Innehållsförteckning för Special 2018 från Motorcycle Classics

What: Arches National Park, Utah. It’s one of the most beautiful places on the planet. How to Get There: Grab I-70 from either the east or the west, and then take US 191 south. Best Kept Secret: Arches National Park itself. I’m embarrassed to admit I knew very little about it until this visit. This destination belongs on your list. It’s magnificent. Avoid: Going into the park without water and suitable attire, especially if you plan to do any hiking (it gets mighty hot out there), walking off the designated trails (the soil’s crust consists of algae, cyanobacteria, lichens and fungi that reportedly take decades to recover after being crushed by our Buster Browns) and rolling into Moab without a hotel reservation. More Info: nps.gov/arch/index.htm…

In 1973, I was a diplomat working at the American embassy in Italy. The State Department was going to reassign me to Washington, D.C., and although I didn’t like my job, I said I would stay on if I was sent to Afghanistan, which was an interesting place back then. Sorry, came the reply, no slots open. All right, I decided, I’ll resign and go there myself. I sold my Fiat Spyder 1500, bought a pair of military backpacks to sling over the saddle of my 1972 BMW R75/5, took the ferry to Greece, and made my way to Istanbul — undoubtedly the most romantic city in Europe. After locating a cheap hotel with safe parking, I left the bike and walked over to the Pudding Shop in Sultan Ahmet…

Straddling the Columbia River on the border between Washington and Oregon, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is not so much a destination as it is a region, and one that should be on every rider’s bucket list. It’s an 80-mile stretch of heaven along one of the mightiest rivers in America, framed by first-rate riding and stunning scenery. Twisting two-lane roads, 4,000-foot-deep canyons, magnificent views, wildflowers, wildlife, waterfalls, massive hydroelectric dams, quaint towns, beautiful bridges and more: The Columbia River Gorge has it all. I’ve visited the Columbia River Gorge five times and I know I will return again. My advice? Take a full two days to circumnavigate this magnificent area (you’ll need at least that time to explore both the Oregon and Washington sides). You’ll be retracing…

Customs Office, Guatemala City, Central America: Each of our four motorcycles now has 31 different sheets of paper, ranging from photocopies of passports to typed forms with VIN and registration numbers. Thirteen people at 13 desks had to stamp each piece of paper. Mercifully, not all of them needed to be bribed. The strain was beginning to show on our faces, along with the sweat. Maybe we had made a big mistake; maybe our motorcycles would be stuck in Guatemala City forever; maybe we should have just ridden down through Mexico. The idea had seemed simple enough: Buy four beater motorcycles, ship them to Guatemala, and ride as far south as we could in five weeks, but sometimes things don’t quite go as planned. Spending two days in the middle…

There aren’t many days in one’s life that combine terror and love in quite the same way your wedding day does. The first test any marriage is put through is known as “wedding planning.” Having bluffed our way through these trials and joined our lives as one, my wife, Nicole, and I decide we’re going to ride cross-country for our honeymoon, me on my 1973 Honda CB750 and Nic on her 1973 Honda CB350G twin. As one of the best wedding presents ever, her brother has our bikes shipped out to his home in Lake Arrowhead, California, so, “all we have to do is ride them home to Chicago.” Rather than traveling through the boring parts of this great land to see the exciting parts, we’ll start at the exciting…

Most people wouldn’t think of touring on a 1928 Norton Model 18 — let alone with their 10-year-old son on board. Then again, Phillip Tooth isn’t most people. A regular contributor to Motorcycle Classics, Phillip has more than a passing interest in vintage and classic bikes, having served as editor of two of England’s top classic bike magazines. And the Norton’s no trailer queen, with Phillip riding it far and wide as often as possible, including annual runs in the Irish Rally (the late, great Bud Ekins rode it for a stretch at one rally, leaving a permanent dent in the rear fender after hitting a deep pothole: Phillip calls it “Bud’s ding”) and holidays in France, Holland, Sweden and Belgium. “This has been an unbelievably reliable motorcycle,” Phillip says,…

A 1950 Vincent and the Big Sur Highway offer the best of two worlds: a classic bike and a classic road. Both the motorcycle and the road are reminiscent of a calmer, quieter, almost magical time before the advent of hyper-performance engines and broad, featureless freeways. The magic of a Vincent is undeniable, and the Big Sur has more than a bit of magic about it, especially when ridden in the cool light of early morning. The fact that this semi-wild place, El Sur Grande, The Big South, as the Spanish in Monterey called it 200 years ago, even exists in the 21st century is attributable in equal parts to Mother Nature for the original concept and to the farsightedness of a few people for its preservation. Not all that…

According to the numbers, Texas is second only to California in population. Yet rolling through the fabled Texas Hill Country, that statistic seems improbable. The road in front of me is empty and serene, a winding ribbon of blacktop running through vast expanses of scrub land punctuated by huge ranches. If there are people here, they’re not showing themselves. The numbers start to make sense, however, when you consider that Texas is almost 40 percent larger than California, second only to Alaska in terms of total area. And with the lion’s share of the population in the state’s eastern half, the western half, with the Hill Country running roughly across its midsection, has miles of empty roads. They’re perfect for the vintage Norton and Vincent that Mark Scott and I…

