Tours

Nov/Dec '03 Premium Content

Up North Michigan

The dark, narrow pavement defined by nothing more than white stripes at the edges winds through the deep shade of the forest canopy. Occasionally I catch glimpses of water far below. Impossibly blue, it stretches to the horizon and sparkles in the late afternoon sun. Homes are tucked away, nestled

Nov/Dec '03 Premium Content

New Mexico Carlsbad Caverns

It's early. The sun begins to peek over the horizon of a cloudless sky. Although it looks as though it will be a bright, beautiful day, it doesn't matter much whether it rains or shines because I'm going to descend nearly 1,000 feet

Nov/Dec '03 Premium Content

England: Dales, Peaks, and Moors

The grunginess of West Yorkshire's Victorian mill towns stands in stark contrast to the idyllic Derbyshire villages we've passed during the day. Lynn, Nigel, and I left our B&B in Ashbourne at the southern end of the Derbyshire dales and zigzagged north toward our

Sep/Oct '03 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Port Jervis, New York

Only a few hours west of the frenetic streetscapes of New York City lonely passages twist through three sets of mountains  -  the Catskills, the Poconos, and the Kittatinny Ridge. We blew into Jersey's portion of the Big Apple's sprawl, hopped on two Ducatis, and fled the

Sep/Oct '03 Premium Content

Idaho

Standing in Idaho City's dirt-lined, deserted Main Street, it's tough to imagine how it was 140 years ago. With more people than Portland and over 250 thriving businesses, it was a bawdy, lusty town where whisky was cheaper than water  -  and life cheaper still. Why

Sep/Oct '03 Premium Content

Southern Arizona

Few places on earth offer more diversity. One moment I'm sweating bullets and then, less than an hour later at times, I've pulled over, teeth chattering, to hurriedly button the jacket liner into my shell so I can stuff my fingertips back in my gloves before

Sep/Oct '03 Premium Content

Coastal Maine

Frosted with whitecaps, the cold sea reflects a slate-gray sky streaked with silver. The horizon has been lost. Looking east across the North Atlantic, my eyes gaze into infinity as the wind whips the tang of salted air into my nostrils. I turn up the thermostat on my Aerostich

Sep/Oct '03 Premium Content

Canada: Alcan 5000

Routine city riding is not the recommended training regimen for motorcyclists planning to take on the Great White North in the Alcan 5000. Huddled with fellow rally participants in the doorway of the "World Famous" Rancheria rest stop somewhere along the Alaska Highway, we sip from our Camelbaks,

Sep/Oct '03 Premium Content

France, Limousin: Saints and Sinners

Empty country roads, cultural treasures, deep green forests and waving meadows were some of the highlights of my tour through Limousin. But on a trip like this, you also have to be prepared for encounters with knights and nobility, saints, and quite a few sinners. The crowd moves back when

Jul/Aug '03 Premium Content

Italy: Lago di Garda

Whether you live on the north or the south side of the Alps makes a tremendous difference. Storms come mostly from the west or north. Unfortunately, we live on the north side. It's August and cold rains pour down. The forecast isn't helping matters much, calling

Jul/Aug '03 Premium Content

Eastern Oklahoma

There is an odd sensation creeping through me in eastern Oklahoma as we ride. It's not very subtle, either. The Kiamichi Mountains look different, like a space created specifically for man and his gods to commune. They appear old but alive, as if they murmur ancient secrets to

Jul/Aug '03 Premium Content

Cruising Oregon's Scenic Byways

I must go down to the seas again,to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sails shakingAnd a grey mist

Jul/Aug '03 Premium Content

Germany: Home Run Siegerland-Wittgenstein

Craftsmen, farmers and even princes have always lived a tough and meager life at the edge of the Rothaargebirge (Red-Hair Forest). This bare-bones existence is what supposedly made them a reticent and stubborn lot. On a trip through his former homeland, Andi Seiler tried to find out if

Jul/Aug '03 Premium Content

Shamrock Tour® - Litchfield, Connecticut

This Shamrock is about quality, not bragging rights about how many miles were covered in a day. It's also not about horsepower or performance since most of the roads are posted for dawdling between 25 and 45 mph. This tour is about relaxing and enjoying the beautiful scenery

Jul/Aug '03 Premium Content

California: From Monterey to Ojai

When we go to a special location for a round-trip excursion or for a shamrock, the question always arises about the way we should choose to get there. Most of the time we use interstates or major highways. Oh, God, is this ever boring! But during our last trip

May/Jun '03 Premium Content

Wine Country, CA

Warm gusts push me left and I fight back, leaning right. The mile-wide Carquinez Strait not only funnels the Sacramento River's watershed to San Francisco Bay, but, so it seems, all of the San Joaquin Valley's winds. I've just another quarter mile of

May/Jun '03 Premium Content

Hawaii: Surf to Summit

For a lesson in atmospheric physics, riding a motorcycle up a volcano is tough to beat. And Maui provides the perfect lab: the 40-mile, helter-skelter Haleakala Highway. Rising 10,000 feet in 40 miles, it's the longest continuous climb in North America. And they say it&

May/Jun '03 Premium Content

Colombia, Ecuador and Peru

Customs Office, Guatemala City Each of our four motorcycles now had 31 pages of documentation, ranging from photocopies of passports to typed forms with VIN and registration numbers. Thirteen people at 13 desks had to stamp each sheet. Mercifully, not all of the agents needed to be bribed. The strain

May/Jun '03 Premium Content

China: Down the Old Silk Road

Five months of preparations behind us, we finally have all the required visas and travel permits for China in our hands. We had been waiting for the written invitation of Almaty. Without it, we wouldn't get the visa for Kazakhstan. When we finally received the expected fax, our

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 swallow

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