Adventure bikes - which..?

[nilv]

Niteowl (03/12/2013)

What’s your budget? Fully loaded a lot of these bikes come in at over £12k.
The KTM & Beemer are class leaders but if youre looking for something a little less expensive, you could consider the Triumph Tiger 800/XC?

Haha - budget…? what budget…no budget…by that i don’t mean to say i have won the lottery…thats some crazy monies whoa…i had a quick look at the kwak versys and looks like it could do it for me…with a bit of pimping it up and happily thrash it about…time to figure out what my budget is i guess…

[nilv]

s l u g (03/12/2013)

This might help you a bit

Adventure bikes comparative

Cool - shall have a look

[nilv]

[

quote] LiM (03/12/2013)

[/quote]

Yes - that’s the first machine i looked at

[nilv]

me_groovy (03/12/2013)

can you afford BMW service costs?

how many sandwich lunches would i have to sacrifice - hmm perhaps not then…would be interesting to see what the service costs are for the ktm’s and triumph tigers…? apparently ktm’s need to be serviced more frequently…?

[nilv]

KTM D (04/12/2013)

what are the negatives about beemers and KTM’s. as niteowl says, they are the class leaders, and the transalp, while great in its own way, is heavy as ****, and the beemer and ktm will out perform it all day long.

let us know what you are planning to do with it, loads and loads of options, but to give you the best advice, need a bit more info.

GS’s - heavy as f**k, electrical issues… and KTM’s - some breakdown issues (cant remember what now) and very frequent service intervals…apparently…

yea i hated the weight of the transalp…

[nilv]

Niteowl (04/12/2013)

If I was looking for an “all day” bike with a bit of off road capabilities, the 990 is the sensible choice.
c£10k
Personally, I dont like the look of it so 2nd choice would be the F800GS. Similar price (bit cheaper) but with more off road bias and from what I’ve heard, excellent mpg.
I wouldnt discount the Kwaka versys 1000 as a mile muncher although a bit heavy, also c £10k.
I do like the look of the two Triumphs though and considerably cheaper yet still excellent vfm.

yea - will have a look at the versys…seems a sensible place to start…quite liked the 650gs (funduro…what a name!)

[nilv]

DTR_Ross (04/12/2013)

What about the tenere thats what I want

Quite fancied the tenere’s and africa twins (apparently the africa twins will be brought about again - how cool) even before i got into biking - but not too sure how well the tenere would handle on motorways…?

[nilv]

Rusty99 (04/12/2013)

Considering a ‘second’ bike also, have looked at the GS, Nuda, SMT.

Found this and doing some research on it, its a Moto Morini Granpasso.
Not too many of them around, company had a few issues last year but has since got new funding and is looking good at the minute.
No dealers in the UK yet, but has three service centres.

hmm looks nice - im sure i came across that name somewhere and wondered “what is that…?”…it’ll be on the next star trek episode

[nilv]

me_groovy (04/12/2013)

how about the new honda cub? there’s an offroad version of that.
http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news-new-bikes/new-honda-cub/24076.html

always wanted a c90

[nilv]

whereisgibson (04/12/2013)

This is the issue:

nilv (03/12/2013)

1. off road (not hard core off roading but more the inevitable patch encounetered on long trips to the land of unknown!)

No motorbike is good offroad. The rider enables a bike to be good offroad. There is only one type of bike that an average rider can use off road: a small cc dirt bike. Take away the knobbiles? Problems. Add luggage? Problems. Two up? Problems. Anything less than a dirt bike offroad isn’t going to be working with you. You will be as slow as if you were on a Harley. So my point is that unless you are going somewhere specifically offroad and can ride offroad, dismiss it as your criteria, and take whatever you want as it will be no better or worse than anything else when offroad as you are probably the limiting factor. And if you’ve grown up with dirt bikes / won a few rallies, you can probably take a poor bike further than most and don’t need a specialist dirt bike unless you’re heading out to some very specific scenarios.

I try to explain it like this. 90% of days of the year I walk around, but 10% of the days I decide to jump out of a plane. Because I don’t know when the opportunity arises I always carry a parachute. But because I only do it 10% of the time I’ve decided to buy a parachute a 10th normal size: but I’ll regret this decision immediately when I jump out a plane. The same apples offroad, when you are properly offroad a compromise ‘dual sport / adventure’ bike won’t cut it so you might as well have not bothered with the compromise at all.

It took me many years to realise this.

Back in 2007 I took a Honda Cityfly 125 from London to Mongolia. And it was absolutely fine on A roads, gravel roads, across fields, through chewed up Soviet tarmac, through rivers and streams - until we got to sandy desert. Then it was really really really ****. Delivering pizzas in London: yes, crossing dunefields: no. That’s when I needed a dirt bike. So when I returned home I bought a KTM 640 Adventure.

The KTM 640 Adv was as close to a winning Paris Dakar bike as sensible money could buy. So I took it from London to Dakar in 2008. And it was utterly rubbish along smooth European roads or really anywhere that wasn’t dirt or sand. But wow, when it wasn’t on the road it would let me absolutely fly. That dirt ability made its presence felt and that trip had enough of a mix to make the compromise worth it.

