Caution: Swarming Hipsters.

From Silver Lake to Wicker Park, from Williamsburg to the Mission District, from Portlandia to Austin and on the industrial outskirts of every college town in between, these annoying hipsters are everywhere you turn. You stand by and sigh as they slouch and smirk in their skinny jeans and perfectly tousled hair, grilling the barista on whether or not their $4.50 coffee is Certified Fair Trade (meanwhile, they have no problem paying $5 for a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon).

You can’t escape their entitled whines: guys with scarves and designer sneakers grumble about the infrequency of their unemployment checks as they tap furiously on $2,000 MacBook Pros; girls with shaved temples and tattooed sleeves loudly mock their boss’ fashion sense in one breath and wail that no one takes them seriously in the next. Their haughty blogs clutter the internet, their bumptious mugs crop up on TV.

And now the gnats have infested our passion.

On pre-fab café racers they zip around, oblivious and/or indifferent. They race through parking lots, pass on the right, split lanes perilously and make rights on reds without envisioning a stop, all the while checking themselves out in rearview mirrors and storefront windows. Taunting their parents’ insurance deductibles is sport to these insufferable imps. It used to be that biker gangs gave motorcyclists a bad name. These days, it’s all we can do to keep from swatting at the maddening horde.

The hipsters’ rides of choice are an eclectic mix, as it’s almost impossible to be cool if you’re on the same bike as thousands of other riders. Our informal polling brought up dozens of bikes appreciated by hipsters, and we’ve distilled them down to an easy-to-digest 10 choices. Plus a bonus pick, as we can’t be hip if we just stick to the rules.

Yesterday aboard the 2012 Honda Gold Wing was quite an eye opener. I had shared my impressions of some of the upgrades to the new Wing in blog posts earlier in the week (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3), but these focused mostly on some comfort and convenience updates and the bike’s ability to eat up open stretches of pavement.

But on this day we put the Wing to a completely different test: the Tail of the Dragon, US 129 in North Carolina. Yes, this sinuous climb consisting of some 318 turns in just 11 miles isn’t what you’d think of when discussing the merits of the heavy Gold Wing, but its capabilities on such a road re-surprised us – and at least one supermoto rider.

I bring this up because BMW’s new K1600 GTL has raised the game in the luxury-touring category, as we found out when we rode it at its press introduction earlier this year. Its lighter package and stronger motor clearly has more sporting potential, relegating the portly Wing to second place in terms of twisty-road prowess.

But that fact unfairly overshadows how well the Gold Wing comports itself when ridden aggressively. The 1832cc flat-Six motor has a deep well of power, pulling quite strong from as low as just 2000 rpm and quickly building speed through its bountiful midrange.

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If you’ve read with us so far (Day 1, Day 2), you already know we’re on a journey from Virginia to Tennessee on the 2012 Honda Gold Wing. Yesterday we shared how the Wing, improved for 2012, reacted on a rainy day in the curves of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

This time, I can report the stately Wing effortlessly pounds out superslab miles. It all starts with terrific wind protection, while hands are treated to adjustable levers and five-position heated grips. In front of a rider is a classy analog instrument panel with outsized dials, underlined by a large color screen that displays your choice of more things than I have time to write about here!

A CB radio kept us in touch with the group, while an XM radio with surround sound provided a vast array of music selections. Three cockpit storage bins (two lockable) give the pilot space for small items, while two fold-out bins in the passenger’s armrest provide room for your better half’s things.

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The Honda Gold Wing is a veritable icon among touring motorcycles, offering an unrivaled blend of two-up luxury conveyance and a level of sporting prowess unheard of from a 900-pound bike. More than 640,000 have been sold since its introduction way back in 1975.

The latest generation debuted in 2001, boasting an aluminum-framed chassis and stout and smooth six-cylinder engine that made it king of the long roads. Now, a year after moving production from Marysville, Ohio, to Kumamoto, Japan, Honda has delivered a revitalized Gold Wing for the 2012 model year.

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