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" We haven&amp;#039;t moved more than a hundred yards in the past 10 minutes. That might be okay in a car with air conditioning and an ice-cold Diet Coke in each holster. But my wife, Dale, and I are astride a 2008 Victory Vision outside Charlotte, N.C., and the V-twin is radiating heat like a supercharged furnace in the humid summer air. As I frogwalk the Victory at 1 mph, it feels like the flesh on my lower legs is about to melt off. Auto editor Ben Stewart and his girlfriend, Ella, are riding a Honda Gold Wing. He&amp;#039;s steaming--literally. And she&amp;#039;s probably wondering why precious vacation days are being spent on the back of a bike parked on an expressway. A beach in Maui with a mai tai sounds pretty good right now. Heck, at this point, we&amp;#039;d settle for a beer in an air-conditioned Motel 6. After an hour spent baking on the tarmac, we get a reprieve. Cars start moving past that jackknifed big rig--and we throttle up the bikes. Finally ... a cool breeze. So why would we subject ourselves and our mates to hours soaking in the hot Carolina sun? Barbecue. We&amp;#039;ve got five days to hunt down some of America&amp;#039;s best back roads and tastiest food. And there&amp;#039;s no better way to do it than from the saddle of a big, comfy touring motorcycle with your best girl riding shotgun. Traffic is temporary, but BBQ is practically a national treasure. That smoky meat is always worth a little discomfort. BBQ varies widely across the country, but some of the best comes from the South. Specifically, the old-time North Carolina and Tennessee huts hidden in the hollows that have been serving locals for decades. These aren&amp;#039;t the flashy neon rib joints right off the highway. You have to hunt to find these spots. So our 900-mile loop takes us through some famously beautiful scenery and back roads. Our steeds are up to the task. They have hard-cased saddlebags and trunks, so we can pack everything we need--including lots and lots of extra T-shirts. (Did I mention it was hot?) We&amp;#039;re all prepared to live with sticky fingers and an extra inch on our midsections to search out the best grub. First up? Lexington Barbecue. Lexington Barbecue, 60 miles outside Charlotte, is home to the best &amp;#039;cue in the state, according to my research. The traffic jam is worth every minute. We arrive ready to eat our body weight in swine. They only use pork shoulder at Lexington, smoked for 10 hours over hickory and oak coals. Long-time employee Keith Wright proudly tells us, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve fed a few presidents and a whole bunch of NASCAR guys.&amp;quot; Now he can add the staff of PM to that list. This is vinegar-based BBQ, so it&amp;#039;s deliciously tangy. But it&amp;#039;s the hush puppies and sweet, soft rolls that make this meal. Ella is a real chowhound despite her petite frame. She orders another round of puppies to go. Dale just shakes her head in dis\u00ADbelief as we waddle back to our bikes. The cool night air and clear road give me a chance to open up the Honda. The Gold Wing is a high-tech, water-cooled six-cylinder touring bike with a loyal following. Aside from Harleys, we see more Wings than any other bike. After generations of refining this formula, Honda has polished off any rough edges. The bike starts instantly, idles imperceptibly and runs through the gears at a good clip. This is effortless cruising. By contrast, the Victory is firmly rooted in the air-cooled V-twin world dominated by Harley-Davidson. This one&amp;#039;s the macho machine. It rumbles and shakes and just oozes cool. Tradition notwithstanding, the Vision has a high-tech cast-alloy frame, variable valve timing and fuel injection. In traffic, the Vision feels a bit heavier than the Honda, but once we&amp;#039;re moving, the steering lightens up. The V-twin&amp;#039;s bottomless pit of torque makes the trip relaxing.     RELATED STORIES \u2022 SLIDE SHOW: More Photos From Our BBQ Adventure!  \u2022 RECIPE: The Best BBQ Rub From Our Trip  \u2022 SHARE YOUR BIKE: Join PM&amp;#039;s User-Powered myBike!    