Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

RIDE (Below) There Is plenty of tim e to reflect on roads like this, and we had plenty of roads like this on which to refl ect . Cruise control rules (and made t h is photo po ss ible). (Rig ht - and below ri ght) BMW 's K1100LT made M ends when t he road s turned twisty. And so th e H arl ey. We'll forgo the "It's a Harley" line and tell you that it was the single greatest revelation of the trip , a t least for th e guys who a ren' t inclined to gloss over a bike's shortcoming s with a line like "It's a Harley." But it's a bike that's pushing mighty clnse to $18,000, and sho uld n' t we maybe have just a little more power from a 1340cc eng ine and brakes that work just a bit better for that kind of money ? We think so. So to that guy we saw in Zion on his show bike: It doesn't get any better than this: Gold Wing. .......... . . . . . .. fter this trip, I'm so damn sick of beef jerky th at I d on 't think I' ll eve r eat it agai n. The leath ery cattle flesh w as apparently the sustenance of choice for the long hauls between gas stations th at w e e ncou nte re d while aboard these two-wheeled motorhomes. Yet no matter which of the cou ntless AM/PMs, Shells and Mobil s at which we wou ld stop, the menu was the same: beef jerky and bottled water. I didn' t really purchase tha t much of the crap my self .- with the food allowance that we eN staffers get whi le on the road, it's too expensive - bu t I probab ly ate more o f it th an a ny b ody else . Seems like whichever bike I rode, I could always find a storage compartment stuffed full of it... (Mmmm.., Beef jerky time ,..) And so it is that these bikes will probably forever remind me of - well, beef jerky, for although they are all touring machines, they are about as di verse as the flavors of processed livestock sampled on the tr ip . To wit: The BMW RIIOORT a nd OLT were more like some kind of KIIO p ineapple-fruity-flavored jerk y - defin itely not for me. In fact , I still can 't gra sp th e co ncep t b ehin d th e whol e BMW thing. Both m achin es are lively and handl e the mi les well, but they just don ' t fit into the same category as th e oth er three lumbering g ia n ts. The Kawa saki Voyager' s handling and pack a gin grem in d s m e o f th at je rky you might see in the big plastic tubes at the counter - you know, the w orn-out-look- A 28 ing fatt y stu ff that sits th ere a n d screams, "Please buy me!" But the mo re time you spend eating it - and bu rping it up later - the more you realize that there is probably better jerky out there to be consumed. Still, for a price of $12,399, the Voyager does ge t the job done - if ye r hank erin ' for a pi ece of hide that will last you. From there, though, we get to the premium, Ameri can -made, highquality stuff. (The Honda does, after all, get processed at a plant in Marysville, Ohio.) The Harley is definitely like peppered hog jerky (pun in tended ), my • favorite kind : flavorful - and, thanks to that righteous, Milwa u kee-bui lt V-twin blessed with all the right sp ices. However, it's pork. it's a bit pricey for what's in the packa ge, and it's sim ply not the kin d of jerk y that you could live with every day. For that, my friends, we get to the Honda, which is jus t good ol d highqual it y Teriy a ki-s ty le beef jerky . It's sweet in ev ery wa y · has been since 1988. So if you 're ever in the ma rket for a touring motorcycle, ju st rem ember what I said ... jerky. Scott Rousseau T o u rin g has to be the ultim ate when it com es to a totally stressfree , no -press u re, come-a s-youare type of motorcycle riding. If things are getting a littl e crazy at w or k, and your things-to-do list at hom e is getting comple tely out of control, and you simp ly need to catch your breath and reset your cerebral matter, there is no better relief valve than throwin g yo u r le g over a full-on touring bike and getting away from it all for a whil e. My idea of . abs o lute relaxation is rolling do w n a lonely desert hi ghw a y on a w a r m spring d ay, the cru ise control set at 70 mph and the stere o cr an ked, all the while p rotected by a full -si ze d fa iring /wind screen , o n a vi bratio n- free and p owerful ride. And th e rid e tha t best provides all these things and more for me is the Honda Gold Wing. There's nothing I can say about the Wing that hasn 't already been sa id a