Innholdsfortegnelse for Travel and Adventure 2016 i Cycle World

Who hasn’t sat on a motorcycle and wondered what it would be like to ride off over the horizon and just keep going? For a generation, Then Came Bronson defined the dream: “Taking a trip?” “Yeah.” “Where to?” “Oh, I don’t know. Wherever I end up, I guess.” “Man, I wish I was you.” All we need is the right bike and a way to carry our stuff. George Hayduke, in Edward Abbey’s The Monkeywrench Gang, has “a back any pack would fit.” Cowboys have their leather saddlebags, a slicker rolled and tied behind the cantle. Scott dragged sledges across the Antarctic icecap. Bronson tied his bedroll to his handlebar. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda tied them to the sissy bar. Modern motorcycles? There are plenty of choices here. Today’s…

Show up for a ride in the Karakoram or the Hindu Kush, and likely as not you’ll be given the keys to a Royal Enfield Bullet. Designwise it’s a relic from the time when the sun never set on the English empire—and of course that’s precisely why so many riders find them fascinating. Like the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield rifle, they might be low-tech, but they just keep soldiering along. All that’s changing with a new offering from Royal Enfield: the Himalayan. Like the Bullet, it’s a midsize single but far more up to date. The all-new 411cc engine is a two-valve, single-overheadcam design, fed by a carburetor. The chassis is also a new design, and in a first for Royal Enfield, the Himalayan uses a single-shock rear suspension with far…

It doesn’t matter if you’re exploring a powerline trail at the edge of town or setting off for Ushuaia, adventure bikes are as much about expanding your horizons as well as your options. Whether you want to channel your inner Valentino Rossi or Ernest Shackleton, choosing the right bike is key to how happy you’ll be. We’re limiting our discussion here to bikes that are both on- and off-road capable rather than dirt-only or street-only machines. Even then there’s a huge range from small, light, inexpensive 250cc singles to large, substantial, expensive continent-roamers with engines five times as large. And while there’s some temptation to think one choice more righteous or refined than another, that’s rubbish. It’s a matter of finding a bike that suits the kind of riding you…

Honda’s new Africa Twin has to be one of the most anticipated ADV bike offerings in recent memory. And you’d need a long memory indeed to recall its predecessor in the US market: the 1989 Transalp. Norteamericanos never had the chance to purchase Honda’s original XR750V Africa Twin (1989–2003). The Transalp was as close as we got, and it’s an insight into motorcycling here nearly 30 years ago. By modern standards, the original XL600V Transalp seems almost quaint. The whole Adventure Bike idiom was in its zygotic stage, and the Transalp’s 583cc V-twin engine—so modest today—seemed by the day’s dirt bike standards positively enormous. Cycle World got it. The original road test notes: “The Transalp is a superb do-it-all motorcycle, a perfect choice for the rider who likes diversity in…

Mihai Barbu is a Romanian motorcyclist with an inspirational story. In 2015 he packed his girlfriend Oana and their four-year-old son Vladimir into a Ural sidecar, pointed the rig west, and pushed the start button. Forty-one countries and 17,000 miles later he returned, girlfriend, son, and Ural all intact and happier than ever. A day-by-day account would fill a book, but we can still give you a taste of this amazing journey— something to whet your own appetite for travel and adventure. Enjoy. And good luck. —ML I want Vladimir to want to see the world. I want him to see it this way, as it is, not as a tourist guide paints it. I want him to be curious. I don’t know what and how much he will remember…

When you try to pinpoint where, when, or how sport-touring became an official category, you end up painting a rather fuzzy picture. But no matter how you tell the story, BMW seems to be at the heart of it. As far back as the early 1950s, before construction of the interstate highway system, the Bavarian boxer twins were known for their long-ride competence and composed handling on America’s diverse roadways. The idea of a bike that could both knife through corners with ease and cover long distances in relative comfort began to grow legs in 1974 with BMW’s R90S, an upgraded, bikini-faired boxer styled by acclaimed designer Hans Muth (see Peter Egan’s story in last year’s Travel and Adventure). Just three years later, the concept was really off and running…

