I’m making my way through parc fermé, with a Dodge Hellcat to my left and a Lamborghini Aventador to my right. In front of me, two Russians are handing a breathalyzer back and forth, trying to figure out who’s more eligible to drive.
This is the Gumball 3000, and I’m here on a motorcycle.

For the uninitiated, the Gumball 3000 is a non-competitive (yeah, right) rally, aimed at wealthy folk in supercars. It has everything you can imagine: cars you’ll never own, stars you’ll never meet, people with more money than sense and massive parties. Everything, that is, except motorcycles.
Our friends at Harley-Davidson International (Harley’s primary non-US operation) wanted to find out why. So they got on board as a Gumball sponsor, entered a couple of bikes, and rang us up to find out if we wanted to tag along.
Disclaimer: Yes, we’re normally all about custom bikes. And yes, this is out of character for us. But who wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to spend a few days duking it out with supercars in Eastern Europe, on two wheels, all expenses paid"
This year was the 19th year of the rally, and the course ran from Riga in Latvia to Mykonos in Greece?via Warsaw, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Tirana and Athens. The rally was book-ended by a pre-race day celebration in Riga, and a two-day party in Mykonos.

The Gumball is every bit as over the top as you think it is. There was enough exotic machinery on the grid to make any automotive f...