#adventure-touring

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.

The 2018 Triumph Tiger 800 is one of those bikes that kind of flies in the face of conventional wisdom about what makes a great Adventure Touring motorcycle, and Triumph is perennially happy to thumb its nose at the competition.

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.

WIth EICMA come and gone, we’re hyped about all the new 2018 models we get to test, but that doesn’t mean it’s too soon to start looking ahead to 2019 models. Case in point: while we eagerly await the press launch of the new 790 Duke, we are also excited about the upcoming KTM 790 Adventure.

BMW pulled the covers off two new mid-sized GS models, with a new 2018 F850GS and F750GS replacing the F800GS and F700GS. The new models were completely redesigned, with the F750GS as a more entry-level GS model and the F800GS for more advanced ADV riders.

Michelle Christine is a comedian and writer who loves to ride motorcycles. She was first seen on these pages after taking BMW’s Off-Road Academy and writing about her experience. Then she took her first off-road trip as part of RawHyde Adventure’s Base Camp excursion in the Mojave desert. This time Michelle sets off for an adventure on her own. Being gregarious and sweet, she naturally makes several new friends along the way.

If we stopped by your house, what type of equipment are we going to find in your garage?  Since we know our readers are motorcycle fanatics, you can vote for more than one category.  Let us know what you’ve got!

Since its introduction, the Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin hasn’t stopped drawing comparisons to some of the best off-road-oriented Adventure-Tourers in the category, an honor it comes by honestly seeing as it’s such a great motorcycle.

A stunning blasted moonscape is a good way to describe the natural beauty of Peru’s Nasca Desert. And that moonscape makes a particularly good place to test a fast and large adventure-touring motorcycle like the new 2017 KTM 1290 Super Adventure R.

When it comes to the Adventure scene, there’s a strong case to be made that nobody does it better than KTM. Take the 1090 Adventure R for example. Tom Roderick just came back from its launch, and in his First Ride Review, he gushes about how easy the bike is to ride both on- and off-road, thanks to its reduced weight compared to the previous 1190 Adventure, and despite carrying a powerful 1050cc V-Twin between its trellis frame, the KTM is able to dole out manageable off-road power thanks to its dirt riding mode.

The BMW GS line basically owned the Adventure-Touring category before such a term even existed. But that doesn’t mean competition didn’t exist. Such a competitor came from Aprilia, as it tried its hand at something resembling a GS competitor. The year was 2001 and the bike was the 2002 Aprilia ETV 1000 Caponord; the precursor, of course, to the Caponords that would come more than a decade later. History clearly doesn’t look too fondly at the old Capo being any bit of a threat to BMW, but what did the MO gang of 2001 think of the bike? Read on to find out.

The beauty of modular helmets is the ability to have the best of both worlds; the convenience of a three-quarter helmet when you want it, with the protection of a full-face helmet when you need it. What more could you ask for, really? If you talk to the folks at Scorpion, there’s plenty more, like a modular helmet suitable for adventure touring rides. This modular would have all the benefits we’re accustomed to, but also be able to handle the occasional trip off the beaten path. With that, Scorpion took it upon itself to develop a modular helmet that lived up to the definition of modular: the EXO AT-950.

At Intermot 2016, KTM today unveiled the 2017 1290 Super Adventure R and 1290 Super Adventure T. As one would expect from an R model, the 1290 Super Adventure version is designed to be the ultimate KTM travel-enduro machine. For its part, with just a few minor tweaks, the 1290 Super Adventure T has long distance on-road touring set as its focus. But since it’s a KTM, a little venture off the beaten path is also possible.

We had to wait a few years for Honda to get on-board with the current Adventure-Touring trend, but when Big Red finally did, it did with the most iconic of Honda off-roaders. The Africa Twin namesake is a lot to live up to, but the latest edition does so, not by being a hardcore Dakar performer, but by being one the most balanced, all-around big-bore ADV bikes on the market.

When we read about people riding motorcycles around the world, the vision that often comes to mind is of big adventure touring bikes, packed to the gunnels with necessary supplies. This image has been fed to us by Long Way Round and other well-heeled and well-documented travels.