Motorcycle Features
In this section you’ll find motorcycle-related feature articles including biographies, technical endeavors, historical spotlights and other articles that focus on interesting aspects of motorcycling culture. If it’s not a road test, motorcycle spotlight, news, gear, rally, blog or tour article, you’ll find it here!
Wandering the Hallowed Halls of the Harley-Davidson Museum and Factory
Jim Petersen
October 9, 2012
I am old school, which may explain why I am lost. When you ride a Harley you don’t need no stinking GPS, no dang MapQuest, no thumbtwaddle smartphone. I rattle through the deserted, impersonal industrial section of Milwaukee in search of the Iron Horse Hotel. I pull over to ask directions from a guy... Read more »
Motorcycle Travel Through the Rocky Mountains
Don Metz
October 8, 2012
The high mountain passes of the Rocky Mountains are an incomparable motorcycle touring experience, ringing with the legacy of tens of thousands of gold prospectors who fearlessly blazed trails across them in search of riches. Sunsets over the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains are often a spectacular... Read more »
Cloverleaf Around Yakima, Washington
Alan Paulsen
September 11, 2012
When I last visited my friends Brian and Pam Rafferty in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to develop an article (Connecting the Dakotas, Rider, August 2009), they weren’t of a mind to leave one of America’s most livable cities. Well, the economic travails of the times dictated that they pull up stakes... Read more »
Motorcycle Man Overcomes Huge Loss in Colorado’s High Park Fire
Heather Reinhart
August 13, 2012
Motorcycling is everything to Jim Key. He got his first motorcycle at the age of 10 and has gone on to make a living doing what he loves. He owns and runs a videography business filming motorcycle trips and races, and has been all over the world on a bike. Jim met his wife, Jeannie, at a motorcycle rally... Read more »
Motorcycle Travel in Hope, Whistler and the Sea to Sky Highway
Ken Bingenheimer
August 8, 2012
It was noon when my wife, Judy, and I left the rental shop in Vancouver where we had picked up the 2011 Harley-Davidson we would be riding the next few days. The GPS on the Electra Glide Ultra Limited had been set to guide us out of town to Hope along British Columbia 7. From there we planned to double... Read more »
Motorcycle Travel in Iowa: Taking The Old Lincoln Highway Across The Hawkeye State
Clement Salvadori
July 24, 2012
Story and Photos By Clement Salvadori I was a little concerned about riding through Iowa in June of 2011. Nothing to do with bandits, earthquakes or extra-terrestrial beings, just two big rivers. That spring, middle America was in full flood, with huge amounts of snow melting and heavy rains, and I was... Read more »
Alaska Roadhouse Run: The Valdez to Fairbanks Trail
Dennis Bible
July 6, 2012
(This story was published in the July 2012 issue of Rider magazine.) Story and photos by Dennis Bible When gold was discovered in the 1890s in the Klondike and later in Fairbanks, one of the fastest ways for prospectors to get to the gold fields was a steamship ride from San Francisco or Seattle to Valdez,... Read more »
2012 Rider Staff Camping Challenge
Rider Magazine Staff
July 5, 2012
Ride to Live, Live to Camp——THE 2012 RIDER CAMPING CHALLENGE In spite of our best efforts to provide for Murphy’s Law around here, things can still turn out wrong, go sideways, and end up messier than a soup sandwich. Our plans for a camping comparison test of the new Suzuki V-Strom 650 and 1000... Read more »
Riding U.S. 20 from Albany to Buffalo, N.Y.
Clement Salvadori
July 5, 2012
(This story was published in the July 2012 issue of Rider magazine.) Story and photos by Clement Salvadori My duties at Americade, up in Lake George, New York, were finished by noon—I could have been in Buffalo by nightfall, had I chosen to hustle along the Interstates. But that’s not much fun; might... Read more »
Border Run: Montorcycle Travel in Washington and Canada
Ben Getz
June 26, 2012
(The article Border Run was printed in the August 2012 issue of Rider.) Story and photos by Ben Getz Good things come in threes, they say…or is that disasters? Well, maybe it’s not that important, since both descriptions have been applied to my friends and me. One hot August weekend my disparate... Read more »
