Powerful, comfortable and capable on road and off, the Harley-Davidson Pan America remains one of the most compelling adventure tourers on the market.

Words: Pete Vorst / Photography: Motohead Media

Five years ago, in the year of our Lord 2021, the world was a very different place. Trump was between shifts, and Sleepy Joe was president of the US of A. AI wasn’t really a thing for us regular folk, and the big-bore adventure bike market was in a state of flux.

BMW’s ageing and soon-to-be-replaced R 1250 GS was still top of the pops, KTM had just reinvented its 1290 Super Adventure, and Ducati was ushering the Multistrada into a new era with the V4 Granturismo engine, while new bikes from Triumph and Suzuki were just around the corner. Then, out of the blue, Harley decided to crash the party with a clean-sheet adventure tourer that looked like it had been designed by a bloke with a ruler, a bad attitude and a ready supply of psychedelics.

When the Pan America first landed, it certainly turned heads. The square headlight and slab-sided styling reminded many people of something you’d find sitting in the corner of a lounge room in the 1970s pretending to be a vacuum cleaner.

Harley-Davidson ignored convention and built something that looked unlike anything else on the market. As someone once wrote of Cold Chisel’s lengthy career, you can’t go out of fashion if you were never in fashion, and I reckon the Pan America is living proof of that. Five years on, I’ve come to genuinely appreciate its unapologetically industrial styling. It still looks tough, it still stands out in a sea of increasingly vanilla adventure bikes and, perhaps most importantly, there’s absolutely no mistaking what it is when one rumbles past.

Looks are subjective, of course, and you can have a bike as distinctive as you like, but that doesn’t mean squat if it doesn’t do what it says it can do on the tin. But, Harley’s first attempt at giving unto the world an adventure tourer yielded a machine that was every bit as capable as its rivals. The question is, five years on, can it still do the business?

In short. Yes, yes it can.

A big part of the Pan America’s appeal, and why it not only works but works well, comes down to the thing between your legs. No, not that, you filthy animal. The Pan America’s water-cooled, VVT (variable valve timing)-infused Revolution Max engine.

The Revolution Max revs far harder than any traditional Harley twin, and it isn’t all piss and vinegar either. There’s 150 horsepower on tap at 9,000 rpm and 127 Nm of torque at 6,750 rpm. Serious numbers for an oversized chook chaser. It still has enough V-twin character to remind you it’s from Milwaukee, but it’s a completely different experience. If you’ve only ever ridden traditional big-twin Harleys and think you know what you’re in for, you don’t.

There’s torque en masse for when you’re punching it up a dirt hill, enough mid-range punch to cause grey nomads to have conniptions over the ferocity of your overtaking manoeuvres, and enough top end to have you leaving stains on your underwear.

It’s an engine perfectly suited to its adventure tourer remit. Whether you’re punching out touring miles, carving back roads or tackling fire trails, it’s a gem of a powerplant.

The six-speed gearbox is a peach (I didn’t think I’d ever say that about a Harley box). Shifts are positive and slick, unlike the agricultural-feeling and -sounding standard Harley fare. The standard bi-directional quickshifter works beautifully, and the clutch action is light enough that your left hand won’t be screaming after a day in the saddle.

The whole powertrain is smoother, sharper and more refined than anything wearing a Bar and Shield since the V-Rod.

Harley has wrapped that engine in a great chassis that’s good both on and off the sealed stuff. With its long 1,585 mm wheelbase and relaxed steering geometry, the Pan America feels planted and reassuring at speeds ranging from “oh, this is lovely” to “hello, officer”. Point it at a fast, flowing piece of road and it tracks through corners with an almost unflappable confidence and ruthless speed. It is brutally good as a backroad weapon and, in the right hands, will cause sportsbike riders to weep into their lattes.

Much of that prowess is courtesy of Showa’s electronically adjustable semi-active suspension, which is constantly monitoring and adapting to conditions by altering damping on the fly. There is a healthy 191 mm of travel at both ends on offer, and the 47 mm fork and rear monoshock work very well whether you’re traversing the Hume, hammering along a corrugated fire trail or mixing it up with the sportsbike brigade.

One of the cleverest tricks up the Pan America’s sleeve is its Adaptive Ride Height function, which automatically lowers the bike as you come to a stop before returning it to its normal ride height once you’re rolling again, so there’s no compromising ground clearance on the move. For a 260 kg-plus bike with an 850 mm seat height, it’s a big selling point for shorter riders and those less confident on a big, heavy adventure rig. It’s a feature seen on a lot of big adventure metal these days, but Harley was first to the party with it.

