motorcyclistonline.com | 67We didn’t understand how blocked the
Pacific Coast Highway was until we saw
it with our own eyes. Maybe we’ll be
able to scurry over the slide on our dual-
sports, I had naively thought. But once
we rode around the sandwich-board
blockade and got close enough to view
the landslide, it was clear there was no
getting past. The road simply disap-
peared beneath a wall of dirt and rock,
buried under 200 million cubic feet of
earth that had sloughed off the moun-
tainside and spilled into the Pacific
Ocean. The same weather that triggered
this avalanche north of Ragged Point,
California, also damaged a bridge along
the Coast Highway about 30 miles south
of Monterey, effectively closing 45 of the
best miles of the Big Sur coast and elimi-
nating the most popular road-trip route
in California.Back at the roadblock, Zack and I saw
that we weren’t the only ones with hopes
of making it through. As we consulted
our Nat Geo trail map and lunched on
beef jerky, a series of rented convert-
ibles pulled up and peered at the “Road
Closed” sign. We could relate to the
consternation on their faces. For nearly
a decade, Zack and I have pilgrimaged to
Monterey to watch races at Laguna Seca,
visit friends, or simply to get a dose of
curves, scenery, and the smell of kelp.
Those sightseers would have to back-
track and take the 101 Freeway north,
but we were determined to find a more
interesting detour. The map showed forest
roads tracing the ridgeline above us—trails
we’d noticed before but never explored
because we always rip up the coast on
sportbikes. Could we find a way through
without resorting to the inland freeway
and maybe make it a more exciting trip?DISAPPEARED BENEATH A WALL OF DIRT AND ROCK
We figured we had the perfect bikes to
try. Light, fuel efficient, and adapted for
distance and just the sort of exploratory
adventure we hoped to have, the Honda
CRF250L Rally and Kawasaki Versys-X
300 are the harbingers of a new class of
affordable, lightweight adventure bike.
Built on the bones of the Ninja 300, the
Versys-X sports a thicker, longer fork,
bigger wire-spoked wheels, shorter
gearing, new bodywork, a comfy seat,
and an upright riding stance. At $5,699
with ABS it’s affordable, and at 380
pounds (not including the 17-pound
accessory side cases and luggage rack)
with its 4.5-gallon tank full, it’s easily
manageable. Slapping down just shy of
34 hp and 17 pound-feet of torque from
its 296cc parallel-twin engine, the X is
the smallest, lightest, and most versatile
machine in the Versys family.Ever pined for a Dakar bike? The
CRF250L Rally is modeled after the
factory CRF450 Rally racebike, so it’s
got the long-haul desert-racer image
dialed. Besides making it look badass,
that stubby windscreen and radiator
surround give it a degree of open-road
comfort, which is a huge departure
from the sail-in-the-wind feeling you
get when taking the CRF250L on the
highway. Speaking of the 250L, that’s the
bike you’ll find underneath the Rally’s
new fairing and lopsided LED eyes. The
Rally boasts a bit more suspension travel
than the base bike, a slightly larger gas
tank, and a bigger front-brake rotor.
The Honda’s compact 249cc single-
cylinder engine—which got a few minor
changes for 2017 but still only puts
down about 21 hp and 15 pound-feet of
torque—and 2.7-gallon tank help the
Rally weigh in at a scant 342 pounds.MCY1017_COMP.indd 67 7/24/17 3:55 PM