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.
New bikes from Triumph and Suzuki were just around the corner. Out of the blue, Harley-Davidson 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 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 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, 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 on the tin. Harley-Davidson’s first attempt at giving the world an adventure tourer yielded a machine that’s 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 is what we’re referring to. It revs far harder than any traditional twin, and it isn’t all piss and vinegar either.
There’s just shy of 112kW and 127Nm on offer, which are 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 Harley-Davidson’s 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, for starters.
You’ll also find enough mid-range to cause grey nomads to have conniptions over the ferocity of your overtaking maneuvers, and the kind of top end that will 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-Davidson box).
Shifts are positive and slick, unlike the agricultural-feeling and sounding standard fare. The standard bi-directional quick shifter 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-Davidson have wrapped that engine in a great chassis that’s good both on and off the sealed stuff too.
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 sports bike 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 191mm of travel at both ends on offer.
The 47mm fork and rear mono-shock work very well whether you’re traversing the Hume, hammering along a corrugated fire trail or mixing it up with the latte sippers. One of the cleverest tricks up the Pan America’s sleeve though is its adaptive ride height function.
It 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 260kg-plus bike with an 850 mm seat height, it’s a big selling point.
That’s especially so for shorter riders and those less confident on a big, heavy adventure rig. 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.
You can point the Pan America at some pretty nasty terrain and it’ll lap it up, within reason. It does one good to remember what one is aboard before shit gets out of hand though.
Start ripping fat power slides 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 258kg, it’s a big old rig.
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-Davidson 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.
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 feels like a lounge chair.
The only real criticism is the aforementioned windscreen. At 186cm tall it funneled 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.
Protection from the elements is very good though, and its trellis-style subframe and large, flat rear 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 purist an aneurysm too.
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.
The good news for hoons and the off road crew: Harley-Davidson has fitted a dedicated traction control button, allowing you to disable it instantly without having to dive through menus every time the bitumen gives way to dirt.
There are five preset ride modes: Sport, Road, Rain, Off-Road and Off-Road Plus. There are also three customisable options. 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 320mm front discs gripped by radially mounted four-piston monobloc calipers and a 280mm rear disc.
Braking performance is exactly what you’d expect and the opposite of what many would anticipate from your typical Harley-Davidson – it’s powerful, progressive and has more feel than Trump at an Epstein party.
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 in the dirt, over the standard road-biased offering, by roughly a light-year. After all this time, the Pan America looks and feels as fresh as it ever did.
It’s not an off road focused missile, but that’s never what Harley-Davidson intended it to be. What it is, is an adventure tourer of some brilliance, with serious off road ability and touring comfort to spare. And the engine is a glorious scallywag of a thing.
It’s an absolute demon as a backroad scratcher too. If someone had told me ten years ago that one of the most entertaining adventure tourers to power slide down a gravel road 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. To find out more about the 2026 Harley-Davidson Pan America 1250 Special you can visit their website, or talk to your local dealership.
Our test bike was provided by Harley-Davidson Australia for independent review purposes. Exhaust Notes Australia has not been paid to review this motorcycle. Images courtesy of Motohead Media.
