cargo, my then 13-year-old daughter, Hannah. Hannah immediately took to the Gold Wing with its cushy seat and backrest, pillion speakers and floorboards. She had ridden behind me many times, though mostly on short spins on the back of my sportbikes, so luxury-touring was entirely new. We had helmet comms for that ride and had the most wonderful talks, gliding along the edge of the Pacific, Hannah so chatty I knew she was having the best time, me so grateful to the Gold Wing for its gift of great memories. As we crossed the Astoria-Megler trestle bridge, a majestic steel stitch that binds Washington state to Oregon, one of those Gold Wing-gained memories surfaced and stirred a strong wave of emotion. For a moment, I was 20 again, riding across that same bridge with my 25-year-old sister as passenger on that 1986 Aspencade. We had thought the bridge was so cool we had ridden across it and back, marking the apex of our weeklong tour of Oregon. Boy, the Gold Wing and I had come a long way since then. It, awash in cutting-edge innovations and me, at the height of my career, at the time editor-in-chief of two national motorcycle magazines. The kinship I felt with the Gold Wing was further cemented on that four-day trip as I watched my daughter in the rearview mirrors, dialing in her own signature wave to other riders, the two of us singing girl pop over the intercom. The Astoria-Megler Bridge connects Oregon and Washington state. It also became a link between my carefree youth and the responsibilities of parenthood. In 2012 I was 47, the Gold Wing, 37. That year, the bike came with some updates, things like new saddlebags and fairing, stereo and nav system, though the core machine hadn’t seen an overhaul in more than a decade. Motorcyclist magazine had hired me to compare the updated Honda to BMW’s 2012 K 1600 GTL, a bike that was brand-new from the ground up and bristling with state-of-the-art technology.  The comparison took place in Tennessee over the course of three days, and it had been preordained that I would ride the winning machine back to California. I went in feeling a sense of dread for my favorite luxury-tourer, a bike I shared so much important history with, since it felt all but certain the GTL would knock the Wing off its long-held luxury-tourer throne. Well, to everyone’s surprise, the king held onto its crown. BMW’s GTL was sportier in those days, yes, but it was also top heavy and not nearly as luxurious or comfortable to ride. I was more than happy to settle into the Honda’s familiar bucket seat for the long ride home to California, the bike’s silky-smooth flat-six humming a song about the open road. At a rally in Hyder, Alaska, the majority of finishers of the Iron Butt 48 Plus (48 states plus Alaska in 10 days) arrived aboard Gold Wings. As I was crossing Missouri on that Gold Wing, a crazy thing happened. It had been pouring rain all day, but the Wing has always been a calm machine, and I felt very comfortable riding it in extreme conditions. I was cruising along, singing in my helmet, when a speeding car slowed beside me, its passenger pointing to the sky. I gave a thumbs up and thought, yes, I know it’s storming and I appear crazy, but it is not as hard as it looks. But when I glanced down at the weather overlay on the Gold Wing’s navigation screen a moment later, I saw something I’d never seen before, a dot of purple within the red mass that was heavy rain. I swiveled around to assess the whole of the sky, and there it was, a tornado. I sped toward the nearest exit, wind howling, and quickly pulled up to the office of a hotel, its manager yelling for me to get inside then ushering me toward the center of the first floor by the elevators where all the hotel’s guests were already gathered along with mattresses taken from nearby rooms. It was an absolutely wild experience, by far the most dramatic moment I have ever had on a motorcycle tour. When the sporty GL1800 came on the scene in 2018, it felt like a stranger, but at its core, I found the same magic. The tornado eviscerated nearby buildings and plucked trees from the ground by their roots. I had never seen such a thing, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the close call as I rolled toward home, me now requiring Advil and Red Bull to put in the long miles while the GL felt as vital as ever. As the next decade rushed by, the Gold Wing and I underwent dramatic transformations, me becoming an aging empty nester in stretchy