Agree with you there, Im not getting any younger and picking up big heavy bikes - or trying to ride them off road is tiring on a long trip. The shortfall with the 690 is the close ratio gearbox, realistically a good "allround" bike needs to be able to do some cruising at motorway speed and the 690 is just too buzzy - yes I know the sprockets can be changed out, but its 2017 (tomorrow) and I shouldn't have to change sprockets to ride on the motorways occasionally - (which I have to do on the DR650) I hope KTM give this 790 twin a 6 speed wide ratio box and keep it reasonably light - I'm betting it will end up fairly plump though at ~210kgs kerb weight, we shall see.
The CCM 450 does tick most of the boxes, but its issues for me are:
a) its bloody expensive - for the price of the CCM I can go buy 2 lightly used DR650's and kit them both out and still have some cash left to travel.
b) I don't have much faith in doing a big trip on a 450 without having to do a full engine rebuild - possibly in the ass end of nowhere, like Ted says, it needs a decent (reliable) engine.
The current trend of 250-390cc faired mini 'adventure' bikes is interesting, but most of them are coming out as heavy as the 690 and my DR650 - with half the power - pretty pointless as far as Im concerned.
Last edited by Gipper; 30 Dec 2016 at 22:22.
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