Riders who spend long hours in the saddle know that fine-tuning their bike’s fit can make a huge difference in both comfort and control. The good news? You can do much of it yourself, and it’s easy to experiment. Here’s what you should concentrate on. LEVERS When you’re sitting on the bike you want a perfectly straight line from your elbow through your wrist, continuing through your outstretched fingers when those fingers are just resting on the brake and clutch levers. Loosen your levers’ pinch bolts and rotate the perch until they’re in the right spot. Perches pinned in place? Grind or snap off those little pins! Aftermarket levers may let you adjust reach or provide a different curvature. PEGS On most ADV bikes, you want the pegs positioned where…

Motorcycle technology is currently experiencing a growth spurt. While the four-wheeled sector has embraced advanced electronic controls and rider aids for quite a while, the motorcycle industry has been much slower on the uptake. Now, especially in the past five years, we’ve seen an explosion of new features on our favorite motorcycles, whether they’re sportbikes, ADV bikes, touring models, or cruisers. While most marques got their feet wet with traction control, ride modes, and advanced ABS, in the last few model years we’ve seen a whole host of new features we didn’t even know we needed. Among the most innovative is what KTM calls Hill Hold Control (HHC) on its 1290 Super Adventure and BMW calls Hill Start Control, the latter standard on the K1600 GTL Exclusive and optional on…

VENTURE HEAT GRAND TOURING COLLECTION ventureheat.com PRICE: VEST $219.99 PANT LINERS $209.99 CARBON STREET GLOVES $199.99 BOOT INSOLES (trim to fit) $69.99 UPS + All-day comfort + Right-now heat + Packs small and light DOWNS – Insole wire runs up past rider’s heel (walking might get uncomfortable) – Power flaps are tough to reach in a one-piece suit (get the wireless remote) When I left Abilene, Texas, the thermometer hadn’t broken 40 degrees, and the windchill from the 35-mph breeze put temps slightly below freezing. I was headed north from the COTA MotoGP race, directly into the wind, and had a long ride ahead of me. It would prove to be one of the toughest days I’ve had on a motorcycle, and there’s only one reason I rolled into my…

KTM’s new 1290 Super Duke GT thinks it’s a sportbike. It doesn’t look like one, and KTM doesn’t call it a sportbike, yet it does everything a rider would ever ask from a sportbike—just with bags. In strict motorcycle enthusiast vernacular, the new Super Duke GT is, of course, a sporttourer. Those hard bags. The heated grips. It has a onepiece handlebar, not clipons, along with a reasonable passenger pad and cruise control. It has an alternative damping range for a passenger’s added weight. But it also has 173 hp, traction control, a quickshifter, and modes for Sport riding and Sport suspension. The 1290 Super Duke GT is a slightly updated 1290 Super Duke R with changes to the fairing and engine, the latter getting new heads with both modified…

Honda's CB500- and CBR500-series twins are machines I like to think of as “solution” bikes, motorcycles that are fun, practical, affordable, generally easy to ride, and a great choice for a wide range of riders. The adventure-styled CB500X is a real do-all favorite. But note we said adventure-styled; if you plan to ride many unimproved roads, you’ll probably want something with a little more ADV cred. Enter the folks at Rally-Raid Products, a UK firm that’s an ADV rider’s candy store. They offer three kits that make your 500X far more dirt capable, turning it into something of a mini Africa Twin. Opt for the Level 3 treatment and you’ll get a new rear shock with 2 inches more travel than the original, along with a remote reservoir and fully…

Why is it that off-road motorcycles have either one or two cylinders? An obvious answer might be that when you leave behind the cell towers and repair shops, the fewer parts your system has, the more reliable it will be. I have sat in the dirt, sanding a seized piston, knowing that a few minutes’ work will have me back under way. That’s a good feeling, but there’s more to be said. Sixty years ago, the dirttrack performance of BSA’s jack-of-all-trades single-cylinder Gold Star was so remarkable that some people running twins changed their firing order from 360 to 720 degrees, so both cylinders fired simultaneously to mimic a single. Such engines were called “twingles.” This suggests what so many believe: The number of cylinders an engine has, and the…

