Alton Brown of television’s Food Network created a series called "Feasting on Asphalt," riding a motorcycle around the country in a quest for America’s best road food. He took all the necessary precautions: classes, the proper safety gear, and, most important, a good quality bike, writes Dave Walden for Sunday’s SF Chronicle "Cars" section. "I waited until I could afford good stuff," Brown told Walden, "because the last thing I wanted to do is buy some crappy $2000 motorcycle and kill myself."
He learned to ride on a Suzuki SV750, a naked sports bike. Then, for the show, he rode a 2006 BMW R1200 GS. The most watched episode of "Feasting on Asphalt" was the episode in which he literally did. In a NY Times article, he explains, "About 20 miles north of Las Vegas, I hit a ditch. I tried to power my way out of it and got thrown off the bike," breaking a few ribs and injuring his collarbone.
Still, Brown praises his GS as "a mechanical mule. It’s extremely stable; it’s extremely strong. It’s got a bunch of stuff that you can pack things into, a lot of electrical potential for adding on things. It’s a two-wheeled SUV that can really go anywhere you want to go. It could climb a tree if you wanted to."
On this year’s quest for America’s best road food, Mr. Brown "upgraded his transportation" to a Jeep, while at home, he has increased his stable of motorcycles to four and commutes to work on the GS. He even takes his seven-year-old daughter for rides on the back. "Our thing is that your can’t spend your life just not taking risks," he told Walden, " and I’d rather my daughter take a risk with me than with someone else."
As I’m sure someone has pointed out, the bike Alton rode in the first season and crashed on was an R1200RT, not a GS. Great street bike, but not so hot on dirt, as Alton found out.
Hmmm… In the first season of Feasting on Asphalt Alton rode a BMW R1200RT… The second season (just started airing) he rode the R1200GS.
The RT was free of badging the GS isn’t leading me to wonder if BMW stepped up and is sponsoring the ride or doing some sort of product placement.
The show is pretty good. It is only tangentially about motorcycles – mostly it is about regional food and working mans restaurants favorited by locals.
I love, love, LOVE this show! Sure, there’s not a whole heck of a lot of “motorcycle” content, but it’s about road trips and food-and if you’ve ever done a road trip on your motorcycle that is the basis of the experience: riding and food!
This reminds me of Peter Egan’s recent column about “too much bike, too little road” and let’s face it, the GS is a LOT of bike. Ewan McGregor had similar problems in “Long Way Round”. They would have fared better on DR650’s or KLR650’s.
He wasn’t on a GS on the dirtroad. He was on an RT when he crashed on the dirtroad.