Motorcycle Adventure Ride – Page 22

Badlands National Park

Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park is one of life’s bucket list destinations. We visited it in 2008 when we were doing South Dakota’s Black Hills and, by accident, the Sturgis Rally. I’m not big on Sturgis, but we were in the area to see Mt. Rushmore and we caught the tail end of the rally. Okay, Sturgis: Check. If anybody asks, I can say I’ve been. But there are far more interesting things to see and do in this part of the world, and Badlands National Park is one of them.

Badlands National Park is about 100 miles east of Sturgis, and it’s one of a half dozen cool things to see if you ever make Sturgis. There’s Rapid City (a cool town with one of the best gun stores I’ve ever visited), Custer State Park (magnificent roads and scenery), Mt. Rushmore (amazing; words can’t do it justice), Devils Tower 100 miles to the west in Wyoming (think Close Encounters), Badlands (today’s topic), and the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site (I’ll touch on that, too). South Dakota is a great place to visit.

So, back to Badlands. This place is magic, but that’s not just my opinion. It’s a view I share with my hero Theodore (as in Theodore Roosevelt). Roosevelt came here in 1883 to hunt buffalo (we call them buffalo; the correct term is bison), and then again to remake himself when dealt a double whammy a year or two later (his wife and mother died on the same day). He came as a dandy (a skinny, Harvard-educated, New York politician) and left as a rancher, a true Westerner, a future Rough Rider and President of the United States.

50 bison were transferred to Badlands National Park from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in 1963; today, the Badlands bison population is north of 1,000 animals.

To call the Badlands terrain dramatic is a massive understatement; you really need to stand before the landscape and take in the erosion-formed pinnacles and colors to get the full effect.

Badlands National Park in one word: Wow!

Stunning panoramas are the norm in Badlands National Park.

Highway 240, the Badlands Loop, through Badlands National Park.

The region’s history is a story of persistence, paleontology, politics, and (from a Native American perspective), duplicity. Paleo-Indians hunted the area 11,000 years ago, followed by the Arikara people, and then the Great Sioux Nation. The Oglala Lakota (one of seven Sioux tribes) named the area “mako sica” (it translates to “bad lands”). Homesteading by white settlers began in the 1850s, continued during the Civil War, and then picked up dramatically before and after the turn of the century. In an 1868 treaty, the US government promised the Sioux the area would be theirs forever, but you can guess how that went (we broke the treaty a short 21 years later). Calvin Coolidge designated the area Badlands National Monument in 1929, it was formally established as such in 1939 by Franklin Roosevelt, and then redesignated a National Park in 1978.

The Lakota Native American people were the first to find fossils in the area and they correctly ascertained the area was formerly an ancient sea. The Badlands are one of the richest fossil fields in the world with specimens reaching 33 million years into the past (there are 84 known extinct species; 77 of them are from this area). Here’s another tidbit worth knowing if you plan a visit to the region: The South Dakota School of Mines in nearby Rapid City has an outstanding museum displaying some of these prehistoric finds.

A School of Mines dinosaur in Rapid City.

A fossil on display in South Dakota’s School of Mines.

Like much of South Dakota, the Badlands are rich with bison, badger, bighorn sheep, bird species galore, prairie dogs, bobcat, coyote, fox, elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, rattlesnake, and porcupine. We saw many, including a princely, portly porcupine proudly padding along as if he owned the place (in retrospect, I suppose he did).

There’s all kinds of critters out there. We didn’t see any snakes, but we probably walked right by a few.

Parts of Dances with Wolves and Thunderheart were filmed here.

Here’s another cool little secret about the area: The Minuteman Missile National Historic Site is positioned right at the northeast edge of the Park. The U.S. Government took a former operational intercontinental nuclear missile site and turned it into a national historic site. You can’t just show up and get in, though. You have to make reservations and they only take a few people at a time, but wow, is it ever cool. You go down to the control module, which is this tiny, thick wall, metal, electronics-crammed structure way underground. The command capsule is mounted on giant springs, you know, to protect the occupants from an incoming bad guy nuclear intercontinental missile. After you’ve seen that, the park rangers (all former USAF senior NCOs who actually served on Minuteman sites) take you outside to peer into a silo and view a Minuteman missile (presumably, one that’s been disarmed). It’s shades of the Cold War, Dr. Strangelove, and Mutually Assured Destruction all rolled into a tourist attaction. Trust me on this: It’s cool and unless you stood guard against Ivan during the Cold War, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

A Park Ranger and former USAF ICBM NCO at the Minuteman National Historic Site. This is cool, folks.

