The gust came off a gap in the tree line on a farm road outside Austin, the kind of crosswind that doesn’t announce itself until the front end is already six inches off line, and twenty years on this style of bike I still felt my hands tighten on the bars before my brain caught up. That reaction – the grip, not the correction – is the first thing worth unlearning about crosswinds on something this heavy.
Category Archives: Touring & Road Craft
Packing a Cruiser for a Two-Week Tour
The panniers were out on the driveway by half past four, three separate piles that had already been rearranged twice, and the bike was still going to be over its rated load once I added two weeks of fuel stops. That is the part of touring nobody puts on a checklist: not what to bring, but what comes back off the pile, because a fully loaded flat-six with a pillion, camping gear and two weeks of clothes does not steer, brake or coast down a hill the way it does empty.