The 1975 Honda GL1000 Gold Wing, shown in Candy Blue Green. (Cycle World/)

Gold Wingers, put your kickstand down and grab a soda from the trunk. It’s time to say goodbye to the Gold Wing Road Riders Association and the annual Wing Ding party they hosted.

After 45 years, the GWRRA is no more. As announced at this year’s Wing Ding 43 event in Shreveport, LA, the GWRRA is closing its doors on July 31st of this year, according to founders Paul Hildebrand and Shirley Stevens-Garcia. In response, American Honda issued this very nice press release commemorating GWRRA’s contribution to the motorcycling community.

Related: The Honda Gold Wing Is A Bike For The Ages, Not Just The Aged

Founded in 1977, the GWRRA was an organic response to the game-changing Honda GL 1000, known as the Gold Wing. In keeping with Honda’s mantra of “growing the pie,” or serving underrepresented market segments instead of fighting for market share, the Gold Wing created a category of new touring riders drawn to the powerful, affordable and virtually maintenance-free Gold Wing. At its height, the GWRRA had approximately 80,000 members across 53 countries, with 800-plus chapters staffed by 4,000 volunteer leaders.

Established with the motto, “Friends for Fun, Safety and Knowledge”, the GWRRA called itself, “the world’s largest single-marque social organization for owners of Honda Gold Wing/Valkyrie motorcycles.” It made good on the ‘60s era ad slogan “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” by creating a non-profit, non-religious, non-political organization that advocated for rider education and safety, motorist awareness, and leadership training. In keeping with this spirit, prorated refunds will be offered to prepaid members.

Related: Bringing An Old Honda GL-1000 Back To Life

It’s hard to overstate the impact the original 80 hp liquid-cooled flat-four shaft-driven GL 1000 made on the motorcycling world when unveiled in 1974. In the early 70s, a touring rider’s choice of rigs was between Harley-Davidson’s Electra Glide, BMW’s expensive /6 models, or the Moto Guzzi Eldorado. Suffering aboard a Kawasaki Z1 or Honda CB750 was just as common. While the Gold Wing was initially conceived as a sport model, Honda pivoted to a touring model early in development. Two prototypes actually featured “Hondaline” Vetter fairing accessories, although the molds have apparently been lost. The Gold Wing was presented without fairing or saddlebags at the September 1974 US dealer show in Las Vegas and quickly attracted riders and aftermarket parts entrepreneurs.

The Gold Wing itself is still going strong in 2022. And if you’re worried about what Gold Wing riders will do for company and fun, a cursory audit of Facebook shows about 90 American and international groups dedicated to various Gold Wing models. Unless the name is trademarked, a 2023 Wing Ding is entirely possible with a little DIY spirit. Stay golden, Gold Wing lovers.

The Gold Wing Road Riders of America: helping the nicest people you’ll meet, meet since 1977. (GWRRA/)

A period GWRRA Wing Ding souvenir t-shirt from 2000. (eBay (Member: ratracer66)/)

Source: MotorCyclistOnline.com

Butts in seats make the racers go ‘round: Behind the main Grandstand at the start/finish line. (BMW Group/)

“There’s nowhere in the world like the Isle of Man TT.”

–2022 Winner Peter Hickman

You can’t argue with the man on that point. While time, shifting attitudes and riding technology have marched on, the Isle of Man TT is largely unchanged, at least in terms of the 37.55 mile course itself. The race is run much differently than when Giacomo Agostini famously boycotted the race in 1972 after the death of his friend Gilberto Parlotti, with the circuit eventually being dropped from the Grand Prix schedule in 1977. Professional racers no longer have to face the mountain course to keep their job. The “amatuer” status of IoM TT entrants saved the event, really. Winning the IoM TT earns you a pittance of a purse, around £18,000. But the reward can’t be measured in money. It’s not a task for the career-oriented. It’s an obsession for dreamers and the slightly insane.

By now the ink has dried on much of the post-2022 Isle of Man TT reaction. It’s worth more than a short pause to consider a sporting event that took the lives of five contestants. Maybe longer than the 20 minutes IoM TT officials took before resuming prize ceremonies after the announcement of the death of sidecar racers Roger and Bradley Stockton, whose deaths were the fourth and fifth fatalities in this year’s event, the highest death toll since 1989.

Boosters of the sport will talk of racers being clear-eyed about the risks and rewards. And that’s true, of the racers themselves. But for race organizers and the 85,000 or so residents of this self-governed 221-square mile British island, risk and reward means something different. Their “risk” is that the event won’t bring in £37M in needed revenue, as it did in 2019, the last event before Covid interrupted the event. Their “reward” is the thrill of the event itself, but more accurately, the thousands of tourists who bring the above mentioned revenue to local business and island treasury. It means financial survival.