Despite its outwardly stretched-out proportions and Sportster-esque tank shape, standing on the Pan America feels like a perfectly natural place to be. The stubby screen, which lacks some touring prowess, makes sense when you’re on the wide pegs, and it feels less likely to throat-punch you than the screens on some adventure bikes.

Despite its unconventional adventure bike styling, it’s easy to move around on, and you can point the Pan America at some pretty nasty terrain and it’ll lap it up, within reason.

But it always does one good to remember what one is aboard before shit gets out of hand.

Start ripping out those fat powerslides or threading the Pan America through tight, technical terrain, and you’ll soon be sweating like a turd in a vinyl handbag. At a claimed 258 kg ready to ride, it’s a big old rig, and if you send it for a lie down like I did, you’d better have eaten your Weet-Bix before trying to pick it up.

Harley has done a bloody good job disguising the weight while it’s moving, and it’s a very well-balanced motorcycle, but physics is physics, and sooner or later you’ll be reminded just how much motorcycle you’re dealing with if you get silly.

Adventure tourers live and die by how you feel after a long day in the saddle, and this is another area where the Pan America scores very highly. When you first sit on the Pan America, the 21-litre tank looks long, and the TFT dash appears miles away. But somehow, the riding position just works. There’s a deceptively comfortable reach to the bars, generous legroom and a seat that’s as comfortable as any, you’ll find in the adventure touring kingdom – it’s like a bloody lounge chair. I’d put it right alongside BMW’s benchmark GS when it comes to all-day comfort, yet apart from its stepped design limiting some rearward movement, it still allows you to move around on it with ease.

My only real criticism is the windscreen I mentioned above. It is not vast in its dimensions, and at 186 cm tall it funnelled turbulent air right at my helmet. If you’re doing big kilometres, which is arguably the Pan America’s strongest suit, you’ll want to pick yourself up a more voluminous screen.

Overall protection from the elements is very good, and its trellis-style subframe and large, flat arse area mean lashing luggage to the back is about as easy as it gets.

The Pan America’s electronics suite is comprehensive enough to give a Harley purist an aneurysm. There’s a crisp 6.8-inch TFT display that provides access to multiple ride modes, cornering ABS, cornering traction control and engine braking control settings. There are also such luxuries as cruise control, Hill Hold Control and tyre pressure monitoring as standard. Good news for hoons and the off-road crew: Harley has fitted a dedicated traction control button, allowing you to disable traction control instantly without having to dive through menus every time the bitumen gives way to dirt, or you need to show off with a burnout or wheelie.

There are five preset ride modes: Sport – all the power, all the time; Road, which offers full power but with a smoother throttle response; Rain for, well, rain; plus Off-Road and Off-Road Plus. There are also three customisable modes available for your tinkering pleasure.

Both on road and off, the electronics never feel overbearing or intrusive. Instead, they quietly work away in the background just the way you want them.

Stopping power comes courtesy of Brembo, with twin 320 mm front discs gripped by radially mounted four-piston monobloc calipers and a 280 mm rear disc. Braking performance is exactly what you’d expect from the masters at Brembo and the opposite of what many would expect from your typical Harley—powerful, progressive and with more feel than Trump at an Epstein party, which is a must when you need to brake down an ugly dirt descent. Despite the Pan America’s considerable mass, the braking package never feels overwhelmed or overwhelming and inspires plenty of confidence whether you’re belting down a mountain road or hauling the bike up on a steep dirt descent.

The bike I tested rolled on the optional tubeless laced wheels, which will set you back an extra $1,995 on top of the $28,995 starting price. I spent a good portion of my time off-road on the Pan America, and if you plan to do the same, then it’s a worthwhile upgrade. My test bike was also fitted with Michelin Anakee Wild rubber, which improves your chances of not dying off-road over the standard road-biased rubber by roughly a light-year.

Five years on, the Pan America looks and feels as fresh as it ever did and, in the pantheon of adventure tourers, it holds its unique mug high.

It’s not an off-road-focused missile like KTM’s 1390 Super Adventure R, but that was never what Harley intended it to be. What it is, is an adventure tourer of some brilliance, with serious off-road ability and touring comfort to spare. The engine is a glorious scallywag of a thing, and the Pan America is an absolute demon as a backroad scratcher.

If someone had told me ten years ago that one of the most entertaining big adventure tourers to powerslide down a gravel road and around a tarmac hairpin would have a Bar and Shield on the tank, I’d have laughed them straight out of the pub.

Today?

I wouldn’t argue with them for a second.

Even five years after its debut, Harley’s Pan America is as good as any adventure tourer Europe or Japan has to offer.

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