PERSPECTIVES

PERSPECTIVES The Adventure-Bike Drift

BY MITCH BOEHM

W

hile riding my new — to me — 2004 Kawasaki ZRX1200 home from the shop last week (I’d dropped it off before our late-August Alps Tour so the guys could take their time on its many used-bike foibles), I realized something a bit shocking: the bike I was riding was different than the one I’d dropped off.

Okay, yeah, the VIN was the same, and the fresh Dunlop Roadsmart IVs, chain, synthetic motor oil, fork seals, 15-weight fork oil, spark plugs, air filter and hydraulic fluid had the thing feeling like a factory-fresh motorcycle — and not the thrashed and tired ZRX I’d brought to them in mid-August.

But still, it was different…

And then it hit me. While the bike hadn’t changed all that much, I had. And the reason for the drift? The seven straight days I’d just spent on an open-class Adventure bike — Harley-Davidson’s all-new Pan America 1250 Special — in the European Alps.

It wasn’t that the ZRX ran or handled differently than the model I’d come to love way back in the early 2000s when I rode a long-term unit for 18 months at Motorcyclist magazine; just that it was a different type of motorcycle. The semi-sporty riding position wasn’t quite as comfy as the Pan Am’s roomy cockpit; there was that buzz at higher revs from the inline-four that wasn’t there on the H-D twin; the mirrors were narrowly set, and not spread out like Bullwinkle’s ears, so it was harder to see behind you; and while torquey, the ZRX’s big Four didn’t have the immediate, off-the-bottom yank the H-D did.

In a nutshell, my perspective had once again changed, just as it has, incrementally, over the last couple of decades. The ZRX, for all its sexy/ GPz/’80s-retro-Superbike goodness (and it is a fantastic retro standard, arguably one of the best ever), simply isn’t the all-around-capable streetbike the Pan Am is — or any of the topshelf big-bore Adventure bikes, for that matter. And more and more I’m appreciating those wide-ranging attributes.

To be honest, I was pretty shocked at how buttoned-up the Pan America is. Not because I doubted Harley-Davidson’s excellent design and engineering folks, but because building a totally new type of motorcycle from the ground up is a monumental challenge. But Milwaukee’s guys did it right, purchasing all the competitors’ bikes and using them to benchmark their prototypes during the several-year development process, and really hammering the functionality side of things.

Issues on our tour were small. It spit some coolant out of its overflow tube on a couple of occasions when it got hot, and the luggage locks were a bit funky and flimsy, turning in their housings. When fully warm it was hard to find neutral (the clutch seemed to be dragging slightly) and the seat was a bit soft for longer days.

But the Pan Am is really capable, and right there with the other leading bikes in the category. Some are going to be better at this or that, or offer some piece of hardware or technology the Pan Am doesn’t. But from a big-picture standpoint the thing is wholly competitive, and in its very first year, which is impressive.

If you boil it all down, and I have, what stands out is the amazingly wide range of things a good Adventure bike like the Pan Am can do well. You hear the word “all-arounder” tossed around a lot, but these things take the cake. They’re awesome commuters and short-trip heroes. They can go cross country with ease, they are hugely capable — and fun — in sporting mode, and their pack-mule carrying capacity is simply astounding. They’re certainly not dirtbikes in any sense, but they can navigate a two-track trail reasonably well, and with the right tires (and the right rider in the saddle) they can even handle single-track stuff — though when they go down, they go down hard.

That off-road discussion is still pretty apropos, though, because when I ride one of these things, and it happened time and time again in the Alps, I feel like I’m on a big, openclass dirtbike, albeit one with tons of comfort and 130-some horsepower. And having raced motocross for the better part of 50 years, that’s pretty appealing.

So yeah, I’ve been enjoying my ZRX. But I have a feeling there’s a big Adventure bike in my future.

Mitch Boehm is the Editorial Director of the AMA

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