A thermonuclear threat…the real deal. Peering down into the silo was a bit unnerving. What is really unnerving is that there are similar missiles on the other side of the world still pointed at us.

So there you have it…Badlands National Park, the Minuteman National Historic Site, and more. South Dakota is one of my all time favorite places to visit. If you are headed that way, don’t just wallow in the weirdness that is Sturgis. There’s much more to see and do in South Dakota, and these two spots should be high on anyone’s list.

I took these photos back in 2008 with my Nikon D200 camera and a first-generation Nikon 24-120 lens. As I view them today, they are not up to the richness and quality I would get from my current D810 Nikon and its VR 24-120 lens. I may have to return to get better photos.

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Phavorite Photos: Wenchuan Man

It was the fourth or fifth day Joe and I had been on the road in China, and we were headed up to the Tibetan Plateau. I think I can safely say that Gresh and I were the only two Americans in Wenchuan that day based on the fact that we were taken to the city’s police department to fill out forms and let them know we were there (it was the only place in China we had to do that).

Wenchuan is a lively town, and the next morning we were enjoying what had already become a routine breakfast of hardboiled eggs and Chinese fry bread on the sidewalk when a bus stopped in front of us. The fellow you see above stepped off and looked at us quizzically (we didn’t quite look like Wenchuanians). I asked if I could take a photo by holding up my Nikon. He nodded his head, I shot the photo you see above, and he was gone. The entire encounter lasted maybe two seconds, but that photo is one of my China ride favorites. His expression could be used in a book on body language.

Three earlier favorite photos, one in Bangkok, one in Death Valley, and one in Guangzhou. Click on them to get to their story.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

It was one of those crazy motorcycle adventure moments when a chance encounter leads to a lasting friendship. I was leading a group of maybe 10 guys on CSC RX3 motorcycles in Baja and we stopped to buy bottled gas from the capitalists along the Transpeninsular Highway in Cataviña. It was a crowded scene with two or three Bajaenos pouring gas from plastic water jugs into our motorcycles with bikes and bodies tightly crowded around. That’s when I noticed a tailpack on one of the bikes that looked different from the rest of our RX3s, and suddenly the difference hit me: It was bigger than the others and it had jump wings on the back.

Jump wings? That’s odd, I thought. I didn’t think any of the guys I was riding with was a fellow former paratrooper. That’s when I met Mike Huber. He hadn’t been riding with us; he just happened to get mixed into our group at the Catavina fuel stop.

Mike is a cool guy with a cool lifestyle. Most recently, that included a moto trip across Vietnam with his girlfriend, Bobbie. Mike published a story in ADVMoto, a magazine that has previouly published work by yours truly and Joe Gresh. Mike’s Vietnam adventure is here. I enjoyed reading it and I think you will, too.

One of these days, I keep thinking to myself. Vietnam must be one hell of a motorcycle destination. Good buddies Buffalo and his cousin Tim also rode Vietnam, and you can read that story here. It’s weird…I met both of those guys on a CSC Baja ride, too!

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Devils Tower: Close Encounters of the Motorcycle Kind

Most of us have seen the 1977 movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It’s what we think of when we see Devils Tower (which I’ll get to in just a bit). Before I do, consider this question: Are there close encounters of the first, second, fourth, and fifth kind? The short answer is: Yes.

The concept of classifying suspected alien encounters came from a guy named Allen Hynek. Hynek defined the first three categories, and then two more were added. Here at ExhaustNotes, we try to formulate the questions you might have before you even know you have them, so we did. Here’s the answer to what has been keeping you up at night.

