Robert Smith

Sep/Oct '16

City Escape: Palm Springs, California

With the suburbs of the Coachella Valley expanding in every direction, there’s one place they can’t grow: Joshua Tree National Park. The Mojave Desert’s endless sand, crimson rocks, and indigo skies combine to create an eerie solitude. Joshua trees, cholla, and desert flowers erupt from the barren

Sep/Oct '16 Premium Content

Classic Roads: Rim of the World Highway

Assigning such a grandiose title to California’s Highway 18 may smack of Hollywood hyperbole. But with its magnificent vistas and the overlooks toward San Gorgonio Mountain—the highest peak in Southern California—you could be forgiven for thinking you really were riding the rim of the world.

Sep/Oct '16 Premium Content

Revelstoke, BC Shamrock Tour®: The Unexpected Motorcycling Mecca

To many drivers, Revelstoke is just a stopover between Vancouver and Calgary. But for motorcyclists, the Kootenay-Columbia region around the city contains some of British Columbia’s best highways and byways, from sublime cruising to cuss-word challenging.Salmon River RaidIt’s a brisk June morning when my buddy Bevin Jones

Jul/Aug '16 Premium Content

Classic Roads

Jan/Feb '16 Premium Content

British Columbia and Washington: The Border Tour

The Canada-U.S. border disproves the old saying that good fences make good neighbors. It’s famously the world’s longest, undefended international border and, in much of the West, it’s simply a line drawn along the 49th parallel. There are no walls or fences, just a column of

Nov/Dec '15

Review: 1983 Suzuki Katana Custom

Fans of the long-running TV sci-fi series Stargate SG-1 and the movie The Fantastic Four will likely have seen Rob Wilton on their screens without realizing it. You’re not usually supposed to recognize him.Rob is a stunt coordinator and stunt performer with a long list of credits in

May/Jun '15

City Escape: Seattle, Washington

This circuit includes Seattle's own volcano, Mount Rainier, climbs over the 5,430-foot Chinook Pass, goes through Mount Rainier National Park, and returns via the Puyallup River valley. Park entry fee is  for motorcycles. Stop in charming Elbe and take a two-hour steam train ride on the Mt. Rainier Scenic

Mar/Apr '15 Premium Content

California and Oregon: High Sierra HOEDOWN

Call it unfinished business, if you will. In 2006, I collected a Ducati Multistrada 1000 DS from Southern California Motorcycles in Brea, CA, and set off to tour the northern Sierras. My trip would include most of the famous Golden Chain Highway, California 49, through the foothills and over the

Jan/Feb '15 Premium Content

Umbria: Italy’s Dreamy Heartland

I’m riding south through Umbria on the Via Flaminia, the ancient road connecting Rome with Rimini on the Adriatic Coast. I fancy it has been improved since Gaius Flaminius initiated construction around 220 B.C.—now named prosaically “Strada Statale 3.” This fast two-lane highway sweeps along the western

Jul/Aug '14 Premium Content

Romania: Ceausescu’s Folly—Transylvania and the Transfagarasan Highway

Best road in the world or communist tyrant’s power trip? Only one way to find out! It was on a bus tour in the early 1970s that I discovered Romania. I remember little but the awful food and how our nervous guide evaded political questions, pointing instead to distant

Mar/Apr '14

City Escape: Victoria, British Columbia

Ride west from historic Victoria via Vancouver Island’s rugged coastline to Port Renfrew, then cross the island through remote villages and ancient forests as well as along rushing rivers back to the Trans Canada Highway by Lake Cowichan. Admire the totem poles in Duncan, and ride the spectacular Malahat

Sep/Oct '13

City Escape: Vancouver, British Columbia

A winding tarmac ribbon soaring from sea to sky through BC’s Coast Range into semi-desert, then back through the spectacular Fraser Canyon. Take in four climate zones! Yes, it’s a long ride, but it’s comfortably doable in a day as long as you start early. This local

