#adventure

For this four-part series, we take a look at five easy bolt-on parts that will transform your ADV bike from a Starbucks-destined road queen, to a Dakar-ready desert blasting rally winner. Or something like that. This series is designed to show how much of a difference a few well-thought-out adventure bike upgrades can make to the off-road prowess of your big ADV bike.

This week you might notice Motorcycle.com being a little quieter than usual. The reason is because most of the MO staff are out riding in our Sorta Annual Big Adventure Bike Shootout. For 2018, we’ve gathered seven of the biggest and baddest adventure machines out there. The plan? To put them through their paces on both the pavement and the dirt. To prove we’re serious about the dirt part, each of the contenders here comes to us with wire wheels, except for one, which we’ll get to in a moment.

For a company like Harley-Davidson, change can be slow and incremental. Not so today, as Harley-Davidson announced a new plan for growth from now through 2020, including some significant, bold changes that many customers have long been asking for.

This just in from the We Knew It Was Coming But Couldn’t Prove It Department: The KTM 390 Adventure is being developed for the 2019 model year. Now, let’s see what the spy shots have to tell us.

Why don’t we go to Baja more often? Well, one reason is the manufacturers want us to get special dispensation before we take their bikes to a foreign country, you need to buy Mexican insurance, everybody speaks a weird language down there, you can’t drink the water… those are all really easy obstacles to overcome, and I’m told you can drink the Baja water now.

Last November, Moto Guzzi presented its V85 concept, an adventure-touring model powered by a new air-cooled 850cc V-Twin. Based on the comments in our EICMA show coverage, the V85 concept was very well received by MO readers. If you’re one of those who liked the concept, you’ll be happy to learn that Piaggio has filed a design patent for what looks to be the final production model, and it does not stray too far from the original concept. (UPDATE: better quality versions of the patent images now added, from filings with China’s patent office.)

Speaking of adventuring, on my way home from flogging this new Tiger all over the mountainside, I was inspired enough to explore a new route: Instead of taking the 210 to the 57 like I usually do, I hopped on 5 South, to the 10 West, to the 710 South! (I had to go to Long Beach to do a bike swap with Ryan.) Was it scary? A little. There are some parts of LA where you really don’t want to have to stop, but the Triumph Tiger 1200 XCa had me feeling all omnipotent. Bring it on!

When I first laid eyes on the 2018 Honda Africa Twin Adventure Sports at the Long Beach International Motorcycle Show, I thought to myself, “Dang that’s a nice paint job and I love the white frame, but man, what a long name.” After talking to some Honda reps about the bike’s intended place in the market and in its own line-up, I left the conversation a bit more confused than when I had started. You see, the Africa Twin Adventure Sports is aimed to more directly compete with the bigger adventure motorcycles that publications and consumers alike, were already comparing it to.

While we eagerly await the final production version of the Ténéré 700, Yamaha is taking its prototype on an international “World Raid” tour with professional racers and brand ambassadors putting the 689cc adventure bike to the test.

A couple months back, we published a spy photo of what looked to be a new BMW F850GS Adventure. We can now confirm the F850GS Adventure has been certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a 2019 model.

As we both braced for impact over what some (my wife) would consider too much speed for entering a parking lot over a large gutter, we were both pleasantly surprised by the 2018 KTM 1290 Super Adventure S’s semi-active WP fork and shock’s handling of the bumpy business in real time. When we both jumped off of the big orange behemoth we looked at each other, slightly taken aback at how well the suspension absorbed the bump.

Royal Enfield designed and built this motorcycle in India, for Indians, a few years ago, with no plans really to export it. Why bother? India took over from China last year as the world’s biggest motorcycle market; Indians buy something like 48,000 motos a day (which probably includes lots of scooters and mopeds, but you get the picture – something like 17.7 million a year).

A new off-road-capable version of the BMW F850GS has been spotted undergoing testing in Greece. As a replacement for the F800GS Adventure, the new model will likely debut this fall at Intermot or EICMA as the 2019 BMW F850GS Adventure.

Motorcycle.com has been following the riding exploits of Michelle Christine, who is exploring adventures on two wheels in between the stand-up comedy shows she performs around the world.

For 34 years, District 37 Dual-Sport has hosted the LA to Barstow to Vegas ride, providing participants with a 400 mile-plus dual-sport ride through some of the most scenic countryside in the Southwest. Perhaps this is why the event in known around the world and not just in this corner of the United States.