- Close Encounters of the First Kind: These are viewings of unidentified flying objects less than 500 feet away. They are relatively rare, like seeing a GS 1200 actually in the dirt.
- Close Encounters of the Second Kind: These involve unidentified flying objects with some sort of associated physical effect, like interference with your vehicle’s ignition or radio, animals reacting to a sensed alien presence, or an alien craft leaving impressions on the ground. They are things for which there simply is no earthly explanation. I think $1500 freight and setup charges on new motorcycles fall into this category.
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: This is the one we all know about. It’s when you climb to the top of Devil’s Tower for an alien rock concert and laser show. Seriously, though, the people who write these descriptions say a close encounter of the third kind involves things like seeing a living being inside an unidentified flying object. In the motorcycling world, I guess it would be like waving at a Starbuck’s-bound GS rider and having him return the wave.
- Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: This is when the aliens abduct you. I imagine it would be a lot like a free weekend at a posh resort, but you have to listen to the time-share pitch.
- Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: These involve direct communications between humans and aliens. These actually happen to me a lot, and they usually start with unsolicited cell phone calls for solar power, paying off student loans, extending car warranties, or contributing to a Hillary Clinton campaign. These people have to be from outer space. No Earthling would ever expect me to go for any of the above.

So there you have it. On to the topic of this blog, and that’s Devils Tower, Wyoming. It’s awesome, and if you haven’t made the trek it needs to be on your list.

I first visited Devils Tower when we toured South Dakota’s Black Hills and Mount Rushmore in nearby South Dakota. Devils Tower was a short 90 miles to the west, I’d seen the movie, and I had to see the place in person. It was worth the trip. Instantly recognizable, the dark tower climbs 867 feet above its surroundings. Eerie is not too strong an adjective. The thing just looks other-worldly, and attributing the divine, the supernatural, or an extraterrestrial vibe to Devils Tower is a natural reaction. No fewer than six Native American peoples, Steven Spielberg, and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt have done exactly that. I get it, and when you see Devils Tower in person, you will, too.

I also visited Devils Tower when we rode the RX3s through western America with a crew from China and Colombia (that’s what the video above is from). It’s in a good part of the country…Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, the Badlands, and more are in this area and the riding is awesome. If you ever do Sturgis, Devils Tower needs to be one of your stops, but it’s best to see this part of the world when the Sturgis Rally is not underway (there is such a thing as too many motorcycles, and the tattoos, open pipes, and body odor that goes with Sturgis gets old quickly).

One of the things that makes Devils Tower so dramatic is its distinctiveness; it just doesn’t look like it should be there. Even the experts can’t agree on how it came to be. The rock docs agree that it was formed by magma (molten rock) forcing itself up between other rocks; what they argue about is how this occurred. One camp holds that the formation was pushed upward by molten rock below, another that Devils Tower once was a larger structure worn down by erosion, and yet another feels the tower is the throat of an ancient volcano. To get geologic for a moment, it is a laccolithic butte (a wonderful term that could be applied to a few people I know) comprised of phonolite porphyry (dark-colored rock). Devils Tower is comprised of sharply-defined trapezoidal columns with four, five and sometimes seven sides. They look like they were machined, and in a sense, I guess they were.

The Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, Arapaho, Shoshone and Kiowa Native Americans all treat Devils Tower and its surrounding regions as sacred ground. Theodore Roosevelt designated it the first U.S. national monument in 1906. Native American names for the monolith include mato tipila (bear lodge), the bear’s tipi, the bear’s home, the tree rock, and the great gray horn. An 1875 U.S. Army expedition misinterpreted one of the Native American names as Bad Gods Tower, and that became Devils Tower.

The Tower is visible from great distances — there’s no missing it or mistaking it for anything else — and the ride in provides varying perspectives. Once inside the National Park, you can walk to the base, you can take a hike around Devils Tower, or you can climb to the top. I’ve been there several times, and I think it’s one of our great destinations.