Jul/Aug '11 Premium Content

Frisco, Colorado Shamrock Tour®

It's all down hill from here - literally. Squatting next to the Continental Divide, Frisco, CO, is the perfect base for exploring some of the most elevated highways in America.I pull into Leadville, CO, with a dry mouth and a parched throat. I'm parked outside the Silver Dollar Saloon,

Nov/Dec '10

2011 Victory Lineup

Transports of DelightThe New American Motorcycle, as Victory likes to call itself, is now moving comfortably into adolescence. It's been 13 years since the first 92 cubic-inch Victories went on sale, and the 2011 range now comprises 12 models across the cruising spectrum from boulevard bruisers to country-crossing baggers. As

Sept/Oct '10 Premium Content

The International Selkirk Loop

Here we are in Castlegar, Nelson can't be very far.Climbing out of Castlegar on Highway 3, the view of British Columbia below is so captivating that I pull over to fully appreciate it. The Columbia River glistens in the afternoon sun like the chrome on the 2009 Harley-Davidson Electra

May/Jun '10 Premium Content

Trails Across Wyoming

If Route 66 is the "Mother Road," then Highway 26 could lay claim to "Grand-Mother" status: it runs from the heart of the Great Plains, across the Continental Divide, and through the Cascade Mountains to Seaside, Oregon.Originating near the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers, in Ogallala,

Mar/Apr '10 Premium Content

Northern California Wine Country

It's a happy coincidence: the same undulating topography that makes Northern California's hill country so perfect for growing grapes has also challenged transportation engineers to create some classic motorcycling roads. So what better way to find a bit of heaven on earth than to sample the hills and valleys during

Jan/Feb '10

2009 Ducati Monster 696

Bologna's famous pork sausage, Mortadella, is blended with ingredients intended to make it distinctive and spicy, as well as appetizingly hot. You could say the same about the bikes from the Bologna suburb of Borgo Panigale.And while you won't find black pepper, myrtle berries, nutmeg, coriander, and pistachios in

Nov/Dec '09

Review: 2010 Triumph Thunderbird

Triumph revives an iconic name from its past to launch its heavy-middleweight cruiser.In North American indigenous mythology, the Thunderbird is a supernatural avian of immense power, said to create thunderstorms by flapping its wings. It's often depicted atop the totem poles of Pacific Northwest peoples. On a trip to

Nov/Dec '09 Premium Content

The Central Sierra Nevada and Yosemite

In 1986, CBS created a mini-series that parodied the overwrought primetime soap-opera melodramas of the decade ("Dallas", "Dynasty", "Falcon Crest"). In this series, titled "Fresno", the California city was lampooned for its civic pride, especially its status as the 64th largest city in the US and the distinction of being

Sept/Oct '09 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Ashland, Oregon

On November 27, 1941, travelers on US Highway 99 south of Yreka, Caifornia were astonished to find a band of men blocking the road and waving hunting rifles. They handed out a Proclamation of Independence, which informed one and all that the State of Jefferson was in "patriotic rebellion against

Jul/Aug '09 Premium Content

Vancouver Island, British Columbia

The sign is up for "Free Beer: Tomorrow" in the pub where Steve, Jim and I sit planning our Vancouver Island tour. And it seems that the gratification of good old West Coast sunshine will be delayed another day, too. The forecast promises the weekend will be fine, but we're

Jul/Aug '09

2009 BMW F 800 GS

The moral of the age-old tale is: Sometimes you have to taste a lot of porridge before you find the bowl that's "just right."Though I admire its go-anywhere capability, I've always found BMW's R 1200 GS Adventure rather intimidating where the pavement ends. Its considerable size, power and mass

Jul/Aug '09

Kawasaki Vulcan 1700 Range

In his best-selling book, Blink: the Power of Thinking without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell describes the usefulness of rapid cognition, the two-second critical judgment we all make when meeting someone new, walking into a building for the first time - or when riding a new motorcycle. I thought it would be

May/Jun '09

Ducati Factory Italy

I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, inquired anxiously "Can you see anything?" it was all I could do to get out the words "Yes, wonderful things." *I remember feeling the kind of excitement Howard Carter experienced on seeing the