Considering getting a adventure bike? Read this!
 

This is the best article i have come across regarding selecting a proper bike. And finally the most common and widespread myths about biking are being completely busted.

Adv Bike Selection 1 | Sibirsky Extreme

Well it allways depends on what you want. There are so many more questions to define the word "perfect":

1)Is weight your only isue or do you have to look on the money side too?

2)Are you willing to take the risc of buying an exotic new bike or do you prefere to buy one wich is known for years and you can get all parts on ebay if needet?

3)Do you really want to buy a bike in your home country and ship it around the globe or do you prefere to buy a local bike were you start your trip?

Adventure means different things to a lot of people.

To many, an adventure is taking a motorcycle to France for a week... Then a big stupid GS is actually a good bike for the job. (Although this trip is just as fun and easy on a sub £1000 bike )

If 'Adventure' to you means mud plugging through Siberia then yeah, get an Enduro bike and spend the other £15,000 on plane fares and beer :)

Good find if you haven't come across it before
 

There are many, many threads in here in particular about "which bike", naturally, so there is plenty of competition for "best article".
IRRC this particular article has been discussed in here previously; certainly it has been flagged up, at least in relation to the brand of adventures that Walter C has undertaken.
(I assume you know that Walter C is s strong contributor to this website).

You may want to define what you mean by "a proper bike" to pursue your point. Fortunately, no one has yet managed to pin down a definition of "Adventure bike" much less corner that particular terminology or copyright the term.
I expect most people are grateful for that!

As for myth busting, the article is an expression of the opinion of one guy; very well written and pretty well argued and referenced, but still a single opinion in the continuum of space and time.
Opinions really do vary, a lot.

Exactly correct! :thumbup1:
Even though Comrade Colebatch has A LOT of valuable experience in Russia, Mongolia and vicinity, his style of travel is not universal. But we DO have to weigh his comments and give them high credibility for sure. bier

However, I would contest some of his assertions based on my own experiences over 40 plus years of riding/traveling and over 50 bikes owned.

I DO like his comments on weight. Always important if going off road. His comments on fuel injection as being "The Way" I would contest, or at least offer an alternative view.

As reliable as modern F.I. systems are, you can still have "unsolvable" problems. F.I. systems are VERY battery dependent (to run the high pressure fuel pump all F.I. systems use).

Oh .. and speaking of a high pressure fuel pump ... on many F.I. bikes these pumps have failed or become clogged . (KTM 690, 800GS, and several of the BMW X bikes (Xcountry, Xchallenge).

Colebatch also discounts the Suzuki DR650 ... but I don't think he's owned one. The DR650 has potential to be a great all round adv travel bike. Yet it's simple, cheap and easily owner modified.

Colebatch's own HIGHLY MODIFIED X Challenge cannot be considered representative of a bike the "average" moto traveler could ever build. Colebatch's XChallenge FAR from a standard issue bike, it's custom made from tip to tail, with thousands of hours put in by skilled fabricators to make a world class adventure bike.

Read his build report ... where his XChallenge evolves over years of constant modification and improvement. Then, it's taken out and tested in torturous conditions .. then rebuilt and even MORE mods done. Must be nice ... :innocent:

What did all this cost? Hmmm ... dunno, but suffice to say it ain't cheap. doh

I contend you can do it all simpler and cheaper, still be light enough and make it most places you "need" to get to. Slower? Yes! But going Long Distance is not a race. No silly Guinness book records to be set or broken here. bier

The "best" Adventure Bike is an urban myth. :-) To each his/her own, and for me is the bike that fits my budget, maintenance skills, personal style (does it enhance the image I want to portray and my cycle-psche), farkling tastes, cargo requirements, my need for speed, and of course is the right color. :-)

But seriously, the "best" is the one that prompts me to ride more, see more and live more happily!

The best one: the one you have and actually use..
The ideal one: the one you dream about for your next trip...

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. :mchappy:

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. :scooter:

"Long List"? :innocent:
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?

Well, Mezo, aren't you the international snob? And besides my point is that I (and certainly not you) can't make a judgement on the perfect or best bike for someone else. It's a personal choice more than something that any so-called expert might define.

