Have I gone mad?

[Nick Calne]

Just get one of each!

[ghulst]

Hahahaha, well, not this year at least.

[Bixxer Bob]

some Honda cars have adaptive CC included in the spec.   Mine doesnt.  dont ask how
i know 

[London_Phil]

Had Adaptive CC in a Hyundai Ioniq. Was amazing, and the Ioniq was not a bad car too..

[ghulst]

The question is, should I take this test seriously then?



Oh, and the request is in to ride the Pan America...


For those who don't want to watch it:
1st BMW R 1250 GS Rally (Very complete bike, expensive bike, does everything really well, carries weight well, refined.)
2nd Yamaha Ténéré 700 (Briliant bike, easy bike, could be more expensive, fun to ride, feels like something you can just ride across Europe easily.)
3rd KTM 790 Adventure R (Not much in it between third and fourth. Great bike, but if you don't want to push it during your ride, or if you are a novice on or offroad, it is not for you.)
4th Honda Africa Twin 1100 (Fantastic bike, but the other ones were just a bit better both on-road as well as off-road.)

[ghulst]

Today was that day on which you really wanted a mesh jacket for your ride. It is 30 degrees outside and when I left this morning, that temperature was a lot lower. So, I am slowly floating out of my awesome but old Dane Gore-Tex jacket. First stop after my meeting, my house to switch to my mesh jacket. What a relief. Though it still is incredibly hot. Anyway, it is all for a good cause as there is a River Rock Grey machine waiting for me.



My first impression is great. The machine looks much better in real life than in the pictures. It is relatively easy to get on and off and it has a whole host of buttons to play with. However, there is just one that is important. The starter button. I hit that and get on my way. On this Pan America, the clutch action is really short and only at the extreme of the lever. That took some getting used to. The other thing that bothered me was the way in which the throttle responded. It was pretty jerky and whenever I hit a pothole it made my right hand crack the throttle open a bit more, resulting in a bit of a jerky ride on rough pavement. That did not happen in rain mode, but let's be honest, you don't buy this bike for rain mode, right? Wind protection wasn't worse than the AT or the GS, so no points gained or lost there.  The cruise control worked nicely, though it would have been nice to have the buttons a bit closer to your fingers. Control-wise the AT had the easiest cruise control, in my opinion anyway. I was riding the Pan America and not the special, so no height adjustment and no electronic suspension. That would have been nice and would probably have improved the ride a lot. However, it was not on here, so I can only imagine.

The verdict? H-D has really done its best. However, though it has a lot of power, it did not feel either as much fun as the AT or as composed as the GS. So, this one drops off the list.


So, at the end of the ride, I did have my dealership make me an offer if I were to buy a new R1250GS. Well, that got expensive quickly. The bike is some € 20,000 to start with, but once you have put on the packages you want (and need for residual value) you end up with a € 26,000 bike. On a positive note, they did offer me € 1,000 more for the Tiger than the dealership where I talked about the T700. However, that also leaves a much bigger gap. Though BMW do a very attractive financial lease scheme in NL against incredibly low interest rates. So that is something to consider.


Then there is just one thing left to do... Search more and ride more. I have just enlisted for KTM's local test day to ride their 1290 Super Adventure S and their 890 Adventure R again. Just because I did want to take another look. And I might need to find a place where they have a T700 with another saddle to ride...

[Nick Calne]

No one can doubt your thorough approach.

[mat-tiger1]

Pity you couldn't get across to the ABR festival next week! All the major manufacturers will be there offering their bikes out for test rides in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside!

https://www.adventurebikerider.com/adventure-bike-rider-festival/


All the best,
Mat-tiger1

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ghulst]

Hahahaha, probably not, Nick.

It does make me wonder whether I would really like to put down 26K on a bike though... I mean, those beasts are expensive. A T700 would be 14K and then I'd need to dig into a better saddle and another screen. Oh, and luggage...

