Tours

May/Jun '03 Premium Content

Europe: 13,000 Km in 25 Days

You can easily call it a mug's game: We only have four weeks to travel more than 13,000 kilometers. In the process, we cross the boundaries of nine countries. Beginning with a ride to Spain's sunny Seville, the site of the last World's

May/Jun '03 Premium Content

Canada

Even though its name suggests a forbidding trail more suited to snowmobiles than motorcycles, the Icefields Parkway had been on my "must do" list for a long time. Often conjuring illusions of Everest  -  with vast swaths of snow, vertical walls of ice, and crevasses wide enough to

Roundtrip Tour Premium Content

Riding Along Route 66

You may know how it is. You're sitting through a long, cold winter evening beside the fireplace and dreaming about tours while the bike hibernates in the garage. Years ago I was in this situation. The fire crackled and Pink Floyd played in my headphones while I read

Mar/Apr '03 Premium Content

High Noon in Pennsylvania

The sky is blue and the roads are remote, twisting through the woods between Cumberland, Maryland and Somerset Counties. Swinging through the valleys and towns nestled at the feet of the mountains here, we have no way to predict what is about to happen. Sometimes, when the stars align in

Mar/Apr '03 Premium Content

Mid Atlantic: Bridge Tour

Our shakedown of colonial American history begins in Elizabeth City, NC, just on the other side of the swamps and tidal flats from Jamestown, VA, the first permanent English colony in the New World. Along the way, we're crossing some of the greatest bridges on the East Coast,

Mar/Apr '03 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Hot Springs and Western Arkansas

In a bygone era, Hot Springs was a crooked place. This past fall we lit out for those storied hills to prove that it still is. Men and women soothe their rheumatoid arthritis in the carbonated, pressure-heated springs seeping from the deep cavern of the mountains. They relax in a

Mar/Apr '03 Premium Content

Australia: Queensland and the New South Wales

A normal day in our office begins with a check of the e-mails. Recently a pleasant surprise popped up when the first message displayed announced that everything was ready for my trip in Australia. Organized for journalists by Twin Blue Motorcycle and called the "Northern Tropics" tour, it

Mar/Apr '03 Premium Content

Austria: Southern Styria-The Green State

In the middle of the fall, around the end of October, the choice of passable roads narrows in Austria. On streets at high altitude you naturally expect snow at this time of the year. And further down the slopes many of the available touring areas that are closer by may

Mar/Apr '03 Premium Content

Return from Redmond

Redmond, Oregon: Early Sunday morning. I awoke to the sound of zippers. Nothing signals the end of a rally more than the swoosh of sleeping bags being stuffed into compression bags and the sound of tent flaps opening. Over 6,000 tents were spread out at the BMWMOA national rally;

Winter '02 Premium Content

Southwest Texas

This land is beautiful and cruel. Cacti and creosote dot the ground and bloom from the road's edge to the far horizon. Long, sharp spines flare from the waxy stems, ready to draw blood. So far, fighting wind, rain, and heat on US 90, we aren't

Winter '02 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Paducah, Kentucky

"Paducah?" My friends at our neighborhood bar ask. "Paducah!?" Maybe they just like saying it - but, yes, having accepted an invitation to visit their Summer Festival, the HOG - Rally, and to ride the regional roads, I'm bound for Paducah. The Ohio River

Winter '02 Premium Content

New York: The Finger Lakes

Hot, so hot. Gusting winds keep leaning the bike over, but provide no relief. It's open country. The pavement just keeps rolling over hills and across valleys and I catch myself starting to nod off. I have to find a place to stop that's out of

Winter '02 Premium Content

Baja California

Baja. In the world of off-road racing and riding few words conjure the kind of reverence associated with this legendary peninsula. For almost 40 years Baja has hosted one of the greatest off-road races in the world, the Baja 1,000. Located on the western coast of Mexico, the state

Winter '02 Premium Content

Canada: Nova Scotia

The warm June sun that sparked the smiles behind our visors when we picked up our bikes in New Jersey has abandoned us. Between Portland, Maine, and Saint John in New Brunswick, our constant, dour companions are pouring rain and cold temperatures. Here Comes the Sun The monotonous drone of

Winter '02 Premium Content

Washington State

Bonnie and the others invited along for a week of laid-back motorcycling  -  cruising Washington's beautiful Mount Rainier and the Cascades  -  had commitments at home in New Jersey. As for me, I was as free as Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson in the 60'

Fall '02 Premium Content

California: Mendocino Coast

Our excitement is undeniable - accelerating pulses, shallow breathing - as we climb on the plane jetting us to a most beautiful part of California: Highway 1, between San Francisco and Eureka, where the scenic seductions of Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt counties thrill us in the coming days. The

Fall '02 Premium Content

Easy Does It - East Tennessee

Telling me that County Road 116 is as nasty as Deal's Gap, a local rider also says I shouldn't stop along the way, either. 'If you ain't from there, you ain't one of them,' he says. 'And don'

Fall '02 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Santa Fe, New Mexico

With only three days to spare for exploration, the choice of Santa Fe and its exhilarating surroundings is a wise one. The weather is fine and the way unwinds as smoothly as silk beneath our Road Kings. A number of people have asked me recently to define a shamrock tour.

Fall '02 Premium Content

North Africa: Trans Sahara Part Two

Sitting on the terrace of the Grand Hotel in Niamey, I order five gorgeous, grilled meat skewers in broken French, "Cinq brochettes, s 'il vous plait!" To get on in West Africa, French is essential since neither English nor German are commonly spoken. Everyone who wants to

Fall '02 Premium Content

Germany: Sauerland Heartbeat Tour

A journey through the countryside on low mountain-range roads, past massive bales of hay, picturesque little villages, and along beautiful expanses of water  -  this is the tour through Sauerland, in the heart of Germany. Facts & Information In General The Sauerland region is located in the southeastern sector of

Fall '02 Premium Content

Winter or Summer, Ride to the North Jersey Shore

Exiting Garden State Parkway's #114, south of the reeds and grasses of the tranquil Cheesequake estuary, a trip on Harley's Road King to New Jersey's north shore can be more rewarding than just another day at the beach. Panoramic vistas, educational exhibits, hiking trails,

Summer '02 Premium Content

Kentucky Bluegrass Joyrides

Take One: Cold Kentucky Rain Crossing the border between Virginia and Kentucky creases the worry lines across my forehead. Dark clouds are gathering in the northwest. My mind on replay, I can hear those Elvis refrains about the cold Kentucky rain and all that Weather Channel chatter about the soggy

Summer '02 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Farmington, Maine

There is no better time or place to tour in northern New England than when those fleeting days of Indian summer coincide with the crowning glories of fall foliage. There's beauty to fog, especially during the transition from night to day. As the sun breaks through, pearlescent tendrils,

Summer '02 Premium Content

Texas Hill Country

All the people who told us that Texas is long, straight, and boring probably either think the world is flat, or they've never seen Hill Country. If waltzing a tall, steep-forked KTM Adventure enduro through huge canyon sweepers and over some of the best up and down action

Summer '02 Premium Content

North Africa: Trans Sahara Part One

Using the worldwide web to make my travel preparations, I sit for hours in front of my monitor, scanning maps and calculating GPS-data. Immersed in the process, I almost feel like I'm already motoring north of Tschad in the Tibesti Mountains. In reality I am still at home