Uwe Krauss

Sep/Oct '12 Premium Content

Colorado and New Mexico: Down the Rio Grande

It happened in the winter of 1874. Five prospectors hired a man to guide them across the San Juan Mountains. Weather was severe that year; the men fought huge snowdrifts and extreme low temperatures. Progress was very slow. No game for hunting was to be found, and the party ran

May/Jun '12 Premium Content

World Travelers - Mongolia: Among Genghis Khan’s Heirs

“Welcome to Mongolia!” the customs officer says to me in perfect English while tapping me fiercely on the shoulder. Greetings like this don’t happen often at border crossings. What he probably meant was more like: “Lad, since you managed to survive our chaotic border post, you shouldn’t have

Mar/Apr '12 Premium Content

Taos, New Mexico Shamrock Tour®

The Sangre de Christo Mountains tower like a wall above the Taos Plateau. This will be my playground for the next few days. The sceneis particularly impressive when approaching the range in the late afternoon, when it is lit by the sun from the west—a beautiful sunset is almost

Jan/Feb '12 Premium Content

World Travelers: Russia

As soon as I board the RUS ferry headed for Vladivostok, I can't help but notice that times are changing - and it's not just because the clocks are adjusted to Siberian Time. Once the hospitable, carefree environs of Japan are left behind, you immediately get

Nov/Dec '11 Premium Content

Central Europe

Expectations were high when Christa, the publisher of RoadRUNNER, asked me to put together my favorite route through Europe for her readers. “Great, how much time would they have? Two months? Maybe three?” I asked. “12 days,” was her short and definite response. That’s when it got tricky. Through

Nov/Dec '11 Premium Content

Rocky Mountains Part II: Wyoming, Idaho and Montana

The owner slowly scuffles toward the entrance of his café, unlocks the door, and lets us in. Like him, the interior is simple, original and down to earth. Breakfast is the same: a huge pot of coffee, hash browns, bacon and eggs. Eat it or leave it. But something else

Sep/Oct '11 Premium Content

Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota and Nebraska

What a scary welcome. The captain warned us that there would be some turbulence as we crossed the barrier of the Rocky Mountains from the west, but the effect of the thunderstorm is still intimidating. The plane is shaking and rattling in every joint. It feels like we’re sitting

Mar/Apr '11 Premium Content

Northern Arizona

Something is rustling outside. I'm lying in the tent and my thoughts circle around bears. But bears here in this semi-desert area of Arizona? Can't be! I just want to continue sleeping. no way. The strange visitor outside rustles more. I shout through the canvas of

Jan/Feb '11 Premium Content

Las Vegas to San Francisco

Everybody warned me not to go through Death Valley in summer, but nobody said a word about Las Vegas! So I find myself in the stop-and-go traffic on I-15, as I try to get out of the city. The thermometer on the bike shows exactly 105 degrees. Underneath my riding

Mar/Apr '10 Premium Content

Southern Utah and Northern Arizona

"Nobody goes up the mountain anymore," laments Bob, my newfound, 76-year-old friend. "Everybody takes the highway. You got to go up the mountain!" Since this local character clearly has had much time to collect wisdom, I decide I best take him up on his advice. Encounter

Jan/Feb '10

Croatia, Europe

History began right here, in a simple narrow house in the village of Kumrovec, with doors so low I have to duck every time my 6'2" frame enters a room. I'm at the birthplace of half of Eastern Europe's former ruler, Josip Broz,

Jan/Feb '09 Premium Content

Japan

I've been on the trail for so long the prospect of crossing a river that might swallow the front wheel doesn't bother me much. You could say I've grown accustomed to the wilds—even the fresh tracks of those big furred salmon-eaters I recently

Sep/Oct '08 Premium Content

Newfoundland's T'railway Provincial Park

Located at the northernmost tip of North America, Newfoundland offers a vision of barren beauty that attracts half a million tourists each year. And after finding out the big island also has a 550-mile railway trail system that's open to motorcyclists, we couldn't possibly resist the

Jul/Aug '08 Premium Content

British Columbia

In the late 1800s a gold rush engulfed the interior of southwestern Canada. However, to be worth the assayers' valuations, the precious metal and other mined commodities had to reach the Pacific coast. Great mountain ranges and deep river gorges stood in the way, and at that time, building

Nov/Dec '07 Premium Content

Canada: New Brunswick

Our crossing from Maine into New Brunswick was quick and easy. We only had to stop long enough to answer one question: "Do you have any alcohol with you?" We had some wine and beer on board, but since the tight spaces on motorcycles are seldom thought to

Sep/Oct '07 Premium Content

Canada: Nova Scotia, A Seaside Sojourn in the Maritimes

I have traveled around the globe. I have seen the Canadian and American Rockies, the Andes, the Alps and the Highlands of Scotland, but for simple beauty, Cape Breton outrivals them all! -  Alexander Graham Bell Just entering Nova Scotia, where that great inventor of telecommunications lived for 30 years,

Sep/Oct '07 Premium Content

Along the Trans-America Trail

When we landed this assignment, I couldn't have told you why taking a trip across America on the "worst" possible roads sounded so appealing. Maybe it's because off-road riding doesn't even exist back home, in densely populated Germany. Or perhaps it'

May/Jun '07 Premium Content

Canada: Newfoundland - To Terra Nova

We couldn't recognize much of what the attendant was saying as English, nor did we understand him when he smiled and rattled off a rapid-fire warning, "Yobettagedyoassoutofhere!" But we quickly got the message as the big truck approached. The man's dialect, we later learned,

Mar/Apr '07

Review: 2006 KTM 950 Adventure

> Ohio, the Spring of 2006. It was standing there, all dressed-up in day-glow orange, seeming to stare, as though daring me, through its double headlights. I thought, this is definitely not the bike you would buy for a Sunday outing to the next café, although it would certainly draw

Jan/Feb '07 Premium Content

Alaska: A Ride Under the Midnight Sun

The sign is in bold black letters, and reads: "Stop. Authorized vehicles only." So we stop. We are in an Indian reservation called Mentasta Lake. Riding on the Alaska Highway from the Canadian border, we were heading southwest from the town of Tok on Hwy 1 until we

Sep/Oct '06 Premium Content

Canada: Call of the Yukon - Part Two

It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder, It's the forests where silence has lease; It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It's the stillness that fills me with peace. -  Robert Service Around the midpoint of the Second