Just when you think Harley can’t surprise you any more - it surprises you even more.
I mean, this is a company which up until the turn of the century, had been producing fairly agricultural V-twins since dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
It’s a little-known fact that the reason the dinosaurs died out was because of boredom waiting for something new to come out of Milwaukee.
And when Milwaukee obliged in 2001 with the V-Rod, which looked stunning and was powered by a water-cooled Porsche-designed engine, Harley aficionados spurned it because it did weird stuff like accelerating, cornering and braking.
So you could have knocked me over with a wet lettuce last year when I rode the company’s astonishing LiveWire and found it to be the finest electric motorbike on the planet by far, if a tad pricey at £28,995.
And just when I was getting back up again, it comes up with the Pan America adventure bike, dreamed up several years ago when riders surveyed worldwide said they’d love to see Harley come up with one – not to mention the fact that adventure bikes have long been the fastest growing segment of the market.
Once the decision was made, a team under chief engineer Alex Bozmoski, or Boz to his friends, was given a clean sheet, a freshly sharpened pencil and a blank chequebook, and it shows – the attention to detail Boz went into in his technical briefing at the launch in Wales would have filled the entire Mirror, not just the bike page.
At the core of it is a 150bhp engine with bits of magnesium here and there for lightness, balancers for smoothness, variable valve timing and tuning for big torque at low rpm and smooth throttle response at low rpm.
To prove it all worked, Harley riders put a million test miles on the bike, half on and half off-road, since its research showed that a surprise 20% of adventure bike riders actually ride off-road.
Aye, right. My research shows that 19.999% of those are lying gits.
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Anyway, by the time Boz had finished his briefing, my brain had exploded, and it was time to ride, since I don’t use my brain for that anyway.
Walking up to the bike, Harley was right when it said the design was led by functional rather than form. Functional it is, and although it looks better in the flesh than in photos, rugged and purposeful is probably the biggest compliment it’s going to get from the Uppsala School of Exquisite Design.
As for the rectangular headlight nicked from the Fat Bob, you’ll love it or hate it, but rather cleverly, it peeks into dark corners when you lean into bends to stop you running into things that go bump in the night.
Climb aboard, and the sight that greets you includes good mirrors and an excellent 6.8in TFT screen which tells you everything you need to know at a glance. It also Bluetooths to your phone for navigation.
Start up, the air fills with a growl like a well brought up lion, with a lovely mix of smoothness and trademark Harley gnarliness, while the optional extra £600 Adaptive Ride Height gently raises the seat from low to high; a must for shorter 6ft 7in riders like me.
Ride off, and although the wet weight is 258kg, it’s hidden in the basement, making low speed handling a doddle.
Rather weirdly, the horn button is beside the indicator switch, so for the first couple of miles, I found myself honking once for left, twice for right.
Since it was chucking it down in Wales, astonishingly, I started off in Rain mode, which limits both power and power delivery, the other options being Road, Sport, and two off-road modes, or four in the high-tech Special version I was riding.
However, I got bored with Rain after 3.5 seconds, and a quick single-button toggle into Road made things much more interesting.
That engine is a peach, Harley’s best yet, with oodles of torque from low revs as promised and a joy if you keep it in the sweet spot between maximum torque at 6,750 and maximum power at 9,000rpm, although to be honest, you can ride it at much lower revs all day and be entirely happy.
With 150bhp flinging 258kg of bike at the horizon, progress was satisfyingly swift, even in Road mode.
Handling was light and neutral, if a little light at the front, although possibly because after a year of lockdowns, I was weighing down the back end as much as Dumbo the baby elephant.
Astonishingly, the rain had now stopped, so time for Sport mode, which not only produced more satisfyingly aggressive acceleration but fimed up the semi-active suspension noticiceably and got rid of that slight front end floatiness. Sorted.
The Brembo brakes need a firm pull to haul the bike in, but in Sport mode, you get lots of engine braking to help, a slipper clutch to stop the back wheel locking during aggressive downshifting, cornering ABS to stop you falling off in the corner, and cornering traction control to stop you falling off on the way out.
Good thing, too. Falling off hurts, and when Harley tested the bike up to 135mph with panniers, top box and pillion passenger – presumably Mrs Boz – neither she nor Boz fell off once.
And so to some off-roading at the adventure centre run by Dakar legend Mick Extance, and in spite of being an off-road idiot, the bike wrapped me up in a cuddly safety blanket of happy stability. Thanks, bike. Appreciated.
Remarkably, in spite of the squillions of hours and dollars Harley must have spent on research and design, the price is a surprising £14,000, or £15,500 for the high-spec Special.
That places it nicely above the £11,995 Yamaha Super Tenere 1200 and £13,705 base model BMW R 1250 GS (although very few GS owners buy the base model), and below the £14,999 KTM 1290 Super Adventure S, the £15,495 Ducati Multistrada V4 and £15,500 Triumph Tiger 1200.
With a 22% deposit and PCP at £159 a month, Harley has already sold 40% of its 2021 production of the bike before it’s even hit dealers.
Faults? Well, pretty it ain’t, as I said, and the range of colours, from dull to very dull, don’t help. But then when you’re riding it, you can’t see it - and ride it you will.
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