Everything To Know About Harley-Davidson Pan America Motorcycles
The image that most people have of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle is usually the lusciously loud, chromed, beefy Wide Glide or Fat Boy ridden by rough-and-tumble outlaw bikers (or weekend warriors who want to portray them). But that image needs to be readjusted, as in early 2021, the all-American cruiser maker got into the adventure motorcycle game with the Pan America.
An adventure bike (also known as an ADV) is a street-legal version of an enduro-style off-road dirt bike that can not only be ridden comfortably for long distances on asphalt paved streets but along rutted trails and up steep inclines made up of loose rock and dirt — not an easy feat to accomplish.
The first of these ADVs appeared in 1980 when BMW unleashed the R80 G/S, about a decade before the term "adventure bike" was invented. The G/S stands for Gelände/Straße (roughly "ground" and "street"), referring to its ability to ride perfectly fine in both environments.
Perhaps contributing to adventure biking's popularity over the last twenty years started when acclaimed actor Ewan McGregor and his friend and fellow actor Charlie Boorman set out on the first of three globetrotting motorcycle rides covering more than 46,000 miles and dozens of countries. Each season of the well-received docu-series probably made a lot of people want to go the long way just about everywhere.
Touring becomes detouring
For the last four decades, the ADV market has been ruled by the likes of BMW, Honda, Yamaha, and KTM, which has the most manufacturer wins at the Dakar Rally. So when Harley dropped the Pan America 1250 and Pan America Special 1250 in 2021, jaws dropped.
These weren't your typical Hogs by any stretch of the imagination but were so well constructed that they quickly became recognized as one of the best Harleys ever made. It's quite the accomplishment for a manufacturer who only recently tipped its toe into a much bigger pond beyond big, bulky cruisers.
The Pan America is powered by a liquid-cooled 1,250cc V-twin called the Revolution Max 1250. The 150 hp 76.4 cubic inch V-twin design (producing 94 lb-ft of torque) mated to a six-speed gearbox may actually be better than the flat-twin layout of BMW bikes as it not only makes the Harley slimmer than BMWs but also has better protection against the spills that are part and parcel of adventure riding.
A base model weighs 534 pounds (wet); the Special 559 pounds. Both are a tad heftier than many other ADVs on the market despite the Revolution Max being directly integrated into the bike as the central member of the chassis. It was designed with low-end torque and a low-speed throttle, both of which are must-haves while riding in hazardous off-road conditions. And while it typically uses a belt drive on their bikes, the Pan America has a chain.
Definitely one cool ADV
Other head-scratching, paradigm-shifting anomalies — not usually found on an H-D bike but are on the ADV — is a 6.8-inch color TFT screen that displays ride data, GPS maps, and all the other important things (i.e., speedometer, gear, odometer, fuel level, clock, trip, low temp alert, side stand down alert, TIP over alert, cruise, range, and tachometer). It's also Bluetooth-capable for phone and headset pairing.
Daymaker Signature LED lights wrap the bike (headlight, tail/stop light, bullet turn signals), and the headlight moves to illuminate the area ahead of where the motorcycle is turning.
Riders can choose from five pre-programmed Ride Modes (Sport, Road, Rain, Off-Road, and Off-Road Plus) and even input their own custom mode. The AVD is also equipped with a Cornering Enhanced Antilock Braking System (C-ABS) and Cornering Enhanced Traction Control System (C-TCS), which gets the bike through turns as efficiently and safely as possible.
The optional Adaptive Ride Height feature lowers seat height when the bike comes to a stop. What's more, while at speed, the system constantly senses weight input and can sustain the most favorable suspension sag by fine-tuning preload.
Given all that, it's not hard to see why Harley-Davidson's Pan America is now considered one of the coolest adventure motorcycles you can buy.