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The Columbia River Gorge

I’ve visited a few places in my time and I have a few favorites. The Columbia River Gorge is at the top of the list. Sue and I flew to Portland a few years ago for a quick 48-hour circumnavigation of the Columbia River Gorge. I wish I could tell you we rode a motorcycle, but it was four wheels this time. I have motorcycled through the Columbia River Gorge several times so I guess I’ve got my bona fides if I needed to prove something. But I don’t and there are times when a car is my preferred mode of travel. You know, if it gets cold, you turn on the heater. If it gets hot, you turn on the AC. If it rains, you hit the windshield wipers. Yeah, I know, I’m not being manly. It is what it is, my brothers.

So anyway, we grabbed a Hyundai Veloster at the Portland rental lot. It appealed to us, it promised to sip fuel gingerly (a promise it met), and it was comfortable for our weekend getaway.

The smart (and scenic) money on the Columbia’s Oregon side is Highway 30 (also known as the Oregon Scenic Byway), an historic (read: two-lane, non-freeway) route that parallels the Columbia River. Twisty and green with stunning views of the falls and more quiet, and offering lots of things to stop and photograph…it’s a road that checks all the boxes. There’s Multnomah Falls, the Vista House, moss-covered concrete guardrails, and much more.

Continuing east along Highway 30, still south of the Columbia River, is a ticket into a flower-covered stretch of scenery through the Rowena Crest area. Rowena Crest kind of sounds like a suburban housing tract, but it is anything but. This is good country up here in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a premier wildflower area, and they were out in force during our visit.

Here’s a shot a shot of the Columbia River in the Rowena Crest area.

We crossed the Columbia River (after riding east for most of that morning) at Biggs. Once we were in Washington, we turned left on Highway 14, the road in Washington that parallels the Columbia on the Washington side. It’s another two-lane road, although it’s busier than Highway 30 on the Oregon side.

Traveling west on 14, we were pointed directly at Mt. Hood (a snow-covered inactive volcano in Oregon).

The views and the roads are impressive on both sides of the Columbia River.

After driving for a while on the Washingon side, we came to the Bridge of the Gods. It was our ticket back into Oregon. I first rode across this bridge after riding the 2005 Three Flags Classic Rally. Good buddy Marty and I had been up to Canada and we were returning to southern California through Washington and Oregon. I love everything about the Bridge, not the least of which is the road surface. It’s grated iron, and if you look down while riding a motorcycle, it’s as if you’re flying. You can’t see the road surface at all…all you see is the Columbia River water way below. It’s really cool.

Here’s the view from the Washington side.

Here’s what it looks like as you drive across.

And one more photo, this time from the Oregon side…

During our weekend in the Columbia River area, we stayed in Hood River, a nice little town on the Oregon side. Our hotel was on the river, near a favored spot for kiteboarding and standup paddling.

A circumnavigation of the Columbia River Gorge, using the Bridge of the Gods and the bridge at Biggs at the western and eastern anchor points, makes for an ideal two-day adventure ride. Hood River is the place to stay.

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Take a look at the Motorcycle Classics story on the Columbia River Gorge, and more of our published works are here.

Phavorite Photos: Orlando and Velma

We started this Phavorite Photo series a short while ago at Python Pete’s suggestion, and while going through a few of my favorites recently the photo you see above popped out. That’s my good buddies Orlando and Velma on their CSC RX3 headed up to Dante’s View, a natural overook that provides what has to be the best view of Death Valley (the view is shown in the photo below). We were on the Destinations Deal tour, and Orlando and Velma bought their RX3 motorcycle specifically to go with us on this ride. The Destinations Deal was a grand ride, and Orlando and Velma are great traveling companions.

I grabbed that photo of Orlando and Velma with my little Nikon D3300, its kit 18-55mm lens, and a polarizer. The D3300 was a superb traveling SLR. The photo needed a little tweaking in PhotoShop to bring it up (they almost all always do). A bit of cropping, a correction in levels, another correction in curves, eliminating an unsightly sign that was in the background, and just a little bit of vibrance and saturation enhancement. Here’s what the original looked like:

I was particularly impressed with Orlando’s RX3 motorcycle. This was the second time I led a CSC tour with folks riding two up on an RX3. Orlando had no difficulty hanging with the rest of us (we were all riding solo), and surprisingly, his bike returned the same fuel economy. There’s a lot to be said for small bikes. I’ve said some of it before.

