“Just a good old boys,
Never meanin’ no harm,
Beats all you never saw,
Been in trouble with the law since the day they was born,
Straightening the curves, yeah,
Flattenin’ the hills,
Someday the mountain might get ’em, but the law never will,
Makin’ their way the only way they know how,
That’s just a little bit more than the law will allow…”
Waylon Jennings
This may not be your idea of a Harley. Just know it’s faster than your 2012 Evo.I’m fairly certain a few good ol’ boys from Appalachia had a big hand in creating the Pan America. Which, as an aside, is still the most polarising motorcycle Harley makes. And I understand why.
“What in tarnation business does Harley got makin’ a hog like this here?” they say.
It’s quite the cry-out.
I posted a few pictures up on my socials the other day when I took my wife and the new Pan America out for the day, and one bloke started raging.
Here’s a blue one I rode at the press launch.To his mind, the Pan America was not a “real Harley”, and his 2016 Evo was in every way a “superior machine”, he declared. Hell yeah!
Had he ridden a Pan America? Hell no!
Ain’t no need to be doin’ anything like when you just know, in your heart and soul, your ten-year-old Evo is a superior machine.
The Revolution Moonshine Max engine is a wonderful thing.Ain’t no usin’ yer fancy reasonin’ words on them types. So, I don’t even try.
But just so you know, there is not a Harley built in 2016 that is any way shape or form an objectively better bike than every Harley built in 2026. That ain’t how the world of motorcycles works, now is it?
The Brembos do come in handy.But let’s not stray too far away from the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky, Lurleen. Because that’s where I feel the wild hillbilly soul of the Pan America comes from.
It’s the only possible place it could come from. No-one in California had anything to do with it because it’s not an EV. New York wasn’t involved because it has no pronouns. That leaves the Deep South and the Rust Belt – and it’s possible Texas had a hand in the Pan America, but then it would have been called the Pan Texas. So my money is on those good ol’ boys in Appalachia. May the good Lord bless ’em.
I think some of the lettering could be bigger. Or that could just be an old bloke complaint.Now, you gotta wonder why Milwaukee persists in building the Pan America. Simple. It’s not a huge seller in Australia, but it does quite OK in its core US market. After it was launched in 2021, it became the biggest-selling Adventure bike in the USA. The bar-and-shield logo means a lot to the Americans.
Sure, some folks got all messed up because the Pan America was not the alleged off-road marvel like BMW’s GSA was. But it was never meant to be.
The Pan America is a great touring bike with quite decent off-road abilities – which, just quietly, is what the GSA is. You want serious off-road abilities? You will shop elsewhere. Most people who buy these so-called Adventure bikes will spend most of their time riding on the bitumen, anyway. And they want a bike that does that comfortably and well, can carry lots of gear, a pillion in comfort, and can carve corners with ease. But if you decide to point yourself down some fire-trail to see what dragons might be there, then your “Adventure” bike better happy to do that too.
My wife, Lynette, loved it. She did mention the top-box would be better if it was refrigerated. Something about lipstick melting. But how good would a refrigerated top-box be?The Pan America has that happiness.
Your happiness is also addressed. There be 150 horses and 128Nm of torque in the Revolution Max engine. It’s 263kg wet, and the seat sits less than 850-feet-flat-on-the-ground-mm when you’re at a standstill, thanks to its brilliant automatic adaptive height system. I loved this feature from the get-go. A bike that automatically lowers itself when you’re coming to a stop, then raises itself up when you ride off? Yes, please. The other brands all started playing catch-up on their adventure bikes after that, just as I said they would.
I am receiving helpful instructions.It’s got semi-active Showa electronic suspension (and it’s really good), linked Brembos front and rear, and a whole mess of top-end rider aids like selectable on- and off-road ride modes, lean-sensitive ABS, hill-hold control, lean-sensitive traction control, and wheelie control. And the gearbox shifts smooth and quiet – a quality Harley has never really been famous for.
So, yes. That there makes it the fastest point-to-point Harley ever made. You can cane the red-haired cousin out of the Pan America. It’s more than up for it.
You wanna do single-track enduro on it? Best you know what you’re up to then. And I’d tell you the same thing for a GSA, chief.
By any objective measure, the Pan America is quite the capable, comfortable, raucous-sounding, brute-faced, mile-killer that attracts only the very finest heathens.
So, of course a bunch of hillbillies had a six-fingered hand in it. There ain’t many sealed roads up in the Ozarks. But you do have to come off the mountain to go into town now and again, right?
And sometimes, when you come down offa that mountain, you might need to get the hell back up that damn mountain in a hurry. Well, that right there is what we’re talking about, Billy Joe.
You can go spearin’ off the tar like a flamin’ sumbitch and straight onto that old dirty road grand-pappy done carved outta the hill iffn you done got to. Hell yeah and yee-haw!
It corners like no Harley before. Obviously.This, I’m thinking, is also why the Pan America also looks the way it does – which is like no other motorcycle, Adventure or otherwise, on this earth.
Hillbilly Corn-Liquor Brutalist right there. Truthfully, I wasn’t taken with it when I first saw it. But you know what? It’s really grown on me in the last few years. It’s blatant rogue “otherness” speaks to me. Especially when it comes in hate-blood orange. Yeah, paint is important. And this is the best colour ever for the Pan America. Harley was orange waaaay before KTM decided to go that way.
So what’s wrong with it? Wrong question, Jim-Bob. Whatever electronic gremlins the first models came out with have long been sorted. The question you gotta ask is: What could Harley do better on the Pan America?
It is a proper long-haul tourer.Firstly, there’s the side-stand. Yes, it sits in a strange place. The tab to access it is just forward of the gear-lever. But you get used to that. Eventually. The actual issue for me is you need to tilt the bike a touch to the right to deploy the stand. Otherwise, the stand snags the road. No biggie, you think? When the surface under your right foot is a bit iffy, you have to be careful doing that. You lose your footing and you’re gonna have a bad day, Cletus. Don’t try to plough through that stump, boy.
And the hand-guards are…well, fragile. I kept bumping them off the end of the handlebars, because they just kinda “click” on there. And off there. I’m not even sure what that’s about. Proper hand-guards are solidly fixed to the handlebar-ends.
Those are the two things Harley could improve on. And every tub must sit on its own bottom.
My missus loved it. She was comfy, and when I was flogging the cousin out of it, she admired how hard it went. I have never bought a bike with any consideration for the pillion, but I know some people do, so I’m just telling you.
What I really liked about it is even more basic. I’m pretty simple that way. So, I told you I liked its looks already. It’s just so different.
I liked its keys. There’s a fob you carry to start the thing (not a fan of fobs) but you need a key to open the petrol cap and lock it up at night.
She explained she wasn’t really hitchhiking.I also like the noise it makes. At speed it’s a combo of induction and mechanical sub-roaring, best I can figure. At idle it sounds like a big KTM.
And I really like how people react to it when they see the bar-and-shield logo. Lots of them are blown away by the fact something looking like this is a Harley.
Purists (and I hate calling them that so it’s the last time I will), or more to the point, fetid old wannabe-outlaws symbiotically wedded to the Harley brand like Mormon child-brides, turn up their noses at it. I sometimes notice that when I’m overtaking them.
The Pan America’s crazy hillbilly otherness really works for me in that regard. The fact it’s great fun to ride, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, is just an added bonus.
HOW MUCH? $28,995
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