Well it would be an "urban myth" to an American as you never had the opportunity to buy such myth`s simply because they never imported them to North America in the first place.

And there is a long list of bikes (myth`s) you have never seen or ridden & never will.

Mezo.

He sure builds awesome bikes, but that setup is still too heavy for my liking (I don't ride as fast though). Particularly given the amount of river crossings. An FX bike would be perfect for that route. Camping Austin Vince style would be a prerequisite though.

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Tacos Tyring Travels.com

"Long List"?
Maybe you could name all these do-it-all Adventure bikes we don't get?

Besides the Yamaha 660 series ... we get most ALL of them far as I know.
Maybe some odd 250's or Chinese imports as well? Love to see what you come up with.

Maybe you're mixing up North America with Europe ... who no longer get several common ADV bikes that have been imported here for over 20 years?

I mught be wrong here, but you didn't get AT, TA, XLV750R, XT600/660 and ST, what about the old KTM Baja 660 (twin)? What about the CCM's? I think you got the Varedeo after a while, or?
..... and the famous BMW R80GS



In general we don't get bikes with carbs anymore. It's a pollution-thing.

Directly from USA in a short while (tada):

True, we never got Africa Twin, but did get Trans Alp for a few years in early 90's or so. It was a dud here so Honda pulled it. No Varadero here, ever. But some came in from Canada or EU.

I've never even heard of a KTM 660 twin! You gotta pic?

CCM's we got ... all of them going back 20 years in all configurations. Have NOT seen the new one here but I'm sure it's coming.

XT600E we got going back to the early 70's (all various sizes) Yamaha discontinued the XT600E in 1995. No 660 Tenere' but we do get the 1200 Tenere', XT350, XT250, 225, and of course all the various dirt bikes/quads.

And of course ... we got the R80GS. I owned one ... in 1981. BMW discontinued the GS when the R100GS came out ... but did produce the R80ST for a few years. (owned that bike too) I know in EU the R80 continued on for years. Not here.

Yea, EBR is doing some interesting things. I've not seen a new generation EBR outside our loacl Bike show, but have read about the ADV bike shown above.

The Buell Ulysses was a good bike. I spent many weeks testing one. You can now buy a used one here in perfect shape for under $5000. Fantastic value for money.

No ideas about this new bike. Mostly used by racers at this point. Lots more power? But like KTM, Buell are owned by an Indian company, so who knows the future? :confused1:
EBR did OK in a few Superbike races. (10th I think?) Just finishing is a big deal for an ALL NEW effort.

Limited TA, but still no AT, ST, XLV, XT600 or Varadero?

Sadly I cant find one, it's impossible to google KTM and Baja... They where produced around 1987, but didn't last long (in most ways), cool bikes!


There was no XT600 before 1984 (XT550 1982-1984), the pre XT550s was totally different.


That was the G/S not the GS! Huge difference and a new era

R80G/S: 1980-1987
R80G/S: 1987-1994+1996

(After all R80GS (not the R80G/S) is the best adv-bike ever produced so this is important )


What about the army-KTMs did you get them? Maybe not but you had the army-HD and they are rare in Europe.
We also had the famous Norwegian part of motorcycle-history, the Tempo:


Mostly smallish bikes:
10 Adventure Motorcycles You Can't Buy in the USA � ADV Pulse

I don’t label things in that way. I regard myself as a motorcyclist. I have always liked what I call touring and I ride the bikes that I enjoy riding. Sometimes like today for a 45 mile loop around the countryside. Other times away for weeks. The trick is to use a bike which is suitable for your intended journey.

If you want to go off road then you need to have a bike that will do that. If your planned route doesn't include offroading then there is no particular reason to take an off road bike. Currently I have two bikes, a Triumph thunderbird 900 triple and a 500 Enfield. If I was to make a trip that was mostly big roads with lots of dual carriage ways I would probably choose the Triumph. If the journey was on smaller roads and into places away from modern infrastructure I would choose the Enfield. It can handle offroad, even with road tyres. Has double the range and is easy to fix. In short it is a great "SURVIVOR"
Basically If I needed to do a lot of 60MPH+ with no unmade roads and lots of service stations the Triumph would do it comfortably. If there was any off road or difficult terrain I would take the Enfield. Even grassy campsites could swing it for the Enfield.

An odd thing, before the Enfield I had a R80RT, Using the Enfield I average more miles per day.

And I agree completely with this.

I have the greatest respect for Walter Colebatch's work on improving his X Challenge to make it work for him and his style of 'adventure touring' but there can be no 'perfect' adventure bike as everyone has a different idea of what an adventure is.

It seems to me that the reason we seem to spend so much time agonising over this issue of the 'best' or 'perfect' adventure bike is because it is not possible to meet all the criteria for such a beast in one bike so we're always looking at the ultimate comprimise. Some will compromise off road ability for better paved road performance, others will choose to pay less against the potential benefit of better reliability of a newer bike etc. etc..

