alfalfa

well, hell! now i need to go to Portugal!!! Glad we have an expat from there in the club to lead us! (our local BMW club)

did you ever think you would see HD branded gear like this:

Yes, it does. i also like the grey model. Truth be told, the orange/white looks really good in person.

as you can tell from my avatar, i'm in total agreement with Mawsley on the whole scooter thing

My buddy, Matt took one for a test ride in Ohio. There are rumors it had the front wheel leave the ground (he is the friend on my KTM in Baja that has a hard time keeping it on two wheels). I need to find the video of him in Mongolia, during the GS Trophy competition. They have a long shot of the group transiting a stage across the desert, when one bike rares back on the rear wheel at about 60 and rides off

so, probably should go in Second Weekend in May thread, but i did mention checking out the new Harley Pan America here. Couldnt wait any longer, as the local dealer got two on Thursday. Friday, took a long lunch to go drool over new bikes (even if they are HDs) The first one in was a black Special Edition (includes ride modes, center stand, and other things i forget for now). That bike had a deposit, but the dealer never got an answer from the deposit holder, so as of yesterday (Saturday) it was available to anyone. Salesman took me and my buddy in the shop and showed us their demo, the orange and white one. In pics, those colors never looked appealing. In person, everything changes. The front doesnt looks a wonky and the orange is a great color! Went back yesterday (saturday) and got a quick pavement only ride on the demo. Very impressive effort, considering this being a entirely new genre for HD (ignoring Buell for the moment). They should be proud of their efforts. Motor is good and i'm looking forward to riding it again in two weeks, in sport mode. Initial thoughts: Cracking up on the HD labeled Anakee Adventure tires. Like that the wheels are same size as on the GS, so tire options are plenty. Engine noise is throaty and pleasing. Lots of buttons on the handgrips, will take a while to learn them all. Fonts on digital display are a little small, but you can use of the buttons to scroll thru the info, with is showing in the center of the display with each push. Quality seems really good. Handle bars remind me of a KTM - narrow than a GS. It feels lighter than a GS, especially when sitting on it and rocking it back and forth. Suspension felt soft, but i wasnt allowed to mess with many settings. I'm sure the Sport setting is nice and firm. The auto-lowering suspension was interesting and a great feature for height challenged. Dealer staff seem out of their element in trying to sell it. (Understandable, and not a complaint). We spent more time educating the salesman about why some features are on it. HD will use Revit gear, which looks really good. This is another point where the salesman was lost. During training on the bikes, gear and accessories, he was shocked about the price of the adventure gear. He is used to selling $200 -$300 jackets, and whatever assless chaps go for. I assured him that us Power Rangers generally dont have a problem spending $1500 to $2000 on good, safe riding gear (pants and jackets). overall, i would say the Pan America is 90% of a GS. That could change after the factory ride in two weeks.

what a coincidence they are testing them there

probably. when i just renewed my password, the email to do that ended up there. we have a tight filter installed here at work. unfortunately, i delete those trapped on a daily basis, so cant go see if it got thru. no matters, i'm safe again

will do.

signed up to ride it mid-May, in Lake Elsinore. Been reading lots of good reviews about it. Except the front end

i have to, i have no other life

nope. y'all must hate colonials

well, thanks a lot! you didnt even miss me

WTF did everyone go!!!? Phew, back now.

There is an off highway vehicle park just to the east of here, as well.

Camping weekend with the Northern Califronia crowd. Place is known as Songdog Ranch and it is about 1.5 hours north of me, at the end of Hwy 33.

The best thing i can say about the experts in our group is that they are patient and helpful. The lesser-skilled are good about finding bail out routes so they dont hold up the main group. Most rides are set up so that even slower riders dont hold up the faster ones for that long. motorcycle peeps are awesome, most times.

South America is next on the horizon. I've done the top half of the Americas, time for the bottom. Also, Mongolia is right there at, or near the top of the list! Followed a fellow named Oisin Hughes, on ADVRIDER, when he rode around the world. Mongolia he had the most bike issues, but fell in love with the people. Ever since, that's been the place I've wanted to see the most.

I've already heard real-life reviews (a few) on the Harley GS and for the most part, people like it. More power than my GS, at about the same weight. The only complaint is the front end look, but then we like the GS front end ?