Yes, there are many people with incredible knowledge and expertise (again excluding me. .. and you) and they have knowledgeable opinions about suitability of bikes for "adventure" riding from a technical perspective. But adventure riding is, I believe, so much more than technical. It's personal, experiential and based so much on interactions with those one meets on the journey.

The best adventure bikes are the ones that enable those soulful connections with our surroundings, and perhaps the technical prowess of the bike or even the rider isn't really so important after all.

In any case, your presumptions about my limited North American exposure to internationally available bikes? They're not relevant to my belief that THE "best" bike can't be defined, regardless of one's technical views.

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):
http://www.bike.no/sites/bike.no/fil...?itok=MAF0bXkB

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 :nono:

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 bier)


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:
http://www.tempo-online.net/bilder/mil_taifun_s.jpg

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

Well there we have it, define "Adventure Bike" :whistling:

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 :censored:

Over to you.

Mezo.

CCM
 

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

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! :rofl:) 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. bier

I think this thread is better suited for the HUBB Pub......so off it goes.

Oh! and try and keep it civil....:nono:

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.

The definition of "adventure" is your own interpretation, same as the definition of the "perfect" (adventure?!) bike. Adventure is in your head, quite simple. It is your definition of something that is not ordinary, for you in your world! Life isn't perfect so why should/could your bike be? It's a myth. There are as many opinions as they are people. "Adventure" is a selling product, nothing more, nothing less.

In Walter's eyes, I agree with him, but his sense of adventure is not the same as the GS owner's sense of adventure for example. And might not be the same as your sense of adventure.

We went to Siberia and the 'stans on Suzuki DRZ400E and had a great time and a lot of "adventures". Yes, for going off road and off the beaten path, the lighter is the better. But there are maybe only like 5% of travelers doing this, most stay on the normal roads and just go wander off road from time to time. Think about this, think about what you really want to experience and where you are going.

Now we're back on the road again but with complete different bikes, that make no sense at all in the "adventure" scene. But we don't care at all, we choose our bikes because for one or the other reason we love that bike, the looks of it, even if it has advantages and disadvantages, live with the choice you make. Do you need an "adventure" bike to travel around the world? No... You can do it on anything and you'll have fun for sure...!

http://www.wanderingsouls.be/wp-cont...1/IMG_1127.jpg

http://www.wanderingsouls.be/wp-cont...d/IMG_1003.jpg

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

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 :thumbup1:

Maybe a scewdriver can replace a hammer, but a hammer will never screw ( well, sometimes yes :innocent: )
I made some trips , and it was for 70 % on roads ( smalls, very bad, but not single enduro trails, as I can do around.)
Alone, I was a lot of time complaining under my helmet : this f...g TTR600 is vibrating too much, just 120 km of fuel, candle lights, brakes like cigarette paper, etc ... But when shit hits the fan, and you're alone and you HAVE to go back home for work, kids or whatever, you're happy to cross the destroyed roads by crazy rains, with 80 cm of water, etc... ( nice bulgaria roads this september :thumbdown: ) With another heavy more touring bike, i would have wait for 2 days for a clean road... Maybe cars this day are still waiting :D
It's in these situations that you just LOVE your lighter bike, with this old carburetor, the kangaroo seat and the bulletproof frame.
So maybe the point is not the bike, neither your way to consider adventure, but in a more pragmatic way , the time/space you have, the fact you're alone or not, the money in your bank account... Another thing not often mentionned is how you're seen by foreign people and countries you cross. Some will feel comfortable to show they're on expensive bikes, some others will prefer the beggar's -ghost feeling. I try to be in the middle:alucard: My 0.01 € :scooter:
"qu'importe le flacon pourvu qu'on ait l'ivresse" as said Beaudelaire jeiger

Excellent! .. :mchappy: .. and hard not to smile all the way through.

Thanks for posting the link. :thumbup:
.

That's obviously a fake video...

Everyone knows you can't make it out of your own town without at least £5000 worth of Touratech accessories bolted to a 300kg £20,000 'Adventure bike'

My god.. They don't even have lazer etched brake reservoir protectors. Got to be fake...

HA! :yes:

Just watched Part 2.

FAR OUT .. dude!

as a boomer .. I can really relate, although I got my kicks riding surfboards, not motorcycles, back in those wonderful days [1971].
Ahhh .. the memories - read: I was no :angel:
:innocent: !!

These films are pure gold......