Is this man lost? A Royal Enfield Hunter 350 takes on the NEBDR

Had you seen me, you might have thought "There's some clueless middle-aged guy who got a couple of Reddit threads crossed." Or, "Maybe Bill Bryson is working on a sequel to 'A Walk in the Woods'." Or, keeping it simple: That person is unwell.

I can explain.

I don't have a Hunter 350. The Hunter belongs to my wife, Dani. When the weather warms up, she rides it to school, so kids get to say not only is my calculus teacher a girl, she rides a motorcycle, too.

Dani and I have three sons — two of whom have girlfriends — and everybody has a bike, so there are five 20-something riders in the mix. At any given moment, at least one of them has a big idea. This time it's Abby. Leo is our youngest, and Abby is Leo's girlfriend. She's a Californian who learned to ride in canyons and sunshine. She got a job offer in Boston, so she sold her beloved Yamaha YZF-R3, drove from San Diego to New Hampshire, and bought an almost-new Triumph Speed 400. She arrived in March, having heard of neither the Backcountry Discovery Routes (BDR) nor the winter.

New England greets Abby with a howl. It's 37 degrees, wind and rain streaking sideways. The dogs won't go outside. Abby — known more for determination than patience — asks to go for a ride along the coast. I look in the garage and see a 1973 Honda CB500, a 1995 Ducati 900SS/CR, Kate's (different son, different girlfriend) Yamaha MT-03, and the Hunter.

With its axe-handle simplicity and irrepressible optimism, the Hunter is the obvious choice. It makes 19 horsepower, has a big windscreen, and plods along willingly, if slowly, wherever you point it. Somehow, without calling attention to itself, our Hunter has rolled up 5,000 miles in two short seasons. The tech is mid-70s, down to the front brake that absolutely looks like it should stop the bike. It keeps a steady pace that feels like progress, until any other bike zips past. It's the Mercedes 240D of motorcycles, without the color-matched butternut hubcaps.

I gear up, hop on the Hunter, and we head out into a gale, following the beach road while waves crash and salt spray clouds my visor. Abby barrels through the worst of the weather, with her head up and the bike banked over, for half an hour. I stop to mention that the storm is a Nor'easter, so to get home we have to ride into the wind. Her gear dries out three days later.

The following weekend we ride west to Vermont. Abby gets the hang of blasting the Triumph over broken pavement, gravel, and dirt. I have the throttle pinned on the Hunter, trying to keep a respectable pace. Where Route 30 sweeps along the West River, I can't break 65 mph. The bike's composure is good. It's just out of steam.

I roll off the throttle in Newfane and duck over the bridge. We need to head east, to Putney, to see Anthony (a different, different son). The goal is to meet Sky Pilot, his recently adopted cat. Putney Mountain is squarely in our path, so we either climb the steep, damp, crumbling switchbacks of post-winter Putney Mountain Road, or play it safe by taking the long way around. I let Abby choose which way to go. That leads to a memorable moment when Abby, a natural throttle-not-brakes rider, fires the 400 through a mud bog at the very top of Putney Mountain. She caught that just-fast-enough pace and climbed the hill on tires marked Metzeler Sportec M9 RR. Must have left an impression, because a few days later she texts me, having discovered something called the North East BDR.

I'm pretty motivated to keep up with the kids, and Abby's enthusiasm is impossible to ignore. I had never thought "Hunter 350, BDR," but if the kids are up for it, and the bike is up for it, who am I to object?

That's how the idea was planted and it all came together. This season, after 20-plus years, I had replaced my Aerostich suit, having donated my old one to a KTM kid who sleeps in the desert. After trying to keep up with Abby, I'm a qualified Hunter pilot. I have a map of the NEBDR. Everyone else has a day job, so weekdays can be a little quiet. Off I go.

