NEW YORK -May 2, 2008 - Moto Guzzi USA recently announced that it has joined forces with American Motorcyclist Association Grand Tours in the establishment of the inaugural "Moto Guzzi Grand Tour of Italy in America," an innovative program which celebrates the passion of this important Italian motorcycle brand.

Imagine if your dentist told you of his plan to jump on a motorcycle and speed off on an around-the-world adventure with a purpose - to show that it's possible to deliver basic oral health care anywhere, using a minimal amount of instruments and materials. You are hardly going to advise him against it, especially if he has a drill in one hand and a sharp needle in the other!

Harvey Mushman pulled the rolling hangar door open, and the rising sun lit the school-bus-yellow Stearman biplane inside. He walked around the wing of the restored World War II trainer to the newest machine in the crowded shelter: a Triumph Scrambler. He rolled the bike out onto the taxiway, set it on its sidestand and went back in for his helmet and his old International Six Days Trial jacket, the one with the American flags stitched onto the shoulders.

"Put the two of us in a sack, I don't know which one would crawl out first. Right, sweetie?" Lazy maybe Monday morning in the Hotel Paraiso, and neither Ooh La La nor I are in any hurry to get out from under the mosquito net. She, because it's her once-a-week day off, and me, because, well, I'm scooched up with a 20-year-old Caribbean beauty queen called Ooh La La. What the hell is she doing here? Christ knows, but this ain't the time to get overanalytical. This is the time for a little slap'n'tickle. So pass me a handful of cordobas-I wanna spend a happy hour bouncing coins off that ripe apple arse of yours. Right, sweetie? "Right, sweetie."

In the Summer 2005 issue of Motorcycle Escape we promised a listing of resources for motorcycle tourers visiting Europe. In this resource guide, you'll find listing of clubs and organizations, motorcycle tour groups, rental sources, tourist agencies, and companies that will ship your motorcycle. In addition there is the test of a power of attorney that you can cut and paste into your word processor, print out and fill out.

These are the days, you know. The ones we'll remember when we look back with shaking hands and rutted brow. The days we'll tell stories about when the grandchildren come to visit. Certainly, the motorcycle adventures will be their favorites. The tales they will remember us for. Motorcycle adventures. What interesting old coots we'll be.

It's 30 vertical feet from the edge of the road I'm standing on to the bottom of the ravine. Looking beyond my boots to where scrubby brush fights for a toehold in the ragged clumps of earth, I figure 30 feet isn't that deep, er, at least as far as actual cliffs go. More importantly, though, I'm wondering if the guy I'd just seen tumble over the edge is still alive.

How does that saying go? Oh, yes: Bring an umbrella and it'll never rain. In the grand scheme of road-trip checks and balances, the likelihood of getting a flat tire seems directly proportional to the quality of your flat kit and the walking distance to the nearest help. (And let's not forget that the odds go way up when you're out of cell-phone range.)

These days, synthetic motorcycle touring jackets seem to be a dime a dozen. A nice problem to have, sure, but separating the wheat from the cheap is more difficult than ever. This past year, as we've explored the world we've simultaneously perused some popular touring-suit styles. You'll find six jacket/pant combos here that have survived extreme miles and scrutiny. While they aren't the only choices today, they are some of the best.

We are so rich. So lucky. America is a truly amazing country and we, as heirs to her bounty, have full privileges. The Grand Canyon? It's yours. Half Dome? It's mine. The roads to take us there? Just waiting. Here are 10 of our favorite rides. We collect these destinations much like children gather seashells or marbles. Some were found by instinct, others were gifts from readers who wrote in to let us know where to sniff for roses during our frequent wanderings around the country. The smell of a good ride is, of course, a blend of rain on hot asphalt and gas-station coffee. The sound is throttle and humming tires.

For any motorhead, the Isle of Man is hallowed ground, but if you happen to be a motorcycle enthusiast, blasting around this tiny spit of land in the middle of the Irish Sea is a dream come true. A lonely place much of the year, the little island becomes a circus of fast bikes, smoky burnouts and drunken debauchery each June. The nearly 100-year-old Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) races unfold over a two-week period, attracting zealous fans from every corner of the world.

President Thomas Jefferson was a man who kept incredible, detailed records, and some have speculated that this almost compulsive need to tally fueled his curiosity. While his predecessor, John Adams, had a true worldview, worrying about the French Revolution, Jefferson's sights were closer to home: He wanted to know everything about the new American West, a vast territory extending from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean. By the early 1800s, westward expansion had become a hot topic for the president, and he secretly ordered Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition to the area. Jefferson's motives were clear: "To explore the Missouri River and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean...may offer the most direct and practical water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce." Lewis and William Clark used a $2500 expansion stipend to assemble a team of 33. The expedition commenced on May 14, 1804 and ended on September 23, 1806 when Lewis, Clark and the aptly named Corps of Discovery returned to the heartland, leaving behind an 8000-mile trail of hardship and sacrifice and bringing home unfathomably hard-won knowledge.

There you are with a flat and nothing you can do about it. Unless, of course, you packed a flat kit. More suppliers offer full kits these days, and the kits have some similarities. Most will include a way to fix the hole in the tire--usually a tapered plug (with a special strip of ready-to-vulcanize rubber) or rope-style plugs. Stop & Go is unique in having a portable system using mushroom-shaped plugs; it produces both lightweight versions for the road and an installer gun that works equally well in the shop.