I have more than a few favorite photos. You’ll see more here on the ExhaustNotes blog.

Something we’ll do in each one of these Phavorite Photos blogs is show our prior favorites. Just click on the photo to get to each earlier blog. There’s only one so far; there will be more.

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Favorite Baja Hotels: Guerrero Negro’s Don Gus

That photo above could also be in our Phavorite Photos series. It’s the motorcycles on one of our Baja rides (all CSC RX3s) parked outside our rooms at the Don Gus Hotel in Guerrero Negro. That photo has always been one of my favorites.

Not fancy, not expensive, and comfortable: That’s how I would describe the Don Gus Hotel in Guerrero Negro (incidentally, that’s also a pretty good good description of the RX3). The Don Gus is on the main drag on the left as you come into town, and it’s nearly directly across the street from the more well-known Malarimmo’s. The Don Gus has a nice bar and the food is great.

Malarimmo’s usually fills up quickly when the California gray whales are in nearby Scammon’s Lagoon (that would be from January through March). There are at least a half-dozen hotels in Guerrero Negro, and the Don Gus is the one I’d go for if Malarimmo’s is booked up. The Don Gus is less expensive than Malarimmo’s and the restaurant maybe isn’t as fancy, but it’s a good place to stay and you won’t be disappointed. If you want a whale watching tour and Malarrimo’s is full, let the folks at the Don Gus know the night before and they’ll hook you up with another tour company. They’ve done so for me many times, and I’ve found that once you are out on the water who you tour with doesn’t make a difference. They are all great.

Looking at these photos….man, I have got to get my knees in the breeze and point my Enfield south. I am missing Baja big time. Gresh, you up for Tony’s fish tacos?

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How Much Milk Is Left?

A few weeks ago I read a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Peter Funt (of the Candid Camera show). His article was on the pandemic lockdowns and isolation inducing more folks to publish their memoirs, and Funt made the case that this was not such a good thing. Most memoirs are God-awful boring.

That got me to thinking about the adventure touring genre. You know, the books, blogs, videos, and endless Facebook posts and forums about adventure rides.

Adventure rides.

We used to call a motorcycle ride a motorcycle ride. Now they are all “adventure” rides. And we don’t tell a story or do a bike test. Now, it’s a reveal. Harley is going to introduce a new bike in few days. But it’s not a new model announcement. It’s a “reveal.”

Ten to twenty years ago, the place to go to read good riding stories was ADVRider.com and their Rides page (back then, the stories and photography were actually good) and HorizonsUnlimited.com. Now it’s mostly videos, Facebook, and blogs. There’s too much of this (and I say that as guy who writes a blog). I seldom view any of it. Which is not to say you should stop reading ExNotes. We’re different, you know. We’ve never had a “reveal” (other than that one unfortunate wardrobe accident in China) and we never will.

All of the above begs the question: How much milk is left in the adventure riding cow?

Fads come in waves, and a surefire way to know that a wave is dissipating on shore is when a big company tries to surf in on the little bit of surf that’s left. Witness the Pan America, Harley’s too much, too late entry into the ADV world. Harley wants to compete with the BMW GS, KTM, and Ducati high end ADV bikes.

It’s hard for me to see how Harley is going to prevail. For starters, my feeling is that most folks who ride big V-twin cruisers (folks who form the bulk of Harley’s current customer base) have little interest in adventure touring. The premise is that Harley will attract a new crop of customers, presumably drawing the sheeple who would have bought BMWs, or KTMs, or Ducatis. Color me skeptical, but I just don’t see it happening.