Though they face differing equations and answers to risk and reward ratios, the responses of organizers and racers to event fatalities are the same. They pause briefly, then resume their quest. They offer the same consolations and bromides they always do, then carry on out of necessity. All the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching in the world won’t bring back the dead, and it misses the point.

Whether the race is canceled isn’t really up to most of the participants, whether they’re racers or event workers. Racers won’t stop coming to the island to race, and race organizers won’t stop organizing the race until it becomes financially unsustainable. Meditations on mortality won’t help either party. It won’t help racers successfully thread their way through Ballagerey, and it won’t help race organizers manage airlifts to mainland ER’s for the wounded. Neither can properly do their job while mourning. So they don’t, for as long as the track is live. Afterwards, it’s up to them.

If you think this is a condemnation of the Isle of Man TT, you’re wrong. The race should go on for as long as legally allowed. It’s a triumph of human skill, luck and nerves over death, at least temporarily. To end the tradition would silence a tiny part of ourselves. The world needs these small terrible freedoms. Would you have asked Marc-Andre Leclerc to stop free-climbing alpine mountains? Would banning free-climbing stop climbers from attempting the improbable? Obviously not. Nor should it.

To us, the people who watch, the riders who perish should be worth more than brief moments of awkward silence or well-worn clichés. If we choose to keep watching, we should absolutely and completely acknowledge what we might see happen. Without spectators, there is by definition no spectacle. It’s up to us whether the IoM TT goes on. But our spectacle is more than just spectacle. It’s a race like no other on Earth, one where entrants regularly die. A hunter knows how he got his meat. It’s a celebration of life that takes place next to death.

Peter Hickman won the 2022 Isle of Man TT Supersport title. He did it by averaging 129.432 mph for the race overall, and 132.274 mph on his final lap, aboard his Gas Monkey Garage by FHO Racing BMW. In addition to the Senior TT, Hickman also won the Supertwin, Superstock and Superbike classes. It was his 2nd Senior TT victory, and the four overall 2022 victories make for a total of nine victories across several classes.

His qualifying efforts foreshadowed his wins. On Thursday, the fifth day of practice, he completed the week’s first sub-17 minute lap, at 16:59.579 with an average speed of 133.22 mph aboard his Gas Monkey Garage by FHO Racing BMW M 1000 RR Superbike. To put an impressive period at the end of that sentence, his subsequent Friday practice lap of 132.874 mph came with the northern end of the island still damp in spots.

In short, Peter Hickman achieved the improbable, though he didn’t break the lap record of 16:42.778 minutes and 135.452 mph, which he set himself in 2018. And sidecar racers Roger Stockton, Bradley Stockton and Cesar Chanal were killed while competing, as were Mark Purslow and Davy Morgan.

The fact they died doing what they loved is likely cold comfort to surviving friends and family, but it was their decision to make. Their passing won’t slow the next man up and the race will go on. Unlike almost any other race on earth, their deaths will simply be accepted as part of the endeavor.

Peter Hickman, the Man of the Hour. Or 16:59.579 minutes, to be exact. (BMW Group/)

Post race commentary awaits a breathless Peter Hickman. (BMW Group/)

Peter Hickman makes a charge towards Creg-ny-Baa, around the 34th mile of the course. (BMW Group/)

Peter Hickman hoisting one of four trophies (and three sponsor hats) he earned at IoM TT. (BMW Group/)

Peter Hickman negotiating Guthrie’s Memorial, between the 26 and 27 mile marker. Dedicated to Scotsman, James “Jimmie” Guthrie, 6-time IoM TT winner, who died competing at the German Grand Prix in 1937. (BMW Group/)

Peter Hickman charging uphill into the mountainous section. (BMW Group/)

Celebration wheelie or normal IoM TT aeronautics? Probably the former, judging by crowd reaction. (BMW Group/)

Peter Hickman works the “gray blur” in between the “green blurs”, likely on the downhill portion of the mountain section. (BMW Group/)

Sometimes there’s two “gray blurs”: Peter Hickman navigating asphalt and stone walls alongside the course. (BMW Group/)

The final hardware won: Peter Hickman hoists the Senior TT trophy, alongside Padgett teammates, Conor Cummins and Davy Todd, 2nd and 3rd place, respectively. (BMW Group/)

Source: MotorCyclistOnline.com