Yes, "Indian Larry" (besides other things unusual) was the one known for his display of riding while standing on the seat of his motorcycle. Certainly one can take the hands off a moving motorcycle for a brief time without expecting anything disastrous to happen, but that wouldn't be a reccommended thing to do for safety reasons.
I can personally attest to the Goldwing's propensity to "cup" the tires with wear, especially the front. I believe this wear pattern is caused over time because of the heavy weight of the Goldwing and the squirming it generates on the tread blocks of the flexible radial tires that it uses. Always maintaining correct or slightly raised tire pressure in these tires will help to postpone the cupping that invariably will occur. But, cupping seems to be inevitable as the tire wears, probably due to the rain grooves creating the individual blocks of rubber that have more flex on radial tires. (This flex is good for grip and performance which is why we like radial tires.) Once the tires are cupped, you can sense a slight buzz or thumpiness and hear the howling as one rides, particularly as the bike is leaned in a turn as the cupping extends mostly onto the sides following the rain grooves. The only real degradation in the ride is this noise and buzziness, as the rest of the performance (unless I suspect you really were approaching the limits) - is not noticeable. However, at slow speeds (less than 40kph) if one takes the hands off of the grips a slow oscillation will immediately begin to develop into a larger wiggle, that likely would eventually would cause loss of control. But, if one holds onto the bars, the swaying stops and only slight damping seems to be required. The ride doesn't seem unusual and control is perfectly normal.
Many people try to artificially dampen the hands-off swaying by over-tightening the steering bearings or installing different tappered bearings. Others also try to prolong the development of cupped wear by installing a fork brace to further stiffen the front and keep the side of the forks parallel. Still others will ensure that the wheel alignments front-to rear is dead-on and no play is present in the drive train, as the rear tire also cups and contributes to pull the front from side to side. I just carefully watch my tire pressures (I have a SmartTire on-board monitoring system installed) and change out to good new tires when the old ones get worn. I'm currently on my fourth set with just under 100k.)
For those of you who have never ridden a GL1800 Wing, it is truly a wonderful machine. It has all the acceleration, speed (except that the speed control stops working above 160kph
), braking and handling that I could imagine wanting on a motorcycle that is ridden on the street. Once it is underway, the 900 lbs weight it carries melts away, and it becomes a very agile motorcycle on which it is easy to tackle any twisty road with smoothness and speed that would be difficult to match with any other motorcycle. Those radial tires will grip as on a sportbike, and the Wing can be leaned so that the pegs will scape on the turns...I know they can.
