RoadRUNNER May/June 2006
Shamrock Tour
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 International Motorcycle Show, I'm in the neighborhood of a barbecue joint that scores high...
National Tours
Summer Splendor in SE Massachusetts
In the summer, Cape Cod becomes the crown jewel of eastern Massachusetts. While the Berkshires in the western half of the Bay State lure vacationers and weekenders with its rolling hills and famed classical music performances, the siren song of the beaches and other shoreline attractions of the Cape prove difficult to resist, with three-hour-long, Friday...
Minesota and North Dakota Classic Byways: Highway 52
We've enjoyed our few days of rest in Rochester, but the lure of the highway cannot be denied. Unable to resist, we leave the city behind and again plunge into the sea of greens and golds we've come to know as Midwest farmland. Drifting lazily along the asphalt current of Highway 52, we find ourselves cruising closer and closer to yet another of middle...
Southeastern Indiana
If you are looking for roads that wind through fantastic, hilly scenery and want to encounter a little history every few miles or so, then start making plans to ride in southeastern Indiana. You'll find Native American trails, the route of Indiana's only major Civil War episode, the road to the cabin where Lewis and Clark began their epic journey in...
Scooter Tour: Goin' Down Jersey
"New Jersey, Come See For Yourself" is the official slogan recently selected to encourage tourism in the Garden State, and Down Jersey, that mostly rural portion of southern New Jersey bordering the Delaware Bay, is certainly what the current crop of boosters have in mind. A land of contrasts with a culture all its own, it's made for traveling in the...
International Destinations
France: En Provence
The weather in Provence, a region comprising some five départements in the southeast corner of France, is near perfect in spring and autumn, with mainly clear skies and temperatures in the mid-seventies. It's a land of scarlet poppies growing wild by the thousands, church bells ringing out from hilltop villages across countless orchards and vineyards,...
Exploring Chile's Wild and Rugged South
Off-road heaven has a name – Chile. Twenty-seven hundred miles long, this very narrow stretch of land between the Andes and the rugged Pacific coast is one of the most multifaceted countries we have ever seen....
Riding Impressions
Ducati 749S / Suzuki GSX-R750
I have to be honest with you, folks. My boy-racer days are well behind me. Though I still covet a brisk pace across endless stretches of tasty twisties, there are usually packed saddlebags and often the world's greatest copilot along for the ride. Yep, these days I'm content to be absorbed by the lure of the open road and actually strive to stop occasionally...
Honda CBR1000RR
Old habits die hard. I ride maybe 25,000 miles a year on roads that range from interstate to gravel, and I reckon I usually hold my own. But the racetrack is different. It takes me a whole day at California's Buttonwillow circuit to overcome my road-bound inhibitions: No unexpected gravel will be strewn across the corners; no loitering idiot in an LTD...
2005 Yamaha FZ1 - Long-term Evaluation
"Large increases in cost with questionable increases in performance can be tolerated only for racehorses and fancy women," wrote 19th-century physicist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. He would have appreciated the 2005 Yamaha FZ1 then, which offers most of the performance of the company's flagship R1 sportbike for much less money....
Chronicles
Welcome To Beemerville!
The Lima Allen County Fairgrounds became the landing point for Beemerville settlers in 2005. Many questioned the choice of Lima for the rally location. After all, the Midwest is not known to have the greatest riding in the country. The roads are flat and pretty straight – usually not the first or even the fifteenth choice for a bunch of curve...
The Dark Side
A gas tank miscalculation means I'm riding through the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest after dark. Dense evergreens crowd the road, filtering out any moonlight that might have squeezed through the clouds, and the dark tarmac seems to drain the brightness from my headlight. As I round a right-hander, the dappled rear end of a deer, as high as my windshield,...
