Travel Guide Top Fall Color Motorcycle Rides to Plan Right Now! One of the best things about motorcycle touring is experiencing an area with all of your senses. You hear, see, and feel more than you would from inside a windowed vehicle. At RoadRUNNER, we always feel more connected to an area after a bike tour. Fall is one of our
Columns T.E. Lawrence: A Love Affair with Speed I have long mused that perhaps the most challenging task for a motorsport journalist is how to adequately describe to a non-rider what it feels like to ride a motorcycle. To those of you reading this, you are probably already indoctrinated to the soul-seducing capabilities of motorcycles. So, in essence,
Columns Bell Helmets: An American Original One of the most revered names in helmets, Bell, emerged quite humbly out of the back of an auto parts store in California in the early 1950s. The famous brand was the result of a confluence of several key elements of inspiration. In 1945, Roy Richter, a race car driver
WEB Exclusive In Pursuit of Wildness: Manzanar National Historic Site Once upon a time, Manzanar National Historic Site was called Manzanar War Relocation Center. It was one of 10 camps where Japanese American citizens were incarcerated during World War II. I had never been there, and I knew little about this site, though I knew that it is managed by
Motorcycle Review Review: 2022 Yamaha XSR900 The first small turn of the throttle as the XSR900 warmed up served as an enticing preview of what the new Yamaha had in store beneath its retro-styled aesthetics. The high-performance CP3 cross-plane triple-cylinder configuration of its engine possesses an enthralling sound and a quick-revving demeanor. Once underway, the bike’
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content A Decade-Long Riding Tradition Every summer we do at least one group ride. We used to spend the whole week together, but now, three days is about the best we can manage. This year, we chose Oregon and Washington State. Most of the group flew into Portland and rented BMWs. With a fresh Ducati
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content Wild Winds Across the Badlands of New Mexico Rarely do I heed a warning before a long-distance ride. This message, however, is from my nephew Ruben, who is a wildlands firefighter stationed in Silver City, NM. A credible source. His message is, "It's supposed to be very windy across New Mexico, starting tomorrow." He
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content Mongolia: In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan We’re stopped at the top of a hill on the outskirts of Karakorum, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire. Ahead of us is a vast valley framed by impossibly large mountains that stretch into the distance. From our vantage point, we can see the criss-cross pattern of the
Columns Premium Content Brave New World Necessity: The Mother of Invention In the early years of the 20th century, Popular Science Magazine was filled with artists’ renditions promising a future of electric vehicles. They appeared with the same frequency as sketches of airborne men wearing jetpacks and commuters whizzing around modern metropolises in flying cars. We’
Destinations In Pursuit of Wildness: Death Valley National Park > Death Valley National Park is the hottest, driest, and lowest national park in America. It’s a summer day and I’m filling up my motorcycle gas tank in Baker, CA, when I asked the gas station attendant how hot it is. I’m a bit surprised when he
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content Flaming Gorge With A Hot Date I have really great friends. They give me stuff—boots, jackets, motorcycles… You know, the usual. A few years ago, two of them invited me on a group motorcycle trip to Europe. It was to be an extreme Alps ride, as in Stelvio Pass and about a dozen others. Then,
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content Kentucky Adventure Tour: Delayed Gratification I hear the sharp pop of metal moving. An orange flash falls into the maple tree, getting caught on the handlebar like a makeshift kickstand. The bike has fallen against the tree, settling into it's final resting place. This is a fairly good outcome, as the tree safely
News The Perfect Riding Buddy After several weeks of email exchanges on a dating app, she agreed to meet me for coffee. The traffic in New Jersey was non-compliant as usual and I was an hour late for our first date. I called her to apologize, thinking she would cancel, but she said she would
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content Scootering in Saigon, 1971 The motor pool for the US embassy was in a middling-sized windowless building, with maybe 20 sedans and a few International-Harvester Scouts, and I was there to get my own wheels. "And what you like, Mr. Salvadori?" the manager, a local hire, asked. Parked by his desk were
Roundtrip Tour Premium Content Colorado Adventure Ride: The Pinnacle Motorcycles differ from any other mainstream form of motorized transportation. Because they must be balanced, they require a great deal of skill to operate well, especially off pavement. By comparison, four-wheeled vehicles are incredibly easy to operate over difficult terrain. The very characteristic of a motorcycle that makes it challenging
Destinations Premium Content Destination: Bonneville Salt Flats Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when many of us graybeards began our short and unremarkable racing careers, things were different. There were no cell phones, internet, or eBay Click-N-Ship for parts. But it was also not unheard of for a racer to put on leathers and ride to the
Reader Ride Premium Content To Honor A Friend Several years back, a friend moved from California to Colorado, where he promptly bought a motorcycle. “Dude!” he wrote, not abandoning his California roots entirely. “Come ride with me. The roads here’ll blow your mind!” “Someday,” I told him. It was the last conversation we ever had. When he
Motorcycle Review Comparison: 2021 Indian Chieftain Elite vs. 2022 BMW R 18 B Baggers are big business. New bikes are coming from some interesting quarters in the industry, including the typically cruiser-averse BMW with the new R 18 B. Indian, conversely, has been making touring motorcycles practically since the dawn of time—and certainly since they were restarted by Polaris back in 2011.
