OLD SOULS

You can go farther on many bikes, and faster on others. There are many motorcycles that would also give you greater comfort and convenience. But, I ask you, are you here to ride free on comfort and convenience? Nice to have, sure, but we are here for fun. And so are these five bikes. They represent pure joy and personality, the essential spirit of good times on two wheels. There is retro inspiration here, but these are modern motorcycles with ride-enhancing tech that generally runs unnoticed in the background while your smile leads you down the road.

What’s particularly compelling here is that each bike represents a spiritual and cultural path related to the heritage of its manufacture and design. So even if the actual engineering that’s created them is becoming more similar on the inside (see TDC, page 20), we are looking at great standard-style machines that bring the best of their national origins forward into modern expression.

That is, the inspiration for the Indian FTR 1200 S is American flat track; the Ducati Monster 1200 S channels the best of Italian superbikes; the BMW R nineT brings us classic German roadster vibes; and, well, the last two are slightly different. The Husqvarna Svartpilen does bring classic Swedish dirt bike/tracker vibes with its big single-cylinder engine and stylish number-plate-like bodywork, but it’s obviously got more going on. And the Triumph Scrambler 1200 XC is sort of a modern interpretation of the TR6 Trophy, the do-it-all 650cc twin that dominated desert and scrambles racing in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s a bit of Britain, via the California high desert, with a dash of modern adventure bike.

This is normally where we say we gathered at our Irvine, California, headquarters after getting full performance numbers and running all the bikes on our in-house Dynojet 250i dyno, and then hit the road. Then we’d complain about lane-splitting for three hours to get out of the great Southern California sprawl. Which is exactly what we did: lane-split for three hours