A couple of months ago, I got a few text messages from Evans Brasfield and Ryan Adams over at Motorcycle.com asking if I wanted to join them as a guest tester for an adventure bike story in South Dakota. Seeing as I’m writing about this, you can probably guess how I answered…
Yours truly is on the left. Photo by Evans Brasfield for Motorcycle.com
The original plan was to do a middleweight comparison with the Aprilia Tuareg 660, Ducati DesertX, Suzuki V-Strom 800, and Husqvarna Norden 901 Expedition. I only had prior experience with the Tuareg (I covered the worldwide press launch for RevZilla), so I was particularly excited to try out the other three.
I was most excited to try the DesertX, with the Husky a close second. Here’s Ryan with the Italian.
Unfortunately, Suzuki and Husky weren’t able to get Motorcycle.com test units in time, so the lovably-named “MOrons” had to pivot. Those bikes were replaced with a KTM 390 Adventure and a BMW R1250GS, and the story changed from a comparison of middleweight ADV bikes to an exploration of South Dakota on the spectrum of ADV bike sizes (from 390 to 1250). Selfishly, I was more excited by the ~800cc comparison idea, but my job was to just sit there, look pretty, and bring a good attitude!
The story has been live on Motorcycle.com for a month now (you can check it out here), but I thought it might be interesting to do a little behind the scenes. Hopefully you’ll agree!
First, I want to give a special shoutout to the big kahuna at Motorcycle.com – Evans Brasfield. I first met Evans years ago at a small industry event at Beach Moto. I had just started Bike-urious and no one knew who I was. I asked Evans a few questions about trying to break into the industry, and though I’m sure he’s been bothered by lots of other people with similar questions over the years, he was incredibly sincere and generous with his time. I’ll never forget it.
Evans with the Aprilia Tuareg 660.
Here we go…
May 12th, 2023 – Los Angeles, California to Keystone, South Dakota: ~1,300 miles
As you may have seen in a few other stories, I’ve been having friends who have been special to me in the world of motorcycling sign my Kramer track bike. The evening before I flew out, Gard Hollinger from ARCH was at the shop visiting with a buddy from Suter so I asked him to add his Ben Franklin to the bodywork and he kindly obliged:
Speaking of signatures, we had a cool set of Miguel Duhamel-signed boots come in. They went up for auction while I was on the flight to SD and have found a new home.
It was an early enough flight that I caught the sunrise in the air, which is another way of saying that the flight was too damn early.
Looking for a job in the “motorcycle industry”? An article I read on the plane suggests you may want to avoid being a repo man for Harley-Davidson.
As there isn’t a direct flight from LAX to Rapid City, South Dakota, we had a three-hour layover at the Denver Airport. Evans helped kill some of that time by treating me to a Voodoo Doughnut. I could have taken three hours just going through the menu…
Due to my days growing up outside of Boston, my donut weakness is a Dunkin’ Donut Boston Kreme so I went with the Portland Cream. Still, I appreciated the Simpsons reference and the look of “The Homer”.
Rapid City Regional Airport greeted us with heavy rain and a very kitschy interior.
Our base of operations was in Keystone, the gateway to Mt. Rushmore and a definite tourist trap. We were there outside of peak tourism dates – the good news is that there was plenty of room at the businesses that were open, the bad news is that very few businesses were actually open. Yelp led us to a decent place called Boss’ which had a surprising variety of pizzas and a few good local brews. The wait staff was also incredibly nice and the right amount of sassy.
The bikes were ready and waiting for us – we unloaded them out of the van, then Ryan and I decided to walk into town and explore Keystone a bit.
We walked by a wood carving shop called Dahl’s Chainsaw Art that was impossible to miss.
Ryan Adams for scale!
Feeling patriotic?
My favorite sculpture had to be this wooden motorcycle. I mistakenly forgot to pack a light waterproof jacket, so I ended up wearing my Alpinestars Bogota Pro out for the walk and it ended up sort of working out for this photo.
It’s even got gauges…sort of.
The above bike had a bear on the front, but there was another bike which was more eagle themed.
I got my first peek of Mt. Rushmore!
As Keystone is a tourist trap, there’s a few stores with silly t-shirts. Considering the amount of off-roading we were going to do, it felt like this shirt might have provided a little bit of foreshadowing.
Had to get a photo with this sign, even if it’s a different kind of Indian.
Ryan and I stopped at a local watering hole called the Red Garter Saloon to catch up while we waited for our colleagues to join us for dinner. I asked our server to suggest some local whiskeys and he knocked it out of the park. Problem is…I can’t remember what he recommended anymore because I forgot to write it down! Oops.
The Red Garter Saloon is attached to/affiliated with the Ruby House Restaurant. While the drinks at the saloon were great, the food/service in the restaurant was not. Ordering nachos in a rural midwestern area wasn’t our best idea.
After dinner, we saw a few bikes parked on the main drag.
I ended my night with a laugh, courtesy of a sticker of the back of the Gold Wing.
Tomorrow, we start riding to get acclimated to the routes and collect our thoughts on the bikes before filming starts!