#parallel-twin

This week on Church of MO, we turn the clock back to 1998 and the Yamaha TDM 850. Long before Yamaha’s FZ-07 had the marketing department abuzz with the words “crossplane concept” in regards to its 270º firing order, the TDM 850 was already doing the same thing. In fact, it was doing it with more valves, too – five valves per cylinder instead of the four on the FZ-07. As for how it and the rest of the bike works, here’s Colin MacKellar from MO’s Dutch Desk (I didn’t know we had a Dutch Desk).   

With its 1290 and 1090 Adventure (and Super Adventure) models, KTM has nearly conquered the big-bore adventure-bike market (sorry BMW). But total world domination isn’t complete until the lower classes have been scooped up, and with these spy photos of what we presume is a prototype of the 790 Adventure, the Austrian firm looks to be setting its sights in that direction.

For 2016, the ground-up new Triumph Bonneville comes in two visually disparate color options: the T120 and T120 Black.  There are no performance differences between the two unless you consider back-in-black badassness to be a performance advantage. Both models begin with a base model price of $11,500, rising in $250 increments according to paint options.