Saxnbass and myself test road a goldwing over the weekend. You would be surprised at how easy it is to handle. It just looks big. Once you get going though the bike just wants to be ridden (and yes, in a dirty way, long and hard
). Eric was told that it handles like sport bike, but of course he was like "yah, uhuh, sure it does". Low and behold when he got done riding it he wanted one and was totally shocked that it did indeed handle like a sport bike. It's also super comfortable and something you could seriously ride from coast to coast and then some. It definitely has plenty of both get up and go power, and stopping power (be very careful applying the brakes on the goldwing till you get used to them lol).
Lesson to learn from all this is to never underestimate a bike, and never assume you know what they are like w/o trying them out.