pants, while the GL1800 went full Benjamin Button for 2018, becoming sleeker, lighter, and far more athletic than ever before. I didn’t even recognize that sixth-generation Gold Wing when I first saw it, the sharp lines of a shark where once lived a friendly bear. At the model’s press introduction in Texas Hill Country, I eagerly jumped onto the next-gen GL expecting to find an old friend once underway, but instead, I was met by a stranger. No longer sitting “in” the big touring bike I knew so well, I was perched atop a modern sport-tourer, gazing at a clean, concise cockpit. An IBA Bun Burner (1,500 miles in 36 hours) to Key West helped forge a fresh bond with the new-gen Wing. The bike performed brilliantly, of course, though I admit I was pining for the last gen’s plane-like cockpit, so busy with buttons, the bolstered captain’s chair, and that Cadillac-esque cush. I left the press ride happy for Honda and the new generation of riders this bike would attract but also a bit sad for myself. The arrival of such a different Gold Wing felt like a hard stop to a beloved series of chapters in my life’s story, or so I thought. That same year, I spent the entire summer riding around America in search of its 50 greatest roads. I used several different test bikes for this 16,000-mile expedition, the last one a Candy Red 2018 Gold Wing Tour DCT I collected in upstate New York a day and a half before my 53rd birthday. It’s difficult to choose which generation of Gold Wing is my favorite, each having become a part of my life story in its own unique way. As preferred, I had no expectations for my birthday other than to wake up somewhere memorable. I pulled the Gold Wing to a stop on the edge of an I-95 onramp to ponder options when a wild idea struck: Why not ride to Key West? I tapped the destination into the Wing’s nav system, and it told me it was a dumb idea. It was already noon and Key West was 1,502 miles away, but if I throttled onto the interstate immediately, I could arrive just after midnight on the morning of my birthday. For better or worse, wild hairs always win with me, so, yes, I rode the new, ultra-sporty Wing right into that fast-flowing river of traffic and swam south for a day and a half, stopping only to refuel, slam gas-station snacks, and grab a terrible night’s sleep at a cheap motel. I know most riders hate the interstates, but I’ve always found a long ride on a straight road leads to a therapeutic level of introspection, a deep cleaning of sorts. As happens later in life, and especially around birthdays, there was an audit of time. How quickly it slides by later in life, but also an accounting of time passed versus time left. Did I spend it well? How do I make the most of what is left? Ever since I had swung my leg over that first Gold Wing in 1986, the bike had become a kind of touchstone, and here it was, punctuating the story of my life with another profound memory. Though the cockpit has changed over the decades, I’ve always found the view from the seat of a Gold Wing to be the most satisfying. By the time the bike’s tire crunched onto the white, crushed-shell driveway of my Key West hotel, the new Gold Wing was no longer a stranger. Instead, I’d made a new friend: youthful, smart, powerful, and more than happy to share its abundant grace with a pilot who was now growing older, my essence dimming slightly each year as the Gold Wing’s only grew brighter. (For the full story, see “The Long Ride” in the February 2022 issue or on our website here.) That sharing of power and fluidity was a gift I would prize more than ever over the next two weeks as I explored some of the country’s finest motorcycle roads in Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia, the Gold Wing proving itself, as ever, to be an ideal travel companion. Over the course of my long-shared history with this wonderful motorcycle, it has been so much more than the perfect tool for two-wheel travel. The Gold Wing has become a cherished friend, ever-evolving and ready for a ride, even when it is just a trip down memory lane. Contributing to the 50th Anniversary Gold Wing book has been a major highlight of my 40-year career as a motorcycle journalist. Led by Lee Edmunds and edited by Matthew Miles, the project resulted in a gorgeous tribute, packed with details and backstories about the machine beloved by so many. The post Love Letter to the Gold Wing: A Lifelong Affair with Honda’s GL appeared first on Rider Magazine.