“Golly gee,” whimpers the Evo Softail rider out at the Pozo saloon, “I’d really like to go to Death Valley with you guys, but my bike’s not really a good one for a long trip like that.”
Balderdash! Nothing wrong with putting a thousand miles on an old Softy. Heck, when they first came out with the Softail model late in ’83, I rode one out from Los Angeles to Ruidoso, New Mexico. Good ride, and I have to admit that was one time I did not object to the federally mandated 55 mph speed limit as the hard-mounted motor did tend to shake a bit above 65.
We’re becoming wrapped up in specialty bikes—the notion that you must have a motorcycle specifically built for touring to travel. Many people like to have a couple of bikes in the garage, one for the Sunday ride, another to go to Daytona, but we should not forget that you can go to Daytona on your Sunday rider ... it just may not be quite as comfortable.
Any Harley can go any distance, it is only a matter of how many times the wheels go round. And how good the maintenance has been. Granted, the wheels on the 2007 bagger sitting in my driveway may go around a good many more times than those on a rigid-mount 883 with the 2.3-gallon tank. But people have ridden those 883s from sea to sea and been none the worse for it. Those vibes probably help to keep arthritis away, as some docs are promoting “a whole lot of shaking” treatment for that ailment. I don’t know of anybody who has gone around the world on the old 125 Hummer, although it would be a good choice; it could be fixed anywhere on this planet with not much more than a couple of wrenches, a screwdriver, and a bit of baling wire.
Back in the old days, say, 90 years ago, Walt Davidson and Bill Harley liked to go rollicking off on their Silent Grey Fellows into the wilderness along the muddy roads to see what lay over that hill yonder. Thirty years ago the late Malcolm Forbes decided that the Soviet Union would be best seen from the saddle of a product of capitalist tooling, an American motorcycle; maybe that helped to speed up the collapse of communism. Those were AMF Shovels his crowd rode; so he took along a mechanic, and they all finished the trip.
Having some touring equipment is good, but not really necessary. Motorcycle saddlebags have probably been around almost as long as motorcycles, as it was an easy shift from horse to machine so long as they didn’t get caught up in the belt drive.
I don’t know when the first see-through windshield was developed for a motorcycle, but probably in the late ’20s. It had to be some early form of plastic, and Harley was offering such a shield against the wind in 1933.
Some riders think they can’t go beyond the county line unless they have bags and a shield, while others know that all they need to go across three time zones is a toothbrush. And a credit card.
In a book called Hog Fever, Richard La Plante does a fine job of describing traveling a tad too light. He was an American living in London at the beginning of the custom craze, and spent every spare dollar, or pound sterling, on pimping out his Harley. His ride was pretty much stripped down to the minimum, with good chrome and paint, and got lots of compliments. He and a couple of his Brit buddies decided they should take a trip to Spain, but La Plante could not bear the thought of sullying the lines of his bike, so he bought himself a belt pouch and in it packed a change of underwear and a toothbrush. He met up with his friends on a sunny morning and found that they had thrown big saddlebags over their bikes and mounted windshields; he held the moral high ground and sniffed that they were as bad as Gold Wingers.
It deluged as soon as they arrived in France, and our protagonist did not have a rainsuit; his friends did. The leather-clad author had a very cold, very wet, very miserable week-long ride.
You can overdo traveling light. But you don’t have to. Even if you are riding a Big Dog Pitbull or a Viper Diablo, presuming you are solo, there should be room back there for a small bag, with the essentials. Or better yet, you have a chase vehicle. Like those guys who went down to Mexico on a pair of outrageous chops and everything they needed was in the truck that ran behind. Plus they had a TV crew looking after the whole scene. I’m all in favor of sag wagons, or whatever you want to call a sweep, and to employ a Jeeves to drive one. You can stop whenever and wherever you want and have a cooler brought out with smoked salmon and cold drinks, plus a grill and T-bone steaks. If it rains, Jeeves can ride the bike and I’ll drive the truck. Unfortunately, unless this week’s lottery ticket comes in, I’ll never be able to afford a Jeeves.
The most unconventional bike I ever took on a trip was a trike, and the trip was short, only about 300 miles. In 1967 I was going to school in Monterey, California, compliments of the GI Bill, and a local car dealership was upgrading; it decided to sell off its ’56 Servi-Car, cheap. Which I bought, and then thought I’d surprise the girlfriend who had moved up to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. I didn’t even have to pack, tossing a couple of things into the box. The distance was a mere 120 miles of flattish traveling up the coast, but I averaged only about 30 mph; no speedy transit here. The trike was a big hit on the Hashbury, and the benevolent cops did not seem to mind my having two or three passengers hanging onto the box. I avoided the steeper hills in the city.
That little 45-inch engine did get a workout; very basic workhorses they were, which never seemed to run quite right, but never quit running. Today’s trikes are a whole different game, with big Twin Cam motors, even V-8s like on the Boss Hoss.
Traveling with the V-Rod? That is no more a stay-at-home bike than a 36-foot Winnebago is commuter transport; they are good to go, for any distance. The aftermarket is picking up on these delightful machines if you want to dress them out, while the 900-page Harley accessory catalogue offers everything from plusher seats to saddlebags to windshields. Give me a Street Rod with a Sundowner saddle, sport bags, and a touring shield and I’ll watch sunrises from Newport, Rhode Island, and sunsets in Newport, Oregon. Or I’ll just put my toothbrush and raingear in a backpack and do the same.
A friend of mine bought a new FXR a dozen years ago, on which he has done some serious traveling, to Sturgis and wherever else. He got a pair of saddlebags to begin with, a worthy accessory for anyone interested in the open road, and after a few years he also bought a small windshield. Then this past spring he was offered a good deal on a used FLH that he could not refuse, so he now has two Harleys. Which do you think he takes when he’s headed to the Rocky Mountains?
Maybe we should all have at least two bikes in the garage. That is a constitutional amendment I could get behind. U
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