"It's nuts--we've been soaked for three days straight. Then you guys show up and suddenly it's sunny and 70!" These were the mixed tidings that greeted us at the hotel outside Valencia where Escape publisher Fred Koplin and I had arrived for an Edelweiss bike tour of southeastern Spain sponsored by Motorcyclist magazine. We weren't about to complain about our good fortune; apparently the rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain. From October through December, it falls anywhere it pleases, and when you're trying to negotiate the twisting caminos and careterras of the Spanish countryside astride a strange motorcycle, this can translate into a real predicament. Then again, if you've sprung for the luxury of a fully supported, organized tour from Edelweiss, such chaos won't dampen your experience.

There are periods of time during our adult lives when we need to spend more energy doing what we should do instead of what we want to do. I see that. We go through periods where we don't even notice days, weeks, even months as they swirl by, so much tepid water under the aged bridge. It sucks. But it's also probably necessary that we're bored at least part of the time, don't you think? Otherwise there wouldn't be anything to weigh our excitement against.

I confess. In keeping with my presidential nature, I have lusted in my heart. That's right, I see travel articles about riders who tour exotic lands, such as Brazil, China and New Zealand, and I want to be with them. Now don't get me wrong. I'm a pretty lucky guy. I live in Virginia, an area steeped in history whose proximity to the ocean, the Blue Ridge Mountains and the mysteries of West Virginia offers spectacular vistas and challenging roads. Still, there is a lot to be said for a change of venue.

The coastal road south of Rio de Janeiro was a breath of salty, beach-encrusted air, particularly when contrasted with the freeway out of town packed with manic Brazilian drivers and trucks belching diesel exhaust. The drive, much like the Brazil we tasted on a nine-day tour, blended the teeming wheels of a highly industrialized nation with the tan-and-turquoise beaches and overwhelmingly green rainforests of a tropical paradise.

"Excess." The word begs to be pondered. If we're talking a little extra sugar on the beignet, a little more spice to the chili pot, more is definitely better. But, of course, there's a point where more becomes overkill, and frankly, the direction of these new bikes opens up that concept for debate. "Fun" is another word we are always intrigued by, and these new mega cruisers are undeniably amusing. We dare anyone to twist the throttle on any bike in this trio and not come away with a wicked smile. So the idea of combining excess and fun sounded like a logical theme for testing and comparing these machines. That's how we ended up in Texas. Big bikes, big intentions, big state, Big Bend National Park you see the thread.

Editor's Note: Our first contact with Keith Kimber and Tania Brown came in early 1998 when a thick and tattered manila envelope arrived at our office. In it was an outline of an almost unbelievable around-the-world story, and some of the most stunning bike-touring photography we'd ever seen. Turned out that, way back in 1983 the pair had, in their early 20s, quit their jobs, bought a well used CX500 Honda for $1400 and taken off to see the world. We were so impressed with their tale we published a large chunk of the story in our April, 1999 issue. By mid 1998, Keith and Tania were heading across the United States toward Alaska and a new chapter in their (now) 18-year, tour the world by motorcycle adventure.

Yes, we know KTM's 950 Adventure S looks like Picasso's take on an off-road rally racer--the big-boy dirt bikes designed to get to unpronounceable places ahead of all those other guys with unpronounceable names. Mainly because that's exactly what it is--a barely streetified version of the bikes KTM has been using to shred the egos of its World Rally competition.

There isn't much to do between Oklahoma and New Mexico at 6:54 a.m. A tiny computer maintains forward progress, inhaling exactly 80 miles of Interstate 40 West each hour. The pyrotechnics inside six fuel-injected cylinders are all but imperceptible at 3400 revs in top cog. The fairing whittles a stiff, North Texas headwind down to light gusts around the elbows--and a digital cockpit readout is the only tangible evidence of the edgy, 40-degree air outside. Full tank of gas. Emmylou Harris on the CD player; between Boulder and Birmingham, she says. Life is good.

Since this is the premiere issue of Motorcycle Escape, we haven't had any actual readers writing in with questions, so we won't pretend we have. In the decades our staff has spent fielding queries at this magazine's sister publications, Motorcyclist, Sport Rider, Dirt Rider and Motorcycle Cruiser (56 years, collectively), we can certainly convey the most frequently asked tour-oriented questions.

How can four motorcycles competing in the same category be so different? Take a look at the engines of our sport-touring combatants: a boxer twin, a V-twin, a V-4 and an in-line triple. Check out their frames: two of the bikes have aluminum-beam frames with single-sided swingarms, one has a steel trellis frame and conventional swingarm and one utilizes a combination steel and aluminum deal with an alternative front fork. Now consider their origins: Germany, Italy, Japan and England.

We all love traveling across mountain passes, right? They're visually rewarding, physically demanding and mentally cleansing--but they also pose a dilemma when it comes to choosing attire. While the warm air in the valley stays heated by the sun, the temperature at the peak may be below freezing. What do you wear without changing clothes? BMW proposes that you wear your own air.

You're just as likely to find me roosting about on a Suzuki DRZ400 as cutting a rut on a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide. Needless to say, the idea of "dual-sport" appeals to me in a motorcycle and in a helmet.