alfalfa

5 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

Certainly looks better in black in the photos 

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

5 hours ago, Tym said:

Thanks for the write up @alfalfa! Cant wait to see one leave the ground!

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.

22 hours ago, Tym said:

Great name for a dirt bike! 

what a coincidence they are testing them there

 

5 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Did it land up in spam or junk mail? All mine did. 

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

 

5 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Now thats a ride Id really like to hear a report on

will do.

 

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

 

6 minutes ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

I did! I just had you marked up as one of those folk who only posts bike content... fortunately you’ve just failed on that score  

i have to, i have no other life

 

13 hours ago, XTreme said:

The redirect at the registrar screwed up......but didn't you get the e-mail with the new link Rick?

nope.   y'all must hate colonials

 

On 02/05/2021 at 07:34, XTreme said:

I think all the regulars are here......unless you can think of anybody.

Namecheap have sorted the redirect now.

well, thanks a lot!   you didnt even miss me

WTF did everyone go!!!? 

Phew, back now.

On 27/04/2021 at 03:00, Tym said:

Great pics @alfalfa, great part of the country to party! 

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.  

 

6 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

That sounds a like a great bunch to ride with. What an excellent evolution. Its hard to accommodate such a varied group of riders and keep everyone happy. The hardcore want the hardcore stuff and the not so hardcore dont want to hold others up or appear soft!

I went on a trip with a bunch of randoms (24 people in total) and I started off skill wise somewhere around the middle of the pack, all well and good I thought, a nice comfortable place to be, then they started dropping like flies (down to 12) and I was at the bottom along with a couple of others, its strange how it can effect you so fair play to anyone on that trip who kept going with off road gods like that making it look easy!

The group of randoms left standing that I went with are keen to do something else and I can see it might develop into something along the lines of what you’ve described but Covid shut it down before it got going so now who knows. I’d still quite like it to happen though!

Good to hear about the iPhone camera, due an upgrade in May and they say the 12pro max camera is excellent, it has different lenses and you can control shutter speed n all that malarkey. Cors I dont actually know how to manipulate any of these variables to take a good pic but I’d like to learn to take much better pictures and if I can do it without having to carry an extra camera thats even better!

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.

 

38 minutes ago, Pedro said:

That's just too much to keep up with. Ride a GS there, and step off one and ride the other back to back. I'm interested (theoretically) on your conclusions

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 

27 minutes ago, Catteeclan said:

Fantastic report Thanks.
Alway great to see other peoples corner. You guys have far too much time and play area, very jealous.

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

11 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said:

Thats a great write up of a very entertaining trip. Thankyou so much for posting it

Its so well done I’m left wanting to burst out of lockdown and never sit down again

Fantastic views. Are those pics taken on a phone? They look too good to be a phone.

Do you do this trip type of trip regularly?

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.

Scenery around Coyote Cals:

 

Day 8 -

The nite at the hotel was kind of low key, with some pool playing and drinking.  But, it was apparent that people were ready to get home.

We woke the next day to nice weather, packed up and headed out.   That day's destination was a place known as Coyote Cals, south of Ensenada

 

 

(cant figure out why the map shows up twice...)

 

The main group took off for El Rosario, the next gas station about 85 miles away.   I hung back to escort one of the guys who was recovering from the night before.  Margarita  poisoning, or something like that.

When we hit the road, about 10 miles north of town, i thought i would check my gas only to discover that yesterdays ' 75 mile range' had become '55 mile range'!!   And, with 80 some miles to go, too.  Going back wasnt an option (is it ever?) so we motored on, hitting zero range about 20 miles south of town.  Given that BMW has some of the best corporate lawyers, i had a good feeling that the miles remaining would be very, very conservative and we finally pulled in for gas with no issues.

 

 

The east coast of Baja is my favorite because it is usually warmer.   The west coast (above) is just as awesome, when the weather cooperates.

 

 

 

 

Mexican fast food.  If you ever see one of these, stop!   The food was excellent!  Unfortunately for the locals, we wiped out that days supply!

 

Things had been going pretty smoothly, which is a sign that an FTroop moment was overdue.  Our FTroop nickname (look up the old 60s era American TV show for an idea of what i'm referring to) comes from the fact that during a club ride, it is a 50-50 chance on whether we all end up at the same place, at the same time, even with starting out together.

A common thread in an FTroop episode is when Lu is leading, as he was to take us into Coyote Cals after lunch.  He split out of the lunch stop at warp speed, with the majority of the riders in tow.  Gary and I were lagging for some reason and took off to catch them.   I had the route in my GPS and was watching the screen as Gary and I were starting to catch the main group.  Getting stuck behind a truck, i didnt see them miss the upcoming turn onto the road to the coast.  When i reached that road, i knew something was amiss.  No one was waiting for me at the next corner, and i couldnt see them up the road.  I thought they may have taken the second turn to this road, so headed up there to wait.  Nobody.  I turned around and headed out to the beach, sure that they were in front of me and had just kept going at the turn.   Reaching Coyote Cal's i realized they were no where around.

So, figured i would check in to the rooms and unload the bike.  About 20 minutes later, i went outside at the sound of motorcycles and found one of the funniest sights of the trip.

 

The last 3 miles of road to the hostel are dirt.  Given that it had rained that morning, there were large puddles and muddy sections.  The guy above prides himself in a clean GS (i know, the first sign of a sick mind), so he of course, went down in a puddle.  He unpacked and spent the next hour or so cleaning his gear and his bike.  I guess he didnt understand we would be riding out the same way we came in, the next morning.

 

Coyote Cals