Total mileage for the five-day tour was just under 900. We rode back and forth between North Carolina and Tennessee. We&amp;#039;re gunning it along secondary roads most of the way toward Bristol, Tenn., and they are a dream: wide and flat with smooth pavement and sweeping curves. This is where big tourers shine. My wife nudges the small of my back as we ride. Last year we piled on more than 4500 miles touring southern Africa on BMW off-road bikes and through New England on my own Triumph. Her nudge is my green light to crack open the throttle and have some fun. We temporarily leave Ben and Ella in our dust. Sorry, guys. After every 100 miles or so we swap bikes to get a taste of each machine&amp;#039;s personality. The Honda is sportier and likes to be shifted down a couple of gears going into a corner so it&amp;#039;s in the right gear coming out. It&amp;#039;s all accompanied by a wonderful flat-Six exhaust note. The riding position is more upright, so for the novice tourer this bike&amp;#039;s easier to ride. It&amp;#039;s lunchtime, and Ridgewood Barbecue is so close to Bristol Motor Speedway you can practically hear the NASCAR V8s roar as you sink your spoon into a bowl of baked beans. The pork at this 60-year-old institution comes from the leg (like ham) and smokes for 7 hours. I ask manager Mike Sims why the smoke pits are relegated to a building so far out in the parking lot. &amp;quot;Every six months or so, one of the pits would catch fire,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;So we rebuilt them a little farther away from the restaurant.&amp;quot; We each eat a platter of meat large enough to stuff an NFL linebacker. We&amp;#039;re on a BBQ mission, but we&amp;#039;re also looking for thrills. And few places in the U.S. offer more than Highway 129, the Tail of the Dragon. Imagine 318 curves in only 11 miles--that&amp;#039;s the Dragon. We meet up with Clayton Benedetti, a motorcycle mechanic from California who&amp;#039;s on a Honda ST 1100. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve ridden 8000 miles in 18 days,&amp;quot; he says. Suddenly our five-day, 900-mile tour sounds like a Sunday cruise. The Dragon is dangerous, with drop-offs at the edge of the pavement in many places and no shoulders. So we don&amp;#039;t exactly set any records. When you have a passenger on board who happens to be your wife, you tend to rein in the risky behavior. Still, I manage to scrape the floorboards of the Victory once or twice. Dale doesn&amp;#039;t bat an eyelash. She&amp;#039;s used to this sort of thing. Ella&amp;#039;s enjoying the trip, too. In fact, parts of the journey are so relaxing that every few miles she nods off and bumps her helmet into the back of Ben&amp;#039;s. Our ride on the infamous Dragon, however, is not one of those times. The motel at the foot of 129 caters almost exclusively to motorcyclists. The radical-looking Victory attracts a sizeable crowd. They know what it is and they dig it. We leave the Dragon in search of roads more suited to our cush touring bikes. Few are prettier than the Cherohala Skyway, which runs for 36 miles between Robbinsville, N.C., and Tellico Plains, Tenn. No traffic, no cops, good pavement; a river running alongside much of the way keeps the afternoon&amp;#039;s temperatures bearable. We \u00ADnearly do it again--just for fun.     RELATED STORIES \u2022 SLIDE SHOW: More Photos From Our BBQ Adventure!  \u2022 RECIPE: The Best BBQ Rub From Our Trip  \u2022 SHARE YOUR BIKE: Join PM&amp;#039;s User-Powered myBike!    Sportsman&amp;#039;s Bar-B-Q in Chattanooga, Tenn., had the most disreputable-looking pit, friendliest staff and the smokiest, most amazing and best-tasting BBQ of the trip. (Click here for their delicious dry rub recipe). Unfortunately, soon after our visit, the restaurant served its last pulled-pork platter. Sportsman&amp;#039;s had a great reputation. Maybe if enough people come looking, owner Dave Johns and his wife, Deb, will reopen the joint. My wife and I are wearing new flip-front Nolan N102 helmets with built-in Bluetooth intercoms. The connection is constant, no need for a push-to-talk button. Ben and Ella have no intercom or speakers in their helmets, so they&amp;#039;re forced