This Modern RTW Moto Vlogger Just Rode With Absolute Legend Elspeth Beard

Marc Travels usually tours on a Zero, but this time he's on a Harley X440.

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Dec 13, 2024 at 8:01am ET

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What do you like to watch on YouTube? One channel I've consistently been following for the past few years is the round-the-world journey of Marc Travels. Marc is a motovlogger from Germany, who's steadily been going around the world on his Zero SR/F and sharing the ups and downs of his journey along the way.

Obviously, touring on an electric motorcycle will have certain challenges. However, at the current technological moment, it's probably incredibly helpful that Marc usually doesn't have specific deadlines he's trying to meet to get to most places. So, he's able to take the time to find charging as he needs it, and while his state of charge situation sometimes gets incredibly stressful, so far it's worked out. He started at the beginning of 2023, so I'd say that's doing pretty well.

We're not here to talk about Marc's Zero, this time, though. If you haven't been watching his channel in a minute, he's been in India for some time. To kick off December, he had the unique opportunity to ride a Harley-Davidson X440 in a pack of bikes to India Bike Week, which took place on December 6 and 7 in Goa.

But wait; there's more! At this year's India Bike Week, legendary British round-the-world moto pioneer Elspeth Beard was scheduled to speak. How did she get to the event, you might ask? Why, she was in Marc's riding group. In a way, it's kind of cool and poetic, the legendary round-the-world traveler and the new-school motovlogger riding together. See for yourself in the video.

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Toward the beginning, we get some of Beard's thoughts upon sitting on the X440, and she notes that it's cool because it's not so big and heavy. Curb weight of the bike is around 190.6 kilograms, or about 420-ish pounds. Not a lithe, svelte race bike by any standard, but certainly lighter than most bikes that Harley's famous for back in its home country.

The ride starts in Mumbai, then travels a couple of hundred kilometers along the coast (along with some ferry transpo as well) to get to Goa. It takes quite some time to do (over 8 hours), but by all accounts, it went pretty well. The X440 is of course a much different bike than the Zero SR/F that Marc has been riding for the past couple of years, but it's always cool to try something new, meet new people, and maybe ride with them if they're cool. Right? Right.