RoadRUNNER September/October 2005
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Shamrock Tour
Shamrock Tour®: Eugene, Oregon
"Skinner's Mud Hole" is hardly a name civic boosters would use to attract settlers to a new city. But in 1852 that's what everyone called the township Eugene Franklin Skinner established on the banks of the Willamette. Following his first spring there, when the swollen river had turned the area into a boot-sucking quagmire, Skinner sensibly redrew the...
National Tours
Scranton, Pennsylvania
What is it about riding the back roads that creates such an intimacy with the surroundings? Maybe it's the heightened sense of awareness that's required for this type of riding. The mind is wide open, processing not only the sights, but the rhythms and even the smells of the terrain. In the midst of it all, buildings become architecture, people become...
Carving Canyons in Utah
Torrey would be an unremarkable small town in Utah but for two things: the soaring crimson cliffs of the Capitol Reef National Monument that overlook it, and Highway 12, which ends there. Arguably the most exciting motorcycling road in the state, it's a 100-mile continuum of fast, open bends, head-spinning switchbacks and wriggling canyon curves. So,...
Central Alabama
Where is it? I know it's around here somewhere. After all the pictures and movies, it shouldn't be that hard to spot, yet for some reason it seems to be eluding me in the early stages of the tour. Oh well, they say patience is a virtue and I know Alabama is as good a location as any, so I won't waver in my quest. I've journeyed here to find the South,...
Northwest Washington
Shelly Harper, owner of the "destination shop" Scooter Stuff, tells me "Business is great." I've stopped by her solitary store on a quiet country road close to Whatcom Lake in Northwest Washington to see what it's all about. Oddly, though, there are no other scooters parked outside with my TN'G Verona 150, just a couple of vee-twin cruisers. And Shelly's...
International Destinations
Portugal: Curves, Culture, Cuisine
Either the flight to Portugal took more out of me than I thought or my normally nutty dream pattern has been kicked up a notch. Somewhere within the jet-lagged haze of a nap, a distant cuckoo clock chimed fifteen, paused, and began another rhythmic announcement of an hour well past twelve. Rising to locate and silence the malfunctioning clock, following...
Australia: An Outback Excursion
I don't know what came over me. What on earth was I thinking? After one year spent traveling across Africa and its numerous border crossings, I had become an utterly cynical creature of habit, all too used to victimization at the hands of frontier officials. Those hands, I must add, had never once reached toward ours in greeting. Instead, with palms...
Riding Impressions
Kawasaki Ninja ZX-12R vs. Suzuki Hayabusa GSX1300R
I felt an adrenaline rush simply from reading Christian's e-mail message, "Eric, could you do a test ride for us as soon as you return from Thailand? Hayabusa vs. ZX-12R. Please let me know." Talk about an offer I couldn't refuse!...
2006 Harley-Davidson VRSCR
The whispers began almost immediately. No sooner had the motojournalists finished wiping their lips after their first taste of the V-Rod at its introduction in 2001, than they began licking their chops at the prospect of a Revolution-powered, pure performance bike. Oh sure, the V-Rod was one heck of a dragster. In highly modified trim, it garnered...
Yamaha Majesty
Webster's definition of 'majesty' begins many sage enumerations with "sovereign power, authority, or dignity." Lofty implications, those. But Yamaha appears not at all concerned. Appropriated, these terms laud a lithe arrival in the Court of Maxi-Scooters. And even though it's ceding a 50 to 250cc advantage, this noble company still has the temerity...
Honda VTX1800R
All right, all of you cruiser guys can line up to give me a moto-wedgie for what I'm about to say, but I'll say it anyway. Seven-hundred-and-fifty pounds of dry mass on a two-wheeled chassis is heavy. Yeah, yeah, sure...I can hear all you big he-man types laughing at little Chrissy all the while the waistband of my riding pants is increasing in upward...
Chronicles
The World of the Triumph Thruxton 900
The Thruxton 900 is a tribute to the days when a motorcycle was about rebellion and freedom, instead of a fat wallet. Welcome to an England of a bygone era.ThruxtonRace CircuitThe first race was held at a former air base in Hampshire in 1952. In 1968, it took its present form as a 2 1/3 mile circuit, and is considered the fastest in Great Britain. The...
Bill Mayer Saddles
If memory serves me, the main character in "The Six Million Dollar Man" hailed from Ojai, California. You remember him, Colonel Steve Austin, in that totally cool 70s series about a pilot "barely alive" after an airplane crash. Rebuilt from bionic parts by Dr. Rudy Wells, he was deemed to be "better, stronger, faster." Go ahead and hum the theme, you...
Left Side Story
It happened to me; it can happen to you.Pulling out of a gas station in Tasmania, Australia, onto the A2 road skirting the island's north coast with no other traffic in sight, I accelerate briskly, shifting the 900 Diversion into fifth gear. We settle into a comfortable cruising speed and I'm thinking about the meat pie I'll have for lunch when......