The Hunter 350 takes on the NEBDR

My starting point is Southern Vermont, so I join the BDR already in progress. From the border with Massachusetts, starting with "Goldmine Road," someone has stitched together a collection of scenic, varied, rideable roads. As the Hunter and I chug-chug north, I am impressed how the route connects the dots, from villages, to forests, to farms, along rivers, rolling through the hills that Vermont calls the Green Mountains. There's no actual backcountry — wildest Vermont is the forest that grew on what once was a farm — but that's not the BDR's fault. You can't brag about deserts or water crossings or mountain passes, but you're rarely more than five miles from a first-rate bakery.

As I rumble along, I begin to develop a deeper appreciation for the Hunter. A Hunter 350 might be a beginner's bike in our country, but it's built to be relied upon, to get you from here to there, no excuses, regardless. It's a double-downtube steel frame with an air-cooled 349 cc single that makes peak torque when it's idling. It for real gets 250 miles of range out of its 3.4-gallon tank, partly because it's efficient, partly because it only weighs 400 pounds, and mostly because it can't go fast enough to generate drag. It's got over five inches of travel up front — four in the back — which is enough to rumble over some pretty uneven terrain. The two rider aids are crude ABS and a lack of available power. Anybody can ride a Hunter like a hero. In loose gravel, I insist on goosing the throttle while standing up on the pegs. There's no one there to notice.

While considering how the Hunter must be a righteous family vehicle in India, I keep waiting for the righteous off-road part of the BDR. The official description says: "Section 3 ends with some serious challenges as soon as you cross the border into Vermont where Class 4 roads await. Be warned that roads classified as such are very rugged, not maintained, and can become hazardous without notice. Welcome to Vermont!" I've been riding southern Vermont since 1984. Those are called roads.

Day 1. I cover 200 miles, either on the route or ducking around looking for it. I find myself again at the bottom of Putney Mountain Road. This time I'm alone, all decked out, my Hunter covered in dust. That's where this story began.

I veer off the BDR and blast the Hunter over Putney Mountain with a 19-horsepower, two-valve vengeance. It plays along, slinging gravel in the corners and brap-brapping as I downshift to climb the hills. Why does the BDR skip Putney Mountain?

In Putney, I wheel up to the General Store and order the better grilled cheese sandwich, so-called because it's better than their regular grilled cheese sandwich. On the porch, I pore over Google Maps and resolve to abandon the BDR and find a road that the Hunter can't handle. With a bike this willing, it doesn't matter that I'm not a great rider. It doesn't seem breakable, and I can always pick it up.

So the next day I wake up, gear up, avoid the BDR and go looking for trouble. After a killer cinnamon roll, I head for Guilford, a place entirely unpaved. The center of town has a red covered bridge, a timber crib dam, and the world's finest swimming hole. It looks like the Shire, but it's too flat to slow the Hunter down.

Things get more rugged north of Route 9, where I luck out and find a couple of roads that are being graded. Running across a Motor Grader is a hoot — as long as you see it coming — because it leaves behind a tiny strip of road, then a soft dirt berm, then the rest of the road. The game is to plow over the berm, slithering sideways, without dumping the bike. The Hunter takes to this naturally, like it's back home in India.

Finally, I find the top of Stratton Hill Road in Newfane, a rutted double-track marked "Not maintained in Winter." For me, it's a genuine challenge. The tracks are mostly rocks, the center is a grassy berm, it's steep, it's wet, and it's loose. The curves are tight and off-camber. Off we go, easy on the throttle, stay off the brakes.

Stumbling along goes from scary to kind-of-fun in about a minute and a half. I realize that, if I were on a 500-pound, 100-horsepower ADV bike, it would stay scary. Big and powerful is not what I need right now. I have no fear of dropping the Hunter, which results in me not dropping the Hunter. I begin to wonder if maybe the North East BDR has been right-sized to welcome a wide range of riders with big, powerful bikes.

By the end of the day, I am a devoted Hunter fan. Everyone judges bikes by their own personal standard, and mine is: Can I explore the world on this thing? Clearly, I just did.

A friend of mine is getting back into riding. He bought a Bullet 350, and wants to see Nova Scotia. Having done some exploring aboard the Hunter, I'm kind of looking forward to that trip.