Death Valley is one of the hottest places on earth. Air temperatures over 120 degrees Fahrenheit are common and ground temperatures are usually 50 percent higher. Five hundred and fifty square miles of Death Valley is below sea level, and rain rarely gets past the barren mountains that soar two miles above the valley floor into clear blue skies. The heat may be merciless but the scenery is stunning. If you want to ride through this desert landscape you need a bike that’s properly prepared and with a gas tank big enough to take you at least 150 miles between fill-ups. You should prepare yourself mentally and physically and carry enough water so that if you do break down you can survive until help arrives. So much for theory. Here’s…

Gritting my teeth against the cold mountain air, I hug the tank of the 1979 Moto Morini 500 Strada I’m riding, trying hard to make my body small and conserve heat. We’re at almost 4,000 feet elevation, winding our way through the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia on State Route 72. Although it’s mid-April it sure feels like winter, and I won’t be surprised if it starts snowing any moment. Forty-eight hours earlier, I was sitting comfortably in a Boeing 737, winging my way from Kansas City to Philadelphia to meet up with Joel Samick, a former philosophy and electrical engineering major whose life was irrevocably altered many years ago when someone gave him a Honda CL450. That Honda led to a life fully saturated in motorcycles, starting with…

Last summer, my wife, Bobbi, and I were discussing plans for celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary that August. Bobbi wanted to go on a cruise. I thought that was a great idea, so I started getting my 1974 Suzuki GT750 “Water Buffalo” ready for the ride. Come to find out, her idea of a cruise was on a ship. Silly girl. Of course, we don’t own a ship, so we had a meeting of the minds and settled on a motorcycle cruise. I love riding long distance, and Bobbi often goes with me. Bobbi mapped out a route that would take us from northwest Florida to Colorado Springs, then north to Calgary. From there we’d head east and then drop down back into the states to Michigan, and then south…

Red rock formations, landscapes that are the stuff of science fiction and an overall aura of breathtaking beauty best describe Arches National Park. Perhaps overlooked as a result of being less well-known and farther from the West Coast than the big name national parks (Zion, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon), Arches is every bit as beautiful as its more popular big brothers. Tucked away in Utah’s southeastern corner right on the Colorado River (and just minutes outside of Moab), you know you’re entering a special place as you approach this 120-square-mile patch of nature’s artistic endeavors. Stunning, visually arresting and dramatic are the appropriate adjectives. As you ride southeast on US 191, combinations of red, pink and light sandy-brown rock formations start to appear sporadically, and then become more…

A typical motorcycle tour goes from A to B, and in between is the territory you cover, whizzing past you then quickly receding in your rearview mirror. It’s a familiar recipe, but it doesn’t leave much opportunity to be a tourist, to really get familiar with an area, which is exactly why Eligio Arturi put together the Benelli Vintage Tour. A native Italian, Arturi ran sailing trips in the Mediterranean and Land Rover expeditions across North Africa before BMW hired him to lead adventure motorcycle tours in the early 1990s. The BMW linkup inspired Arturi, an avid motorcyclist, to focus on motorcycle tours, and since forming MotoTouring (Mototouring.com) in 1994 he’s led rides across South Africa, Morocco, New Zealand, South America, Japan, Singapore and more. A vintage bike fan, Arturi…

“Owners of domestic animals and livestock adjoining the course, please ensure they are secure during the practice and race periods.” That’s not the sort of warning you normally hear blaring from the public address system at a race. But then, this isn’t your normal race. Welcome to the Isle of Man Classic TT. It’s Saturday morning, the first day of racing at the 2016 Isle of Man Classic TT and Manx GP, and our group is struggling for equilibrium as we work our way through the paddock to watch the start of the Senior TT. For the past two days we’ve been riding across England, acclimating ourselves to confusing roundabouts, riding on the “wrong” side of the road, and fighting various problems with our vintage motorcycles. Our ferry has only…

It’s possible that I may need a therapist, and I am hoping someone can recommend one. You see, I am prone to acting on impulse, most recently squandering a perfectly good $50 bill to rescue the 1964 Yamaha 125 Santa Barbara YA6 seen here, spending untold hours working on it with little guarantee of any return, and then taking it on a nearly impossible ride. The embarrassing thing is, I had the money for a better motorcycle. I knew this castoff would be needier than a snubbed Yorkie. And I assumed the ride would be long and painful. And yet, knowing all this in advance, I did it anyway. To frame my admission, it seems fitting to quote a line from a catchy Dierks Bentley tune: “I know what I…

It was a sunny May day in Sydney, Australia, when my fingers stopped on an advert in the local newspaper I was reading: “1982 Yamaha XV1000. Racks, bag, stainless pipes, new tires, $1,750 OBO.” That’s the one for us I told Karen, and a few hours later our friend Dave Peach was driving us out of the city to see the bike and take a test ride. As soon as I saw it I knew it was the right bike, and after parting with $1,550 cash we were heading back to Sydney on the motorcycle that would end up taking us around Australia. Having landed six months earlier in Darwin on one-way tickets from Indonesia with just $22 to our names, it was hard to contain our excitement knowing the…