In conditions of limited traction— the very definition of off-road riding much of the time—riders frequently encounter situations where momentum is the difference between negotiating an obstacle successfully or flopping around like a landed carp. And the key to maintaining momentum is steady power. In mud, sand, and rocky sections, it takes a great deal of skill to make a gear-change without losing momentum. What if technology has made that skill—however admirable it may be—unnecessary? To become motorcyclists we all learned to synchronize throttle and clutch engagement, and many of us have colorful stories to tell about not getting it right. Once we had the basics, we went on to integrate smooth gear-changes into our riding until we no longer had to think about it. But that special situation of…

In his 20 years of leading motorcyclists to every nook and cranny of the globe with Edelweiss Bike Travel, Markus Hellrigl has seen it all. We asked what riders can do to make sure they have the best trip possible when they sign up with a tour company. —ML DECISIONS AND PLANNING Anybody can participate on a motorcycle tour regardless of skill level or experience. The secrets of a successful trip are your own approach to traveling and your choosing the right tour with the right operator. Are you after an intense alpine-pass sport ride? Relaxed sightseeing? All dirt, all paved, or a mix of both? Some operators specialize in one kind of tour. The company I work for, Edelweiss, offers everything from tours on Harleys to tours on scooters,…

The dream: Let’s go riding at some far-away destination like the Alps, Alaska, South America, or Europe. The nightmare: What about the logistics? How do you get a motorcycle and insurance, where will you stay, and where do you go? Plenty of folks like the challenge of planning, but plenty of others would rather have a touring company work out the details for them, transport their luggage from point to point, and book accommodations and meals so they can just get straight to the part they like best: riding. There are countless motorcycle touring companies worldwide, and we can’t vouch for most of them, but here are a few suggestions—companies with solid reputations that operate in wide variety of countries and terrain. Enjoy! EDELWEISS BIKE TRAVEL edelweissbike.com If you’re looking…

SPECIFICATIONS ERICA • Six LED bulbs per lamp • 6,000 lumens each • 60-watt draw each on high • CNC-machined aluminum • 3.7 x 2.8 in. DARLA • Three LED bulbs per lamp • 2,000 lumens each • 24-watt draw each on high • CNC-machined aluminum • 2.2 x 2.4 in. Modern motorcycles like our long-term BMW R1200GS Adventure have excellent LED headlights that punch a nice hole into the abyss. But what if you want to absolutely obliterate all of the darkness on that lonesome highway? Clearwater Lights has just released two high-quality kits for the R1200GS/A that do just that. Better yet, they integrate with BMW’s CANbus system via Clearwater’s CANopener, allowing an wide range of functionality via the GS’s flash-to-pass (FTP)/high-beam, wonderwheel, horn, and turn-signal cancel switches.…

When it comes to CSC Motorcycles’ RX3 Cyclone, we might as well confront the elephant in the room straight on: As shown here (windshield, engine guards, luggage) it costs a mere $3,895 new, and that’s all some folks will need to hear. It’s also made in China, which is maybe all another group will need to hear. Finally, it’s a 250cc adventure bike in a land where most ADV bikes are four or five times larger. The RX3 uses a Zongshen-designed 250cc, SOHC, liquid-cooled counterbalanced single, fuel-injected and with a 77 x 53.6mm bore and stroke. Its smoothness and powerband are surprisingly good: The fuel injection meters flawlessly, and the modest power is linear all the way up to redline. At freeway speeds—an indicated 78 mph but a verified 70—the…

Adventure is where you find it. But where do motorcyclists find it in the depth of winter? Having grown up in sunny Southern California, winter is hardly my favorite season. Thermometer dips below 70 degrees? That fluffy white stuff falling from the sky? No thanks. Or at least that’s what I thought until earlier this year, when I had the chance to ride a Timbersled snowbike. More dirt bike than anything else, a snowbike is technically an off-road motorcycle with a conversion kit that replaces the front wheel with a ski and spindle and changes out the swingarm/rear wheel for a paddle-lined track. There’s more than meets the eye, of course: The latest conversion kit utilizes a specially designed ski with three individual keels and six metal biting edges. It’s…