No, what’s happening is a sea change, not an opportunity to do a little surfing in a dying market. The world moves in fads, with each fad having about a ten-to-twenty-year life, and we’re due for a new one. I just don’t know what it is. Consider this:

- In the 1960s, it was British vertical twins. Those were cool years and the Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons, and Enfields of the day were cool bikes.
- In the 1970s and the 1980s, it was Japanese machines (the so-called UJMs). Honda’s 750 Four had five gears, and that fifth one was for the paradigm shift that swallowed the British empire and made us wonder if maybe Japan won World War II after all. Four cylinders across the frame, with differences between manufacturers that could only be described as trivial. The UJMs were kind of cool, too, but not as cool as the Britbikes (at least to my way of thinking). But the Britbikes were toast, destined to emerge two decades down the road as the darlings of a small but well published vintage motorcycle market niche (and in case you missed it, that was a plug for Motorcycle Classics magazine).
- In the 1990s, it was Harleys and all that went with it. You know, middle aged guys becoming pirates and bikes festooned with chrome, leather fringe, and conchos. I was one of them for awhile and I had everything but the tattoos. Bikes that people with more money than brains bought (often paying over MSRP) so they could don do-rags, denim, and non-DOT helmets, and look pretty much exactly like all the other beer-bellied rugged individualists. I was one of them for a while, too.
- Sportbikes had a good run somewhere in the middle of all this, too, with ergonomics that guaranteed significant incomes for chiropractors and physical therapists, who frequently used that money to pay well over list price for a Harley (see above). Guilty again. You got me. I had a TL1000S, a Triumph Daytona, and a Speed Triple.
- With the turn of the century, the trend migrated toward 650-pound, liter-plus bikes styled like dirt bikes and equipped with electronics rivaling Air Force One. Denim and do-rags were replaced by Power Ranger clothing. Everybody wanted to be Charlie and Ewen, but few could afford the chase trucks and mechanics, and even fewer could handle one of the bloated beasts off road. Most adorned driveways and Starbuck’s parking lots. I mean, the headlight lenses on some of these things cost $1800; no way anyone was taking those wunderbikes into the woods. I’m sort of guilty here. I had a Triumph Tiger. I took it off road just once and it was terrifying.

I think we are fast approaching the last throes of the overweight off-road $25K-to-$30K wannabee adventure bikes and their thousand-dollar Aerostitch-wearing riders…you know, the guys who stand on the pegs even when riding on level asphalt. (Sit down, guys…your “sell by” date flew by years ago and I’ll say what everyone else is thinking: You look silly.)

So what’s next?

Electric motorcycles? Nope, I don’t think that’s going to happen in any major way. Alta is gone, Zero is struggling, and the Livewire may have already suffered electrocution as a consequence of Harley’s rewiring. Electric bikes don’t sound like motorcycles, the range is not there (it’s not going to be any time soon), and I think a motorcycle without an internal combustion engine really isn’t a motorcycle at all. So what will be the next big moto thing?

Self-driving motorcycles? Nope. Dead on arrival, I think.

Even more “mode complexity” on street bikes? Probably not. That sort of thing appeals to juvenile minds (ones susceptible to Jedi mind tricks). I think even the easily-led characters mentioned above recognize this as too gimmicky. I once had a pimply faced kid ask me at one of the IMS shows how many modes our imported-from-China 250cc ADV bike had, and I told him: Two. On, and off. He nodded knowingly, as if I had let him in on a great secret, and wandered off toward the Ducati booth.

I think the ADV thing is going to dry up, even though we are still seeing sales upticks in the motorcycle market. Sort of. ADV-style bike trends have been up, but it always was a relatively small market segment and the current increase (most likely the result of the “more free stuff” crowd rocking Washington these days) appears to be big but actually is not. Dirt bike sales are up, but that’s for off road dirt bikes only. Street bike sales are down about 10%. And that thing about motorcycle sales overall going up? Yeah, it is, but it’s mostly ATVs (of the 4-wheel persuasion, which are included in the motorcycle sales figures). One bit of actual data, and that is this: CSC can’t keep bikes in stock. They sell out as soon as they arrive. But CSC delivers real value at a very reasonable price…I don’t know that I ever saw an RX-Anything with conchos and fringe. And CSC motorcycles are definitely not $25K driveway bling. Yeah, the big bike ADV thing is fast approaching its “sell by”date, I think. The fat lady is singing, folks. It’s almost over.

So, given that the ADV milk is drying up, the next big thing will be…

Hell, I don’t know.

What do you think? You guys figure it out and let me know. And if you think you know, leave a comment here. Curious minds want to know.

