The Kneeslider

Doers Builders and Positive People

Motus American V4 Sport Tour Hits the Road

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Motus American Sport Tour - first leg - additional destinations coming soon
Motus American Sport Tour - first leg - additional destinations coming soon

What better way to test a brand new motorcycle than to ride it across the country in all kinds of weather and riding conditions? That’s the idea behind the Motus American Sport Tour. From July 11th to July 30th, Motus will be on the road, riding the Motus MST and MST-R from Birmingham, Alabama to Laguna Seca and back, with visits to locations all along the way where you will be able to see the bikes up close.

The tour will make stops in Texas, Arizona and California on the way out and return by way of Bonneville, Denver, Nashville and Athens, Georgia. If you have any suggestions for “don’t miss” roads along the way, send them to Motus and they might be able to work it into the trip. If you’re anywhere near the route, why not join them on the ride?

There’s a new American motorcycle on the way and this is a great chance for you to see it up close and on the road. Maybe you should check your calendar.

UPDATE: Just got a note from Lee Conn:

This is the first of several legs of the American Sport Tour. Where this trip will take us from AL to CA and back, we will have several other legs of the tour to follow including one that will take us through the Midwest, one through the North East and likely several around the South.

I think this trip will have us riding about 5500 miles over 20 days after which we will come home to our families, analyze our subjective and objective data sets, iterate the bikes to include any identified changes, and then head back out again.

They modified the map up above in response to your comments to make it very clear that this is only the first stage of the tour. Hmm, … it looks like they’re making this their own version of the Iron Butt, only at a more leisurely pace. 🙂

So, for those of you who were feeling a little left out from the route shown here, hang on, there’s likely to be another ride that will come closer to your hometown.

Link: Motus for date and location of each stop

Comments

    • Yes, just follow the link to Motus for date and location of each stop.

  2. From Bonneville, go north through Idaho or western Montana, then down to Sacramento via eastern Washington and Oregon, then down the Feather river to Sacramento. There are too many good roads, places, and views to name, but stay off the freeways and you won’t go far wrong.

  4. Take a detour north through Chicago, please! OK, that might not be practical for this tour, but I’d sure like to see and hear a Motus in person. I wish them all the best, and hope they can get the effort off the ground and into production, if only for that wonderful motor that screams “Hot Rod”!

  5. Looks like they’re doing it right; giving the bikes an actual road test, then back home to make any changes necessary, then back out again, and so forth. It’s sort of like the English manufacturers used to do at Brooklands — ride the test bikes to Brooklands, run the living daylights out of them on the big high-banked oval, fix what breaks and alter the design to strengthen up the weak points, and run them again. I’ll be eager to see a Motus when it comes to my part of Illinois. If they need a Midwestern test rider, I volunteer. I’ll have to get used to the shift and brake on the wrong sides, but that’s minor. I did ride an XS 650 for a few years.

    • “I’ll have to get used to the shift and brake on the wrong sides” – I don’t get it, does the Motus have the shift on the right? That wouldn’t make sense!

  6. No problem on the shifting, Jim. My three rides include left and right hand foot shifters and a tank shift, foot clutch model with front brake at the left hand. You’ll adapt to the change from one bike to another pretty quickly, after a couple of crashes.

  7. What!?! No stop in KC? I mean, you’re going right through. I’m sure the boy’s up at the H-D plant would love it if they stopped in for a plant tour.

    • I thought the same thing. You’re going from Nashville to Denver, with a little red line going right through Kansas City…but no stopover?

  8. Why come through town for only 2 hours? Give us working folks a chance to come see it. New Braunfels, TX (Tuesday) July 12th 4-6pm.

    • Yep, but the questions will continue anyway.

      I think #6 is good news. Crate engines will be available and I can’t wait to see where these things turn up.

      • You are correct, sir. But in reading the article it appears that the Pacific Northwest has yet to be mentioned by Mr. Conn.

  11. Where do I offer my services as a “test rider”?

    I wonder if a few hundred thousand kilometers, spread over almost 60 years, of Canadian Rockies would count?

  12. A crate engine at a reasonable price would be incredible! I can see someone linking three of them in a row and building a fabulous 1930’s-style V-12 Grand Prix roadster. I can’t even imagine how it would sound. Realistically, the motors would find their way into street rods, boats, bikes — anywhere rodders can imagine them. Various racing series would be good outlets for lots of affordable fun.
    I’ll be a big fan.

  14. Well hopefully the second round of this tour will include another run through Daytona for Biketoberfest. I missed it during Bike Week, and would surely love to get a good look at it.

  17. Great another plastic fantastic bike. Color me board. Wonder if I striped it down to the frame and took all that poly off it…

  18. Brian
    One sure cure for boredom is to pick up where the builder finishes and alter it to suit your own taste. If you have the talent fabricate your own frame, tanks etc. Lacking skill bolt up some cool J.C. Whitney parts. Ride it around to learn what works well and what makes school kids giggle. Trust me, you wont be bored when you open your garage to reveal a bike you cant find in any advert. magazine or website.

  19. I had some guy on a Honda ST1100 follow me into a parking lot because he thought my Moto Guzzi Griso was a Motus! Obvious the Motus is attracting lots of attention!!

  20. Rather than “making this their own version of the Iron Butt” they should have just given a bike to one of the riders in the Iron Butt, which just completed a couple of weeks ago. Now *that* would have been a great test.

  21. Just saw the Motus in Houston. Very impressive

    Looking forward to seeing pricing and a more naked version.

    Off topic, but has anyone heard if Highland is going to survive?

  22. Okay, so I order a t-shirt from Motus’ website (got to be the first on my block) and Motus messes it up. I receive a nice email from customer service explaining they had an internal glitch and needed to cancel and they politely asked me if I’d submit another order. Sure – no biggie. I place another order and get a confirmation e-mail thanking me for my new order, etc. Then later I receive another e-mail from Lee Conn, President of Motus, apologizing for the inconvenience, thanking me for the business, promising me some extra goodies and assuring me my order will get priority shipping and so forth. Now I’m pretty freaking impressed. The president of the company took the time to reach out to me over a mistake on a $22 order. This guy is launching a brand new motorcycle so I’m sure he has more important priorities on his plate. Needless to say I’m a raving fan of Motus’ customer service. I had been in retail for 25+ years and have trained hundreds on the importance of great customer service so I am doubly impressed with Conn’s actions. If this incident is a harbinger of how Motus plans to treat their customers they’re definitely getting off on the right foot. Good stuff – had to share.