#tourer

First introduced by Indian in 2015, the Roadmaster built on the Chieftain platform, adding additional touring and luxury features. Now, the company is releasing a Roadmaster variant, the 2017 Indian Roadmaster Classic. If the Roadmaster was a Chieftain with a trunk, the Classic is a Roadmaster for fans of leather.

The Honda Pacific Coast 800 is not a motorcycle I think about very often. In fact, I hadn’t thought about it at all until Tom Roderick nominated it as one of his choices for Top 10 Disappointing Motorcycles. Then, once a search result popped up after typing Pacific Coast into the MO search bar, I had a feeling the subject of this week’s Church feature was presenting itself. After reading the first impression below of the Honda Pacific Coast from the 1998 MO staff, I knew we had a winner. If you’re curious about the “Station wagon of motorcycles” then you owe it to yourself to check out the story below.

Peace, love and understanding is what we’re all about here at MO, man, and on this excellent junket to the great Midwest, we made some serious inroads. One dinner, after a day spent rolling along the east bank of the Mississippi through springtime Illinois and Wisconsin, Editorial Director Sean Alexander (who thinks the Aprilia Tuono is the perfect casual traveling bike) actually admitted that the bikes we were on were ideally suited to our ride. Well, hello. He also admitted it was his first time riding in “flyover country.”

When Can-Am introduced the Spyder F3 last year, the company knew that some potential customers had requested a more cruiser-ish riding position from their three-wheeler, but I’d be willing to bet that they had no idea how many sales the change would drive. After less than one year, the F3 accounts for almost 20% of Spyder sales. Then came the owner surveys that notched the overall satisfaction level at a whopping 93%! I can only guess that the product planners were patting themselves on the back for creating the F3 as a platform and not merely a model in Spyder’s inventory since the biggest requests from F3 owners and prospective owners were more wind protection and storage from the naked roadster. (Yes, we know there was the F3-S, which is really just an optional F3 trim package. We also know Can-Am calls the Spyder a cruiser, but the roadster title feels more appropriate.)

KTM’s 1290 Super Duke R blew us away this year, beating all rivals in an exhaustive bout of Streetfighter competition because of its blend of incredible power and accommodating ergonomics. Its exceptional performance and versatility earned it our Motorcycle of the Year award.

Baggers are a big deal these days, making up something like half of the cruiser market according to Victory’s experts. Victory’s newest attempt to supply what the market demands is this highly customized version of its pre-existing Cross Country, dubbed Magnum.

Harley-Davidson revealed the new SuperLow 1200T, adding a light-touring Sportster model to its already impressively growing 2014 product lineup. Equipped with a detachable windscreen and quick-detach saddlebags and a price starting at $11,799, the SuperLow 1200T becomes the smallest and most affordable touring model among Harley-Davidson’s current offerings.

Rivalry (ˈrīvəlrē) n., Competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field.

In what had to be one of the most anticipated reveals in motorcycle cruiser history, Polaris boldly used the backdrop of the world’s largest motorcycle rally to unleash the latest generation of Indians on the motorcycling community. On the steps of the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and in the shadow of the Black Hills, notice was served with a loud and clear report: Indian Motorcycle is back.