In the middle of the last century, Seattle pondered a critical decision: Should Interstate 5 run through the city center? Deciding in favor of an urban freeway has shaped the city’s growth, spawning “Pugetropolis,” a sprawl of communities along the I-5 corridor around Puget Sound including Everett, Tacoma, and Olympia. Already numbering three million people […]

As your speed through a given corner rises, it becomes increasingly more important to be precise with your cornering lines. If you’re riding slow enough, any number of lines is acceptable and you have a relatively broad path measured in feet or even yards to choose from. But as the speed increases that line gets […]

That was my first solo ride. Cruising down Lake Street on my current Beemer (I still cancel my throttle return), I reflect on the changes that have taken place during the past 30 years. The rundown row of clapboard warehouses that once housed the BMW dealership is gone. So are the fuel storage tanks, the […]

Sunday morning at Glendale Harley-Davidson’s 19th LOVERIDE the crowd is so tightly packed we’re on a first-name basis. Twenty-four hours ago I took farm roads, not freeways, south from Monterey to Los Angeles. Most of these frontage roads were built over stagecoach runs profiling the land’s natural features. Conversely, hopping one of the major freeways […]

Some historyIn 1300, Marco Polo murkily described for Europeans a southern land later added to Renaissance maps as Terra Australis. It then took 316 years for the first European to step on Australian soil. Dirk Hartog sailed from Amsterdam and nailed a pewter plate to a pole when he landed on the western shore. The […]

More British than Britain, Victoria also has quaintness in spades. Before BC’s confederation into Canada, Victoria was an important British naval base, and the English connection has stuck. Until immigration restrictions tightened, many Brits retired to its sleepy, leaf-laden suburbs. Of course, Canadians retire here, too, seeking respite from the harsh winters most of their […]

Most street riders have favorite roads and favorite corners, and if they’re honest they’ll admit that they also have roads and corners that they just don’t feel comfortable riding. Ask them why and many won’t be able to tell you, but a number of aspects determine the average rider’s confidence level in corners. We’re going […]

Thirty-five miles east of Monterey Bay the small but growing town of Hollister welcomes you. New homes, most inhabited by an overflow of Silicon Valley’s workforce, spread across its rolling grassland, with many a backyard overlooking precisely manicured golf-course fairways. But on every July 4th since 1997, in sharp contrast to this middle-class Stepford scene, […]

What is it in this big, round world about a hot, glazed doughnut? After all, we’ve learned a lot about the food we eat, and we’ve been trying to get healthier for years. No more smoking, frozen yogurt instead of ice cream, egg-beaters, veggie burgers, low-fat, low-cal – and generally not much of it very […]

Bar Harbor is located on Mt. Desert Island just north of the midway point along Maine’s Atlantic coastline. The shoreline looks more like pieces of it are crumbling into the ocean than it does permanent terra firma, but this landscape typifies the storied look of the rocky New England coast where waves slamming against the […]

Fascinated by the early 19th century and knowing that one of the great events of that period was the building of the Erie Canal, I rumble into town at ten o’clock in the morning and travel down what was once a broad canal piercing the heart of this city. Now it’s a boulevard, but its […]

There seems to be a debate these days over whether counter steering or lower-body steering is the most effective way to steer a motorcycle. The extremists who think it has to be one or the other are missing the point – using the upper and lower body together is by far the most efficient way […]

There is no doubt about it – the INTERMOT is the world’s most important motorcycle show. The gathering held in Munich September 17th through 22nd hosted 150,000 visitors who came to see the industry’s newest creations. From our vantage point, it’s open season when it comes to the battle for dominance in 2003. That goes […]

One hundred and fifty years ago, Mexicans from Monterey ranchos used Laguna Seca as summer pasturage for cattle. Its basin served as a natural barrier and its spring-fed lagoon watered the meadows and livestock. Today it is one of the premier tracks for auto and motorcycle racing. Although technically on Army property, the track is […]

The weather was terrific, remaining clear and not too warm throughout. Over 5,600 people attended from all four corners of the continental US, including participants from Anchorage and Vancouver. And unlike some other rallies, the only trailers in attendance belonged to the vendors and those being pulled by BMW bikes. National rallies of this type […]