to use old-school hand signals. In my rearview mirror I can see Ella pointing at the majestic scenery around every turn. Dale is in awe of this area, too, oohing and aahing in my ear. This is clearly their favorite part of our trip. It&amp;#039;s mine, too. These sleepy, sweeping turns give me time to finally explore the Victory&amp;#039;s onboard tech. In addition to navi, the Vision has an excellent sound system. Plug your iPod into a cable in a lockable recess on top of the tank, and operate it from the handlebar while it recharges. All touring bikes should have this feature. We roll into Chattanooga, Tenn., looking for a cool shower and water. Lots of water. It&amp;#039;s here we find our favorite BBQ--at Sportsman&amp;#039;s. David Johns, a jovial bear of a man wearing a bright red apron, rambles out and welcomes us inside. His grandfather opened the joint in &amp;#039;49, back when a sliced barbecue sandwich was 35 cents. Sportsman&amp;#039;s uses Boston butt, or the top part of the shoulder on the pig. And it smokes for a full 24 hours. The result is mouthwateringly tender pork with a heavy smoke accent. We linger for hours eating everything on the menu. &amp;quot;I like that Victory,&amp;quot; he says to me in a thick drawl as I hover over my plate of pulled pork. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m rebuilding an old Harley Ironhead myself.&amp;quot; I guess bikes and BBQ are a natural pair. The good weather dissolves as we head back to Charlotte. It rains hard for 2 hours. Dale and I are prepared. Ben and Ella? Well, they arrive a bit damper than when they started. There&amp;#039;s no substitute for a good rain suit. Fortunately, the clouds break as we near the airport. In the end, we conclude that either bike is more than up to the task of touring. After consulting with our travel partners (who&amp;#039;ve been rather patient through all of this), we can say that both bikes have very comfy passenger seats. But they agree that our next tour should be in a cooler \u00ADclimate. We won&amp;#039;t argue. Real BBQ has different styles and flavors, and it all tastes pretty darn good. We certainly had our fill. Next week? Salads--lots of salads. Behind the Metal We couldn&amp;#039;t have picked two touring motorcycles with more wildy disparate engine arrangements. Or character, with the Honda&amp;#039;s smooth sophistication as a counterpoint to the Victory&amp;#039;s visceral rumble and Star Wars styling.      RELATED STORIES \u2022 SLIDE SHOW: More Photos From Our BBQ Adventure!  \u2022 RECIPE: The Best BBQ Rub From Our Trip  \u2022 SHARE YOUR BIKE: Join PM&amp;#039;s User-Powered myBike!   4 Best BBQ Joints  1 Chattanooga&amp;#039;s Sportsman&amp;#039;s Bar-B-Q closed just a few weeks after our visit. Owner Dave Johns was lured away by a corporate career and shuttered the ramshackle shed. We did manage to pry his dry rub recipe out of him, though. Thanks, Dave. 2 Lexington Barbecue, in Lexington, N.C., uses a vinegar-based sauce, not the usual tomato-based. The staff smokes nearly 4 tons of pork weekly, which is served up with a vinegary coleslaw. 3 Ridgewood Barbecue, in Bluff City, Tenn., smokes only hams or top-round beef. Leftover pork and beef scraps add marvelous flavor to the baked beans side dish. 4 Downtown Grill &amp;amp;amp; Brewery, in Knoxville, Tenn., had great BBQ sandwiches--at least by brew pub standards. But what kept us occupied after dessert was the excellent variety of beer brewed on the premises. Order the sampler, which is 3 ounces of all seven home-brews on tap. We walked back to the hotel. Very slowly.  RELATED STORIES \u2022 SLIDE SHOW: More Photos From Our BBQ Adventure!  \u2022 RECIPE: The Best BBQ Rub From Our Trip  \u2022 SHARE YOUR BIKE: Join PM&amp;#039;s User-Powered myBike!   Auto editor Ben Stewart (white hat) and senior auto editor Mike Allen make a pitstop at Deals Gap on the Tennessee/North Carolina state line to discuss how not to drag the floorboards on Highway 129--the Tail of the Dragon. They end up scraping metal anyway. That&amp;#039;s just the nature of the beast. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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