Had a 98 Road King Classic. It was a Harley in the truest sense - rear brake better than front, suspension was so-so. But, the paint and chrome were excellent! (seriously). I love my R18, however. There is a quality that BMW imbibes in all their products that isnt really matched by other bike makers. Not that the others are falling apart. Go ahead and throw out the recall slings, or failed final drive comments. I've never not been taken care of by the mother ship. That being said, i've signed up to test the Harley BMW (Pan American) come late may, at Lake Elsinore. I'm wondering if i should ride my BMW Harley there ?

We make time and yes, we have a large play area. You are always welcome to come play in it!

Most of my pics are iPhone 11, which has pretty good resolution. Some of them are from people with better cameras. Here is a link to full set of pics, taken by another friend. https://rickks.smugmug.com/Motorcycle-Trips/AGALOS-Baja-2021 The core group of riders in the baja trip do some great and epic rides. It started with a 3 person trip to Alaska in 2009, and has grown in size and craziness over the years. We try to do at least one big trip a year, and Colorado is usually the focal point. We've ridden in Mexico and Colombia, besides the US and Canada. These guys have either created some really good rallies (March Moto Madness is one, Ribfest is another), or attend some GSGiants stuff. Two of the riders in the group were on different GS Trophy teams. The KTM rider was on the latest one, in Mongolia. Dennis was on the team that went to Thailand. Two other friends were on the team that went to Canada. I'm happy to say that they tolerate my poor offroad skills, and i'm not sure why ?

Not much was left to do of any interest as we finished our last leg north to the border in Tijuana. Given the number of bikes, we had formulated a plan for crossing. Most people at the border understand that motorcycles have "permission" to filter thru the line, to the front. However, we didnt want to piss anyone off by having 16 bikes filter to the front at the same time. Unfortunately, we relied on one of those "i know a shortcut" guys and that is what we, in fact, did. Fernando, the 650 rider, "knew" a shortcut thru Tijuana to a dedicated bike lane for the crossing. Or, he thought he did. After traversing thru the outskirts, thru two roundabouts, we found ourselves at an intersection where the leg to the border crossing was guarded by a man with a rope. Fernando convinced him to let us thru as this was the bike lane. Well, as it turns out, it wasnt. We never did find the bike lane, but we did find 30 other lanes, all full of cars. And, those cars had been waiting for quite some time. In fact, so much time that when 8 bikes crowded in front of them, "words" were thrown. We hadnt planned to crowd someone out, it just ended that way when our leader split the k rails and left us on our own. A true FTroop leader! Fortunately, we were smart enough to split up the group somewhat, but i cant really imagine how pissed the guy behind this group was when he suddenly found himself 8 vehicles further back than what he thought he was. Apologies to him, whomever he may be. 40 mins later, all riders accounted for, we blasted up Interstate 5 to a late lunch and several respective lodgings for the night. Those that had to catch planes the next day, did. Those who had to drive back to Louisiana did. And, no one died. Epilogue: My buddy from Connecticut rode back with me to my place, as he was flying out of Las Vegas. This was the guy who had shipped his bike and when he arrived in Las Vegas, found out his bike had yet to leave the East Coast. He rode Flames. Not nicely, it turns out. But, being the standup guy he is, he said he had an idea. he would ride Flames to Las Vegas and put her on a truck east, as the company owed him one. Once he got it back to his place, he was going to turn it over to Max BMW, a store he used to manage. The goal is that Flames will get a facelift of some sort, up to full restoration if he gets crazy, and i will fly out in August to attend the Rock Lobster Rally and see about riding her back home. I miss the ol girl. ?

Day 9, our last day in Baja and return to "civilization".... We woke up to discover it had rained again overnite. Our OCD GS owner woke up to discover that his freshly cleaned gear the night before hadnt faired so well hanging on the clothesline overnite ?. His boots hadnt done that well, either. At least, there was no mud on them. me, i was looking for a sequel to the "fun" i had missed the day before. I wasnt to be disappointed. Knowing what was between us and the pavement, we formulated a bike ferry plan and got everyone out to safety, with just enough "entertainment" for those of us who had missed it the day before. The above results were better than the day before: Lu may be FTroop and AGALOS, but the boy can ride. His K1600 never touched down as he flew thru the mud. But, once again, no one died.

One could get used to this place.