To throw in a wild card, for the same price I could also pick up a Guzzi V85TT Travel, which actually is a very nice riding adventure bike. Though it is a lot like my old 1150, which would trigger the question why I'd buy it and not get an old 1150 again....

Or one of the KTM's, or an AT, or...

Pity you couldn't get across to the ABR festival next week!

Now that would have been fun!

[Sin_Tiger]

We can only applaud your dedication to the search, cue Monty Python Coconuts 

[ghulst]

But what a ride those were.

[ghulst]

Ok, just a quick update of my day today...



First off, I rode the KTM 1290 Super Adventure S. A cracking bike, so to say. Lots of tech in there and it rode quite well. The anti-dive and automatic electronic suspension behaved very well. I did have to come to grips with the quick shifter, but apparently, a bit of tweaking on the position of the shift lever should sort me out there. It was the first time that someone explained to me how to do a wheelie at the start of a test ride. That was surprising, to say the least. However, as wheelies are not really my thing, I left both wheels on the ground and did a little tour on it. To be honest, this bike is worth investigating further. It had some nice power down low (pulling away in 3rd at 1800rpm actually works quite smoothly, but when you go up the rev range, you have to mind your shoulders. They can be pulled out. This thing pulls like a freight train if you want it to. I really did like the balance of the bike. So, the KTM joins the row of options. BMW 1150 GS, KTM 1290 Super Adventure, and Honda Africa Twin 1100 Adventure Sports. The GS will probably be succeeded by a 1300 by November, so that might not be the best investment right now. Then again, Beemer trade-ins seem to be pretty good on residual value...




My second ride today was on an 890 Adventure S. I had ridden the 890 Adventure R before and I requested to ride that again, as I felt that I might not have given it a fair chance. Back then I wrote that I never had a bike that I knew so quickly I was not going to like. Unfortunately, there was no R, so I ended up on an 890 Adventure S. Well, my thoughts in my previous post turned out to be true again. Everything just feels too light, as if it would easily break off. The bike is nice, the power is incredible, but the way everything feels is just low quality. In my opinion. The shifter was better on this one than on the R that I rode, so that was ok. But the switchgear on the steering wheel had so much less of a quality feel than the 1290's that it was ridiculous. You have to keep the engine a bit higher in the rev range as well. Ride it above 2500 and the bike does whatever you ask of it. Go below that, and you need to work the clutch or shift down. However, when you really pull that gas handle, it catapults itself forward. Great fun engine combined with the 'attack position' you have on the bike, makes it a great weekend warrior and probably a lot of fun on gravel. Just not for me.


Back to options then. The 1290 Super Adventure S is a new contender. It is fun to ride, comfortable and quick. It is probably at least as offroad capable as the GS, if in capable hands. However, it is €6.000 cheaper. I could buy two more Tigers for that money. So, I need to be able to spend a bit more time on that bike and then ride it back to back with a GS preferably.

[Lee337]

I quite like the look of the 1290 Super Adventure & saw quite a few around the Lake District in the UK last year, so i've no doubt they are popular. I'm getting some new tyres on the car later this week & there's a KTM dealer 2 minutes walk away so I might go have a closer look.

The other one is a bit too Orange for me. 

Not that I'm considering buying a new bike any time soon, if ever.

[Bigfeesh]

My pal & I were doing much the same up here last thursday, the best looking and best priced was the Yamaha, there were two versions, one of them was the Rally, £4k cheaper than the Honda! Apparently it has much fewer electronic gadgets, £4k's worth is a lot of electronic chips! Not a fan of present gadgetry really but it's your money to spend. The Yam looked right, nice paint and nice price too.

[ghulst]

I'm afraid I'm both a sucker for gadgets as well as someone who does rack up the highway miles on his bike... That means that stuff like (adaptive) cruise control are very welcome extra's. I really liked the T700, but it is very limited in the tech department. And the seat... Oh, man, that seat. :(