Shamrock Tour®

Multi-day tours based out of a single nightly destination.

May/Jun '09 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Paso Robles, California

Known for its great variety of country roads, hillside vineyards, valley vistas and ocean bluffs, California's central coast has long been a favorite locale for photo shoots. And for motorcyclists, the town of Paso Robles is a perfect base from which to launch a shamrock tour of this

Jan/Feb '09 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Bryson City, North Carolina

Remember recess? It was every kid's refuge from the old three Rs. Fresh air and freedom reigned and rules were the exception. Unwinding was your sole responsibility and frolicsome fun ensued for no apparent reason. Most motorcyclists know how to get that feeling back and many of them

Nov/Dec '08 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Northeast Washington

However you ponder it, Grand Coulee Dam is big. It generates more electricity than any other facility in the United Sates, and it's the largest concrete structure in North America. Its hydraulic height of 380 feet is more than twice that of Niagara Falls, and the concrete used

Sep/Oct '08 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Southern Illinois

Some nicknames make perfect sense. I often answer to Red, nothing out of the ordinary for a carrottop, and my college roommate, Fats, was usually one of the last to leave the pizza buffet. But every now and again, you run across a moniker that leaves you downright mystified, like

Jul/Aug '08 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Gainesville, Florida

It's a long, slow process squaring off a touring motorcycle's tire. As the wheels rotate, asphalt constantly gnaws at the radial's vulnerable contact patch. Like legions of amoebic strip miners, this aggregation of incisors attacks my ebony hoops - digging, grinding, and belching away

May/Jun '08 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Helena, Montana

My reward for hiking up the hill to Helena, Montana's timber-framed fire tower is a glorious view over the city in the warm light of late afternoon, encompassing the dome of the capitol, Last Chance Gulch, the twin spires of St. Helena Cathedral, and the minaret of the

Mar/Apr '08 Premium Content

Western Maryland Shamrock Tour®

The Appalachian Mountains, once reaching Himalayan-scale heights, are among the oldest on earth. Erosion-resistant sandstone sustains their rounded green shoulders, while limestone undergirds the verdant valleys. Yes, there are many attractive features in the western highlands of Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia; but the most appealing of all has to

Jan/Feb '08 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Sturgis and Deadwood, South Dakota

The biker hordes have yet to arrive for the annual Black Hills Motor Classic Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. I have this majestic and surreal landscape mostly to myself for the next several days to explore. Buttes, bison grazing on rolling grasslands, the infamous town of Deadwood, South Dakota, historic

Nov/Dec '07 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Helen, Georgia

Smoky Mountain roads are quiet places, especially in the morning. Turn off the key and listen. Beneath the engine's cooling ticks, the subtle sounds of nature close in. The ever-present breeze dances with leaves above the clear streams tumbling from ancient mountains. Birds and crickets call, then answer.

Sep/Oct '07 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Tupelo, Mississippi

Yesterday's soupy clouds have dissolved in Mississippi blues. Nearby, two boys playing tag dart past, disappearing around a signal corner  -  one side of the shotgun shack in which Elvis Aaron Presley entered this world on January 8, 1935. As their shouting fades the sound of rustling leaves

Jul/Aug '07 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Without warning, the clock radio fires a loathsome pop song wreathed in static across the room, piercing my harmonious dream state like a perfectly targeted broadhead arrow burying itself in a dusty hay bale. "Oh Britney, you're frighteningly 'Toxic' at 7:00." But thankfully,

May/Jun '07 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Boise, Idaho

Departing from the heart of Idaho's capital city of Boise, you can be riding the open road in about 10 minutes. Since the state's principal claim to fame is its potatoes, you might expect to find yourself among potato plants. But those farms are elsewhere. You&

Mar/Apr '07 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Glens Falls, New York

The curves up the mountain are so tight that you are just peripherally aware of the rock alternating with the forested ravine, first left, then right; you're going so fast, you strain not to bang into the one or go sliding down the other. Your riding companion'

Jan/Feb '07 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Bardstown, Kentucky

In many places, life is governed by stressful, pell-mell routines. Rush-hour traffic, get it done yesterday, I need that on my desk by five  -  now move, move, move! No wonder there always seems to be an underlying need to escape. That's why many of us ride. Out

Nov/Dec '06 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Lexington, Virginia

According to the road signs, we're closing in on Natural Bridge, Virginia. Normally, it's a good thing to be nearing the night's comfort zone, especially after nine hours of riding on a hot summer day. But this evening is different. Kathy and I are

Sep/Oct '06 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Palm Springs, California

I have a theory that most males are fascinated by either wheels or spheres. The latter group spends much of their recreational time chasing a ball or watching someone else do the same. The "true" wheel guys share a passion for transportation, and they couldn't care

Jul/Aug '06 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Grand Rapids, Minnesota

My first view of Mille Lacs Lake is an impressive one indeed. The bright midmorning sun is laying a shimmer across the wind-blown surface, creating a near blinding electric caper of refracted light that, even in broad daylight, puts the Vegas strip to shame. Another half-mile of asphalt passes beneath

May/Jun '06 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Austin, Texas

It must be after one o'clock. I can tell because the hunger pangs are starting to hit with a consistency matched only by the Heritage Softail's staccato, V-twin thump ricocheting off the warm Texas asphalt. According to a friendly reader I met at the Fort Worth

Mar/Apr '06 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - North-eastern Vermont and Quebec Province

Locals call it "Vermonter's Vermont" and the Northeast Kingdom (a term coined in the nineteen forties by US Senator George Aiken). The most remote and most beautiful part of the Green Mountain State, the Kingdom has successfully dodged the massive tourist development that's entrenched

Jan/Feb '06 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Moab, Utah

"Ya gotta see the petroglyphs on the road to Potash," says my new best friend, as he hands me a bottle of Black Butte Porter. The affable Floridian, also staying at the Adventure Inn, is making his annual trek to the Canyonlands. Next morning, I'm standing

Nov/Dec '05 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Spokane, Washington

With the licence perhaps only a realtor (as was his profession) would dare employ, Seattle pioneer C. T. Conover is responsible for Washington state's nickname, The Evergreen State. It might look that way from the Emerald City, but as Christian and I raced along the Snake River Canyon

Sep/Oct '05 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Eugene, Oregon

"Skinner's Mud Hole" is hardly a name civic boosters would use to attract settlers to a new city. But in 1852 that's what everyone called the township Eugene Franklin Skinner established on the banks of the Willamette. Following his first spring there, when the

Jul/Aug '05 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Ashland, Wisconsin

Nightfall, and after a long tiring ride we turn into the drive of The Inn at Timber Cove, our tour base camp. Hidden behind old, massive trees, this romantic Bed and Breakfast lies in a lush green meadow. The owners Tina and Brian Miller escort us to our cottage and

May/Jun '05 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Around Gillette, Wyoming

Mention Gillette, Wyoming, to most people and you'll get a blank stare. Motorcyclists may show a glimmer of recognition and a puzzled frown. When you add "90 miles west of Sturgis," the lights come on. Western-based bikers frequently stop for gas here, northeast Wyoming's

Mar/Apr '05 Premium Content

Bakersfield, California Shamrock Tour®

Arriving at John Wayne Orange County Airport, the "Neuhauser Motorcycle Gang" is excited to begin their explorations in yet another area of Central California. In the next few days we'll roam over four loops in the Bakersfield area and our base, the Four Points Sheraton, is