Page 27 - Riding On Spring
P. 27
Milwaukee’s all-new Pan America adventure bike certainly has people
talking. Everyone has an opinion about this so-called ‘departure’ for The
Motor Company. But is it?
When the Davidson boys and Mr Harley embarked on their momentous
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place. Motorcycles were a popular form of personal transport because
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bikers often resorted to riding along railway tracks to make any sort of
progress. And what is often forgotten is that many of these early two-
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1915 Model 11-F all the way from New York to San Francisco - and back
- with her mother in a sidecar. Hungarian blokes, Zoltan Sulkowsky and
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visiting 68 countries travelling a total of 170,000km. So, the suggestion
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It is fair to say that in recent years, Harley-Davidson motorcycles are best
known as comfortable highway cruisers. Big, thumping V-Twins that eat
up the bitumen like 100ci Pacmen with serious modern adventure bikes
being the domain of BMW, KTM and the like.
In many ways, the Pan America is H-D coming full-circle to meet the
big guns of adventure head-on. Its 1250cc, water-cooled, 8-valve, DOHC
engine mated with a suite of rider aids in a clean-sheet chassis means
business. Big business.
Space does not permit me to give one of those full and intimate reviews,
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of the European and Japanese with comparable features such as ABS,
traction control, cruise control, Bluetooth connectivity and as a 175cm
bloke, a feature that impressed me was adaptive ride height which will
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One comparison that is telling for all modern adventure bikes is the pow-
er and weight combo. Twenty-odd years ago most emerging adventure
bikes were around the 200kg mark fully fueled with outputs seldom more
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north of 90kW. For example, the benchmark BMW MY21 R 1250 GS Ad-
venture is a whopping 268kg wet and kicked along by a DOHC 8-valve
100kW horizontal twin. A real Schwarzenegger of a machine.
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The fully kitted unit still is a shade over 250kg but manages a claimed
112kW from the all-new Revolution 60-degree, liquid-cooled V-twin. No
wonder brawny Jason Momoa is the new bike’s front man.
Now arriving at Harley-Davidson dealers as I write, the PanAm is available
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away. A full luggage pack and dedicated riding gear range for both men
and women is also released.
In short, if you are ready to spend $30k on an adventure bike, the Pan
America should be on your very short list of contenders.
Roderick Eime
RIDING ON 27
