Adventure / Dual-Sport

Functionally single-minded.

In the late 1990s, Lance Smail was a lone wolf competing in the vaunted AMA Supercross championship series on this Tom Moen-prepared, four-stroke powered KTM. By virtue of being the sole four-stroke in a series populated exclusively by two-stroke machines, Smail and the KTM were instant outsiders. However, at every stadium the bike appeared, the fans went crazy for it. In a field of buzzing, shrieking two-strokes that sounded like agitated bees, the distinctly aggressive thumping of the KTM, with its signature backfire, made it a crowd favorite. (Click image to enlarge)

Certainly every motorcyclist knows something about this motorcycle legend. A 1947 Fourth of July weekend Gypsy Tour gathering of bikers in Hollister, Calif., was embellished by the fanciful imagination of a San Francisco Chronicle reporter and became “4000 Touring Cyclists Wreak Havoc in Hollister.” The story is picked up across the country, culminating with the infamous staged photo of a slovenly, drunken biker in Life magazine, who became our unelected representative. The image was burned into America's collective cornea and we've been dealing with the fallout ever since.

Since 1980, Edelweiss Bike Travel has been opening up the world to motorcyclists. The know-how that the savvy staff has accumulated from hundreds of successful tours makes it easier and more rewarding than ever to experience foreign travel on two wheels.

Triumph's Tiger 955i may present a conundrum for the categorically obsessed. Though tall, narrow and seemingly trail-ready, it is not a dirt bike. The Tiger may be built for comfort, but it is far from a cruiser. And, while minimally terrain flexible, it will never be confused with a dual sport. The Tiger, according to the current zeitgeist of marketing buzzwords, is classified as an adventure touring bike.

Tinkering with DNA rethinks a common perception.

Shrinking the size of our country.

Motorcycle Touring

Surely, every ride on a motorcycle is an adventure. It is a rediscovery of the temperature of the atmosphere, the intensity of the breeze, the angle of the sun and the texture of the highway. How, then, is it possible that some motorcycles have the title “Adventure Bike” conferred upon them, as if they provide an exclusive insight into an excursion?

Perspective with an eye toward the adventuresome.

The mad rush for gold that swept through California in the mid-to-late-1800s inspired a great many townships to spring up to accommodate the sudden influx of people eager to cash in on the boom. Unfortunately, the earthly riches proved less plentiful than the pioneers' avarice, and many of these once-burgeoning cities lost their luster and their populaces, fading rapidly into lonesome ghost towns.

Wyoming—97,100 square miles. 27,000 miles of paved and maintained roads. There are a mere 374 stoplights in the entire state, and there I sat on my black and chrome Harley ElectraGlide Classic in downtown Jackson waiting for one of them to turn green. In that moment, looking around, the buildings, the road, the traffic, the tourists, the civilization—all just seemed to fade away. I could feel a part of the early frontier, as written about by Pulitzer Prize–winning author A.B. “Bud” Guthrie, come to life.

BMW continues to astonish the motorcycling community by pulling ever more impressive rabbits out of its engineering hat. The latest creation from the Munich-based company, and relatively hot on the heels—in engineering and marketing terms—of the revolutionary K bike, is the all new HP2. Designed with the latest off-road technology and engineering, the HP2 (High Performance 2-cylinder) is a serious enduro machine which, as with the introduction of their GS bike some years ago, has BMW setting the bar in a whole new category of motorcycling.

When Ducati first unveiled its Multistrada in 2004, it was met with a kind of enthused skepticism. Many people did not know what to make of the tall, quirky, unconventional-looking motorcycle. Stylistically, it lacked the racing pedigree and sleek lines that imbued the other machines rolling out of the Bologna-based factory, which dutifully took its design cues from myriad road racing successes. Conversely, the Multistrada displayed the aggressive attitude of an off-road machine coupled with the street-smart aspects of the broadening upright/naked sector.

The first rule of an Edelweiss tour is reassuringly simple: You are never lost. “And in our case,” the tour guide added just prior to departing Barcelona, “as long as you don't cross a border, you know you're somewhere in Spain.” He had a point. And with that calming rationale wisely imparted to assuage any angst we intrepid adventurers might have, armed with an array of detailed maps, we were let loose upon Spain.