Border Patrol

摘要

The road to jacumba is not very well traveled these days. Once, though, it was a main route, first as a footpath for the Dieguenos Indians, then part of the stagecoach route between San Diego and Yuma, then a treacherous stretch of Highway 80 that delivered the likes of Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich to town to "take the waters" at the spa hotel. But long ago, Jacumba was bypassed by Interstate 8, and a once-bustling town of 5000 just a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border now is home to just 625 hearty souls. That lonely old road was perfect for our purposes-a pre-Eisenhower highway for 1950s-style American cruisers. Actually, you have to go back to before the Great Depression to find a time when America had three viable motorcycle-makers. The original Excelsior-Henderson didn't make it past the '30s, and Indian was dead by the late '50s. With Victory's birth and Indian's rebirth, though, Harley-Davidson is no longer the only homegrown. How would the newcomers stack up against the time-proven veteran?