Since we have a lot of German Scenic users, for this MIR, I decided to pick an Epic Ride through the beautiful country of Germany. And what a route it is. Around 10.000 kilometers (≈ 6,000 miles) of amazing roads along famous sites, motorcylce museums, beautiful views and much much more. The route was put together by the German motorcycle design engineer Friedel Münch during the traditional Vogelsberg Motorbike Festival. It consists of 4 parts, the north, south, east and west route. Here’s a tasty description in English and here are PDFs of the route maps.

As a rider hailing from the Netherlands, rain is not something that stops me from getting to my destination, but not being able to use the clutch or front break does. Having your gloves soaked is just terrible and can even become painful if you ride in near freezing temperatures. Therefore, I recommend Klim Forecast Split Finger gloves. They keep your hands nice and dry and block the rain and wind from entering your gloves. Live long and prosper 😉

During my riding years, I found myself constantly struggeling with helmet noise. So recently I decided to dive deep, and I mean very deep, into this topic. In this article I investigate, through science, experiences and research papers, what exactly causes the noise and how it can be reduced by modifications to your motorcycle, your gear and hearing protection. The results might surprise you.

Checking the brakes should be a routine part of any motorcycle garage check-up, but I recommend to inspect them yourself every once in a while. When you start hearing squeaky sounds when braking, you should probably check the friction lining on the brake pads. If the lining is less than 2mm, you should probably change them. When you start hearing a scraping metal on metal noise, you should immediately replace the pads as the contact might damage the brake rotors.

Brake pad life really depends on your driving style, the weight of the bike and the terrain you’re driving in. In a traffic-jungle like Mexico-City, I noticed that I burn through rear-pads at breakneck speed, but I’m still on my first pair of front brake pads after almost 30,000 km / 18,640 mi.

This picture was sent in by Lisa. It pictures her Indian Springfield 2016 (she calls her Siouxsie) on the Million Dollar Highway: “11 friends and I traveled from Chicago, Illinois to the Colorado. We started in the NE corner with a temperature over 80 and 40 plus MPH winds. We traveled for 6 days through the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Along the way we rode the highest paved road in North America at the top of Mt Evans, one of the most expensive roads ever built (the Million Dollar Highway), went down into a canyon so deep and steep that parts of it only get 20 minutes of sun a day, and encountered temps from 100 degrees Fahrenheit at 4 corners in the furthest southeast corner of the state down to 30’s at the top of Pikes Peak at over 14,000 feet elevation. All in all an epic journey, and all the routes were navigated with Scenic.”