“One size fits all.” Right—since when has that ever been close to satisfactory? “One adventure fits all?” Even more ludicrous. Some riders think you need to be kidnapped by terrorists, break major bones, suffer poisonous snakebite, or throw a rod in the Sahara to qualify a trip as a real adventure; others dial 911 and fire off flares if they get lost on the way to Starbucks. To each his or her own. Adventure bikes are one of the most popular motorcycling niches today—and for good reason. They’re fun, capable, comfortable, and exciting. And most of all, they’re vehicles that fuel our wanderlust and dreams. They offer the promise of riding to new places, unbound by the definitions of smooth, paved interstates. Now, actually going on one of those adventures,…

Here’s an unwritten rule every marketing manager and PR flack should take to heart: If you choose to name a new motorcycle for a place, you had better release it there. Someone at Honda must be thinking along the same line because here we are, in South Africa, riding one of the most anticipated motorcycles in recent memory: the new 2017 Africa Twin. Africa has something for everyone. The second largest continent on the planet, when most motorcyclists think of Africa, they probably think of Dakar or the Sahara in the north. We’re at the other end, the very southern tip. Naming conventions aside, it’s a fitting location to showcase this bike: There’s the wide mixture of dirt to ride in the Karoo desert, along with every kind of pavement…

The Valley of the Kings and the pyramids of Giza are a day’s ride apart in Egypt but are amazingly similar in the way they affect your psyche. There is an energy there—undefinable but undeniable. Queen Hatshepsut’s Palace, King Tut’s tomb, and the Sphinx all project a mysterious spell over anyone within sight. It’s odd. The energy there filled me so deeply that I didn’t eat for an entire day yet never felt tired. I slept more deeply that night than I had on my entire trip. And then I did something King Tut never could have envisioned: I dropped my bike’s panniers and tank bag and spent an hour wheelying, sliding, and motocrossing in the shadow of those grand monuments. How did this all come to be? In 1978…

Adventure bikes are full of promise, tempting us to set our eyes on far-off galaxies or at least other continents. But most of us can’t get away from work and family obligations long enough to travel to the next state, let alone someplace where we need a passport. Can’t we find adventure just a little closer to home? Yes, we can, as a ride I took one recent Sunday confirmed… Southern California motorcyclists are familiar with Ortega Highway, a.k.a. state Route 74, as a twisty mountain road that runs between Orange and Riverside counties. For decades sport riders have enjoyed strafing its many apexes en route to breakfast at the famed Lookout Roadhouse in the mountains above Lake Elsinore. Sadly, in recent years the Inland Empire has grown to the…

Modern motorcycle clothing just keeps getting better and better—that’s the good news. But it also creates a problem: If you’re responding at an accident scene, it becomes tougher and tougher to cut that clothing off when rendering aid. This point was driven home last October when one of the Cycle World staff was involved in a group-ride incident. The good news: He’ll be fine, in no small part due to the excellent gear he was wearing. More good news: Several of the group had EMT training. In order to ascertain the degree of injury and move the casualty, we needed to open up his riding pants from cuff to above the knee. Ever prepared, Editor-In-Chief Hoyer produced a pair of trauma shears. Nicely done—except they proved incapable of cutting a…

ALTRIDER HEMISPHERE SOFT PANNIERS altrider.com (206) 922-3618 PRICE: $569.97 UPS + Very lightweight and slim + Weather- and dust-proof + Functional and well designed DOWNS – Can’t lock them – Accessing contents takes a bit longer – No way to lock them to the bike If you’re an adventure-touring rider, you almost certainly have saddlebags on your machine. Bags come in a few flavors: OEM hard cases, aftermarket hard cases, and aftermarket soft bags. If there is one thing we’ve learned over the past couple of years piling up miles on our long-term ADV bikes, it’s that Mother Earth likes to eat OEM hard bags for lunch. As a matter of fact, we’ve destroyed a ridiculous number of accessory bags in recent years, so we were looking for an alternative…