In reality the best you are going to get is a bike that will handle everything it encounters on an 'adventure' where adventure is defined as a journey into the unknown. Still subjective though.

I've just finished reading the article, it seems that the author defines 'adventure' in terms of how light your bike is, and how little tarmac you've ridden on. Which is fair enough, but why quote Mondo Enduro? They rode 1000's of miles of tarmac, and Susan and Grant, they also rode 1000's of miles of tarmac on a heavy bike?

I often cringe at the mention of the word 'adventure' these days, I'm sure most of you reading this do as well, I'd much rather define myself as a 'motorcycle traveler', or a 'bloke that travels on his motorcycle'..........that way I can avoid the 'my adventure is bigger than your adventure' bo**ocks.

I always thought 'adventure' was about getting outside of your comfort zone, meeting different people, experiencing different cultures, eating strange food and educating yourself about the differences and similarities of the world's diverse population.

If we use my definition of 'adventure', then anything with 2 wheels is an adventure bike, and not one is better than the other, it's simply a tool to fulfill a desire.

That army KTM has a Villers engine...???

__________________
Facebook " Kevin Heike " come and say Hello as we travel around the world.

No such thing as an "Adventure" bike BUT there is such a thing as different horse's for different course's depending and what course you want to take will depend on the horse you take.......



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8-l7ufP-I4

Well there we have it, define "Adventure Bike"

You never got seven of the Tenere models & that’s just whilst picking my nose reading this, and all those can go where no GS1200 would dream of going because they are fat bloated overweight pigs (the bikes not the riders) wouldn’t want to offend GS owners.

Are these "Adventure Bikes" ? and why not? and read the comments below.

What`s an adventure? going to the pub with Touratech panniers on? call me a snob if you wish but at least i don’t look like a complete

Over to you.

Mezo.

Here's another bike to talk about, slag off, or whatever takes your fancy.
http://www.adventurebikerider.com/fo...happy-day.html

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Dave

When you say "Adventure bike", that's exactly what I imagine. 1300Kg's of multi-cylinder behemoth loaded down with the TT catalogue and a rider who's talk will be of "extreme this" and "Adventure that" but who either because he's a stock broker with three kids or because he doesn't know how to order a Double-Choco-Latte in French will be trading it for a bigger one in two years having never got further than Margate.


I have a similar mental block with Cruisers.


Now a travel bike. That's something that's something that evolves to fit what the rider does. As we all do different things I'm afraid I found the original article (remember that?) rather hard work and not to my taste. There again, I view off-road bits as something to be got past to where the decent restaurants are rather than a play ground, so it isn't really a surprise I switched off.


The ultimate bike for adventure is an Enfield Bullet converted to Diesel by an idiot. You'll never be bored!


Andy

GS's have their place (at Starbucks! ) no, seriously, they have their place. Great two up sport tourers. Would I own one? No, can't afford it or the maintenance and goodies required to make it good. I ride with at least 10 or so guys on GS's. You'd be surprised where the talented of them can get to.

Right, just about any bike can do "Adventure" if it's what the rider wants. The wrong bike may struggle in places but it's all about getting out and having some fun, right?

BTW, Wes Siler (guy who wrote the article in your link) seriously lacks credibility ... and proves it once again. First off ... as usual .. he got a bunch of it wrong. Fact is, several of his listed "Not Coming To America" bikes ARE in fact coming or are here now. Maybe his article is old? No idea, but Cycle World and Motorcyclist (our biggest print mags in USA) featured several of the bikes. One is the "new" VFR800, another the little Yamaha kick start 400.

We're also getting some new Suzuki GSXR based naked bikes, some big old school Honda inline fours and several more. IMHO, not many of the bikes shown would be perfect travel bikes ... save the Tenere' 660's ... which we DO NOT get. Who knows if Yamaha will ever wake up on this one.

In the meantime, strong rumors from my Yam/Honda dealer friend indicate a new, small version of the Tenere' 1200 will be coming in 2015. This bike would be based on the FZ-07, the 700cc P-Twin released this year.
Could be a winner.

Yamaha already have done an upgraded on the FZ-09 released this year ...
a kind of "adventure-ish", sport tourer. The FZ-07 will (supposedly) be more Adventure/off road oriented. We'll see. Nothing happens until next year on that one. (known as MT-07 and MT-09 in UK, Oz et al)

What the USA and Canada DO have that Europe DO NOT ... are old dual sport 650 nails. All run Carbs which I guess are banned in EU/UK ? These are some of the most affordable and popular (and GOOD) ADV dual sport travel bikes in the world.

I speak of course of the KLR650, DR650 and XR650L. ALL still in production and still sold NEW here. But the really good news is how cheap you can find one used. The Honda's are a bit pricey now, but the DR and KLR are plentiful and cheap. Aftermarket support is huge. Reliability is world class compared to many modern BMW's and KTM's.

Both will be around for years to come ... proving to the high dollar adventure guys what Austin Vince always says: You don't need a $25,000 bike to go RTW.