The same 640 then went on a trip with LB’s Zander from here to Bahrain. A dirt bike tends to want to skid and slide which helps it offroad, but this characteristic makes it pretty dangerous on slippery wet tarmac roads, especially without ABS. It was basically a nightmare in the wet and very realistically could have killed me. The trip ended up being 99% road, so was it the wrong bike? I was very glad to have it when things got dirty, as it kept me from losing the bike in mud (both GSs went down) and staying stable in sand (one GS rider broke his ankle). After this I learnt that unless I’m going to across cross the Sahara again I can tolerate a little more compromise: I bought a KTM 990 Adventure with ABS.

For me, and how and where I ride, the KTM 990 is perfect. On road it’s pretty good; it’s certainly not great but in the rain and wind it pushes through and has the electronics to keep me safe. The panniers limit the lean angle. It will run all day on octane 60 “petrol” and not complain. It would let me fly over the melted Turkmenistan roads at 85mph, where the GSs would be bottoming out, slamming their weight into the ground over and over but my sump guard is still smooth after 43000 miles. It sounds good. The chassis is directly from the Paris Dakar bikes and when you take it offroad it really lets you boss it - again, the dirt ability. You can drop it, pick it up, and carry on. It has never let me down. But it’s still a heavy bike, and the price for its ability in the dirt is felt on the road - but I’m fine with that because it does what I ask of it and I put it in those situations and feel that I can control it sufficiently. It’s a big dirt bike with road tyres.

Everything is a compromise, but a compromise on dirt is not worth having and the cost of having dirt ability comes at the expense of other things. My advice to you is unless you are actively looking for offroad - I’m talking about crossing a desert or making your own path across a landscape like Mongolia - just pick a decent comfy road bike and muddle through the occasional rough bits that you come across.

Case in point the world’s most travelled bike: ttp://www.horizonsunlimited.com/forwood/

Whoa - a load of good info…cheers dude…yup i found myself in a muddy off road section sometime back and my mate had his GS…neither of us have much off road experience and i was sure i’d be left far behind on my CBF500…a few minutes into the section i found myself having lots of fun and just going for it…lost the back so many times but it was great…realized its much more controllable if you ride standing…you don’t panic when you lose your back either…obviously left the GS far behind enough for me to pull over in a dry section way further up for a big wee before the GS caught up…nothing to do with the GS of course…but like you said, rider-ability came to shine on that day…the thrill of that small experience is what’s gotten me into getting an adventure bike which would be more capable than my CBF500…obviously all the bikes suggested by everyone so far would be better than the current CBF whether on an open motorway or off road - whether i go for a kwak/bmw/ktm or triumph…i don’t know yet…neither of which will happen very very soon

[nilv]

brains_t (04/12/2013)

whereisgibson (04/12/2013)

This is the issue:

nilv (03/12/2013)

1. off road (not hard core off roading but more the inevitable patch encounetered on long trips to the land of unknown!)

…The same apples offroad …

That’s the five a day sorted as well

haha…

[nilv]

[quote]
Jetstream (04/12/2013)

Nice…

[nilv]

Rusty99 (05/12/2013)

if that bloke can do it - i can do it too

[Stuart_Fordyce]

Not much said about the Yamaha Super Tenere 1200, which Ross and nilv mention. I don’t own one but I did rent one for a day in South Africa last week. Did about 250 km - all on tarmac - on a variety of dual-carriageways, twisty single track roads, and Cape Town urban sprawl.

I’m making allowances in my review, for the fact it was a bike under a year old with around 8,000 miles on the clock, for saying it’s probably one of the worse bikes I’ve ridden. It was in good condition (barring a squaring off rear tyre) and well maintained by the company I rented it from - I place no blame on them for it. Allowing for the squared off rear Metzeler, the bike was very reluctant to turn in, without significant counter steering and a shove with the knee on the tank. There was very little feel from the front end. I think it might have had a slow puncture, such was its reluctance to turn in.

The bike is tall, and carries its weight high. I can’t imagine it being any good off road. It’s got a shaft drive, which adds to the weight I guess. The gearbox is truly awful, with a huge distance between ratios and needing a big punt to change up a gear - maybe it’s better with motocross boots on. The engine doesn’t feel hugely powerful - I’ve looked this up and it’s a 112 bhp bike, which is the second most powerful bike I’ve ever ridden. However, it weighs 257kg wet, which is huge!

As a result it’s quite thirsty - I used the best part of a 23 litre tank on a 250 km ride. Around 80mph seems like its maximum comfortable cruising speed. I’ve never ridden a Boxer GS, a Triumph or the competition, but I wouldn’t have the Super Tenere

[Rusty99]

nilv (05/12/2013)

Rusty99 (05/12/2013)

if that bloke can do it - i can do it too

That was me in 1989 on a Yamaha 700 Fazer, doing a bit of off roading in Arizona with a bloke who was on some trials bike.
We ended up miles from any road as we wanted to see some Hopi Indian settlement, needless to say we got lost but
had great fun. About ten minutes later I stopped on what I thought was sand, put me foot down and it sank all the way to my knee with
the bike on top of me

[Michaels]

I love the sharp edges of the KTM’s… Awesome looking bikes