thousand times before, other than I do agree that it's the smoothest and mo st touring-friendly motorcycle out there. Bu t th e o the r four bikes we rode are good in their own right, as well. For dail y commute, man y times I chose the four-cylinder BMW over the Gold Win g because there were time s I just didn't fee l like wrestling th e big, heav y and wide Wi ng through ru shhour traffi c, whereas th e KIIOOLT is lighter, more nimble, just plain handles better and is n arrow e no u gh to not have to wo rry too -much about catching a sideba g on a truck fender. I also like the adj ustable windscreen, fairly larg eca paci ty bag s and sp unky mot or . But the trad e-off w as a lou sy s te re o, no cruise co ntro l, annoying bag lat ch es and a noisy motor, not 10 menti on lessthan-exciting styling . Th e Ha rley w as a nice su rp rise. It offers a fairly smooth ride, but just isn' t refined enough for me wh en it comes to le ng t hy t ouring . But th e s te reo cranked. If m y tourin g consisted mostly of twi sty ro ads and one-d ay jaunts, th en the other Beemer w ould do ju st fine. Th e RIIOORT has a more sp or ty feel and a fairly lively power pl ant, but the bike could benefit from cru ise contro l and narrower, color-m atched hard bags - with eas ier-to-use latches - that conforms to the motorcycle, and if th a t m ean s makin g th e bags harder to mount and dismount, so be it. Bag lin ers would do just fine for me . A better stereo w ou ld be nice, too ; after all , if BMW is g oin g to ma ke the effort to ins tall a stereo, it migh t as well wo rk. Wh en it came tim e to put tim e o n the Kaw asaki Voyager, yo u wouldn 't hear m e complain - much . Lik e th e Wing. the Voyager offers a cushy ride and plenty of wind protection, and it also has an excellent stereo. However, the Voy ager' s chassi s stra ins a t the added we ight it has incurred over the years. The front en d feel s unceasingly flexy, and overall handling is sketchy at best, but o nce I got u sed to a ll th e be nd ing and tw isting, I became quite fon d of the Voya ger. But it wa sn't my tourer o f choic e. That would be the Gold Wing - the ultimate stress reli ever. Kit Palmer m y hich bikes had the best stereo systems is the only thin g that _ comes to m ind wh en I thin k about lon g-dist ance touring bikes and our 1300-mile journey through the Southwest. Wh en you ' ve got to spe n d seem in g ly co untl es s hours bla zin g across the torrid and somew hat borin g desert, stereo systems are a hell of -a con venience - espe cia lly aft er the fir st 500 miles. And wh en you don't ha ve a stereo or the one you do have doesn't w ork p roperly (I'll get to th at ), w ell , then, that's a hell o f an incon ven ien ce. And don't ever forget a good selection of cassette tapes (yes , th ey still mak e them), unle ss yo u want to sift thr ough country-music stations in the middle of Arizo na. I'll start from the wo rst stereo sys te m a nd w ork m y w ay up to th e biggest and baddest hi-fi on the road. By far , th e BMW KIIOOLT h ad the . most anemi c stereo sys tem on the journey. While si tting in gas stations or on the side of the road, the system didn't sol'ind half-bad . But as soon as you got the big Beemer up to speed, the stereo started to sound distorted and very faint - so faint, in fact, that you were better off lis tenin g It> yo u r helmet whistle or coun ting tumbleweeds. Put it this way: I had no de sire to count tumbleweed s, so I stayed awa y from the Kl1 00 any way I could. In defense of BMW (sort of), we th ink th at th e stereo was d efective, because it would onl y malfunction as the bike got hot. Also in defense of the LT was the fact that it was probably the fastest and second-best-handling mot orcycle on the trip . Next com es th e other BMW on the trip, the RIIOORT. The R model was the only bike that did not hav e rear speakers, but it still sou nded belter than the other BMW becau se the front spe akers worked properl y - even when fu lly cranked up. To hear the stereo well at s p ee d, -th ou gh , y ou had to run th e adjus table windscreen up to its highes t posit ion. The handlebar-m ounted volum e and s tation controls w ere a nice touch, but I really despised the fact that the stereo cover on th e fair ing had to rema in open, thus fl apping in th e breeze, to enable 'yo u to chan ge tape s W

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