New Bike Who Dis?
Yes, gone is the fire-breathing Italian that I’ve enjoyed for the past 2.5 years. The ‘12 Ducati Diavel was absolutely crazy, especially when coming from a Buell XB9. Upon test riding, the dealer could not sell it to me quickly enough.
During the time I had the Diavel, an aftermarket exhaust and a DynoJet tuner made their way onto the bike. It was an absolute hoot, and borderline scary. I thoroughly enjoyed flying around the rolling hills of southern PA, as well as going on group rides with my dad and his fellow Harley land yacht owners.
However, at some point, I realized this beautiful machine was no longer the one for me, with the main problem being travel ability. Sure, I could’ve got some side bags and a taller windscreen, but I felt that doing so would be forcing Roxy into a role she didn’t want. To me, she was simply a comfortable superbike, and she did NOT like going slow or just cruising on the highway. Eventually, my desire of going on long trips with a motorcycle led me to the inevitable, I needed to find a new bike.
The list of demands from a new bike was: good windscreen, cruise control, heated grips, good ergonomics, available bags, and most importantly - it couldn’t be boring. So I did the obvious and googled what the best sport-touring motorcycles were and ended up with the following shortlist: Ducati Multistrada V4, BMW S1000XR, and KTM Superduke GT.
The first stop was to ride a friend’s Superduke GT, which was too far on the sports side of sport-touring for me. So that left the BMW and the Ducati, to which I found a fantastic dealer, and was able to test ride them back to back. The decision was made to try and find a base Multistrada V4, which proved fairly impossible without going across the country.
While I was juggling that problem, my dad was also in the market for a new bike. I, of course, went along to look at the numerous bikes he had found to look at. One weekend we ended up at a Harley dealer that had a new Pan America demo. The new Harley was not even on my radar, given my personal low-ish opinion of the brand, and their pension for making 900lb land yachts that I had zero interest in. But while dad was taking his bike for a test ride, I figured I’d take out the Pan America for something to do, and boy was I wrong about it.
It checked all the boxes and was a surprising amount of fun. the engine was no slouch, and with the bike put in sport mode, it reminded me of my Diavel. After a few weeks of finding one, and dealing with my own personal Harley dilemma, I found myself trading in the Diavel and bringing one home.