Chongqing to Tibet!

The RG3 is Zongshen’s newest motorcycle, and yesterday this video and its description showed up in my feed:

We are excited to share the epic journey of RG3 crew! Along the 318 national highway, our RG3 adventurers spent 12 days riding to reach Lhasa, Tibet from our factory in Chongqing. May the journey inspire you to start you own!

This is cool stuff and Zongshen (sold by CSC Motorcycles here in North America) is a cool company. I’ve been in the Zongshen plant a bunch of times along with good buddy Gobi Gresh, and we rode with Zongshen across China.

Gresh and I had a lot of fun with the Cult of the Zong, and we joked about the lines we’d be able to use after our 6,000-mile ride in the Ancient Kingdom. You know, little things we’d slip into a conversation like “as I was riding across the Gobi Desert” and “when we rode down off the Tibetan plateau” and others. We knew it would gave us the street cred we needed to converse with hardcore riders making the trek to Starbuck’s.

Zongshen puts together first class videos, and I always watch their new ones as they are released. One of my Zongshen favorites is the one they did on our China ride:

And another I enjoy is Joe Gresh’s video on that same ride:

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Pan America Adventure Motorcycle: The World’s First No-Compromise Harley-Davidson

What does that even mean, no compromise?

Hear me out. Like you I’ve read all the reviews on Harley’s new Pan America Adventure-Glide and they have been uniformly positive. Surprising is the word most frequently used by the tattered remnants of the moto-press when describing the Pan America. And it is surprising.

I’m not likely to ever test ride a Pan America. I offer Harley-Davidson nothing but suffering and heartache. Why would Harley loan me a bike in a category I pretty much despise? I can’t stand big Adventure bikes. I don’t like them one little bit. I think they are dangerous off road. Anyone who sends me one to test ride is a fool and Harley-Davidson’s marketing department is not populated by fools. Luckily I don’t need to ride one because Kevin Duke, the hardest working man in motorcycle journalism, says the Pan America is a good bike and that’s all you really need to know.

The no compromise hook in this story is the most impressive part of the new Pan America. It’s the first Harley (since the late 1960s) that competes head to head with the best the world has to offer and does it at a competitive price. In all areas the new bike is acceptable, meets expectations and is even, dare I say, good.

Most all the high-end, heavy, dangerously inadequate offroad Adventure bikes clock in at around 20,000 US dollars retail and they all weigh nearly the same ground-crushing 600 pounds. It must be a class requirement. Check out the manufacturer-provided spec sheets on a GS BMW, Ducati Multi Service, and KTM Breakdown. All of the numbers are within spitting distance of each other.

And that’s the amazing part. Harley-frigging-Davidson has made a competent motorcycle for the same price as everyone else. There’s no brand penalty. Harley-Davidson has made a motorcycle that the owner isn’t required to look through leather-fringed, nostalgia-tinted lenses to justify. No more having to tell non-Harley riders that they don’t get it when their questions turn pointed. Like all cults, the Harley cult requires actively looking the other way when hard facts and performance figures per dollar are bandied about.

With the Pan America there’s no need to believe in the Harley mystique. There’s no need to defend anemic performance by waving an American flag. The Pan America stands on its own merits as a motorcycle, nothing more. Is it as good as the other big Adventure bikes? I can’t say but the fact that it’s spoken of in the same breath and held up in comparison to the world’s best Adventure bikes is a stunning turnaround for a company that seemed hopelessly stuck in neutral by its mad marketing genius.

As much as I hate big Adventure bikes, I love the new Harley-Davidson Pan America.

I hope it’s a harbinger of change. I hope it succeeds beyond Harley’s wildest dreams and ushers in a new era of 150-horsepower Sportsters that handle, stop and are as fast as any other guy’s bikes. The late 1960s was the last time Sportsters were hot. That’s a long, long time to rest on your laurels. Let’s hope the Pan American gives stodgy old Harley-Davidson new life and a desire to be measured against the very best. Listen, if there’s any way you can afford to go out and buy one, go out and buy one. Tell Harley I sent you. Maybe they’ll even let me take one for a ride.

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