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
Jan/Feb '06 Premium Content Southwest New Mexico Silver City - Las Cruces (186 miles) Our morning ride begins in Silver City on 15, an extremely scenic, single-lane road that heads to the Gila Hot Springs. Backtracking some to 35, meandering south along a green valley, we take a left on 152 to race over one of the
Mar/Apr '05 Premium Content Through Trees of Stone The wind howls across the Arizona plains as I aim a Honda Gold Wing 1800 toward the Petrified Forest National Park on US 180 east. I lean the 850-pound machine into the gusts to hold a straight line. The Painted Desert spreads before me - a vast horizon of cracked
Sep/Oct '04 Premium Content Northern Arizona I awake in Flagstaff to a dusting of snow on the trees and bushes. More of the same is heaped upon the naked rock that crowns Humphrey's Peak, the highest point in Arizona. This sharp summit, stretching 12,633 feet above this old railroad town, tears holes in
Jan/Feb '04 Premium Content Western Louisiana/East Texas Late in March RoadRUNNER sent me south to the Sabine River Delta around Lake Charles, Louisiana, and on into East Texas to explore four National Forests and the Gulf Coast. That sounded like a top-notch trip. But from studying the map, it appeared the trip might include too many entrance-ramp
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
