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adventure bike

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The Italians left the best for last on their six-part motorcycle teaser campaign for the 2022 model year, as today we finally get to see all the details about the Ducati DesertX adventure bike.

In a way, we already knew the important bits about the DesertX, having seen the concept bike at the 2019 EIMCA show.

The idea has involved since that Milan unveiling, however, with the air-cooled motor it showed with in Milan now being replaced by Ducati’s venerable water-cooled 937cc Testastretta 11° engine.

What’s in a name? Well, if you are the new Ducati Multistrada V2, there is not much beyond some minor upgrades for the 2022 model year.

The first of the Italian brand’s new models that will debut in the company’s two-and-a-half-month-long teaser series, the 2022 Ducati Multistrada V2 is mostly a name change to keep the “mid-sized” adventure bike conforming to the rest of Ducati’s mid-sized lineup.

The Husqvarna Norden 901 was one of the highlights of the 2019 EICMA show, with the Swedish brand showing its 890cc interpretation of the KTM 790 Adventure.

The bike displayed at the trade show was only a concept though, which left at least some doubt as to what the final production-ready machine would look like – not that Husqvarna strays too far from concept to conception, mind you.

Now spotted in a Pierer Mobility investor presentation (where all the best KTM/Husqvarna stories come from), we have caught a pixelated glimpse of the 2021 Husqvarna Norden 901.

Triumph seems set to debut four more variants of its Tiger 800, as CARB filings filings show a Tiger 800 XCA, Tiger 800 XCX, Tiger 800 XRT, and Tiger 800 XRX models for the 2015 model year. The news seems to show Triumph spreading out its middleweight ADV offering, giving on-road and off-road riders a bit more to choose from the British brand.

Helping us understand how Triumph sees the four added variants, Motorcycle.com has publish a chart (above), which Triumph sent to Tiger 800 owners as a part of its market research. That chart breaks down the various models’ spec, and which features that would come with as standard.

Noticeable across the board is that the three-cylinder gets a 15% MPG boost (the CARB document also show fewer hydrocarbon emissions), as well as ABS and traction control as standard features.

The autumn trade shows, INTERMOT and EICMA, are nearly upon us, and that means a plethora of new bikes are just weeks away from being unveiled to the public.

Some of the bikes we have seen coming for some time now, like the Ducati Scrambler and BMW S1000F (or whatever BMW plans on calling it); other bikes we have only just learned about, like the Yamaha TDM-09 (as the press is calling it) and the Suzuki GSX-S1000; and then there are the motorcycles we can only speculate about.

However, no machine has been more leaked, rumored, and anticipated than the KTM 390 Adventure. Like its sport bike counterpart, the KTM RC390, the smaller adventure bike is built around the KTM 390 Duke platform.

It wasn’t too long ago that we showed you what appeared to be an updated KTM 1190 Adventure for the 2015 model year. The bike had all the bits that we’ve seen on the KTM 1190 Adventure R, though the Austrian brand had noticeably reworked the fairing to allow for more air to flow through the machine.

Getting a spy shot today though, we can understand the reason why, as the model is seen wearing a “KTM 1290 Super Adventure” livery, giving a nod to the likelihood that KTM has upgraded the Adventure with the Super Duke’s “beast” of a 1,301cc v-twin engine.

I have made a number of bad decisions in my life, some of which have come hand-in-hand with my duties here at Asphalt & Rubber. Hindsight is always 20/20, and I can certainly think of a couple machines that I have naively swung a leg over with enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly, the word “prototype”, used in only the loosest of definitions, has been involved in these endeavors.

With rare occasion though, I have been able to see trouble coming ahead of time, and have either had the prudence to step out of its way, or the foolishness to forge ahead with a “what could go wrong” attitude. I would add MotoCorsa’s TerraCorsa project to that latter category.

A proper 195hp superbike, designed by Italians to win road races, the Ducati 1199 Panigale is an alphabet soup of features designed to make a rider go as fast as possible on asphalt.

So when MotoCorsa’s Arun Sharma gave me an opportunity to ride his “track bike” Panigale S, which he painted in Desert Storm beige and shod with Continental TKC 80 tires, well…I of course uttered “what could go wrong?” and graciously accepted.

On its face, the whole idea of taking a superbike off-roading is preposterous. No doubt, you are already making a list of all the things wrong with this idea, while pouring a cold glass of Hatorade in the process. And you’d be right in doing so.

The suspension travel is too short, the Panigale’s 1,199cc Superquadro v-twin engine has too much power, the riding position is all wrong, and let’s just skip over mentioning that the machine is a rolling bone fide crime against motorcycling. Ducatisti, pour out an espresso for this fallen Bolognese, but be forewarned that Arun and the TerraCorsa feed off the hate that this concept brings.

Before you sharpen your pitchforks and storm the castle gates at Borgo Panigale though, let me explain briefly how putting knobby tires on a purebred superbike isn’t as bad of an idea as you think. If anything, the gods must be crazy, because it is surprising how well the whole thing works. These crazy Oregonians are onto something…

Unless you are into the cruiser thing, Triumph’s press event at the 2013 EICMA show was a fairly timid affair, with talk about the company’s future growth, its plans for emerging markets, and the high-fives over 2013’s business dealings being the soup de jour.

However, we were tickled by one of Triumph’s more minor announcements, the 2014 Triumph Tiger 800 XC SE. Really just a cosmetic reworking of the British brand’s middleweight adventure-tourer, the bright red frame and subtle “Volcanic Black” paint scheme were enough to capture our blogger ADD.

Earlier today, I was thinking of writing a story that would be titled “The Four Obvious Bikes that BMW is about to Debut” or something like that.

While that list would include the spied water-cooled BMW R1200RT, BMW S1000R, and BMW NineT machines, at the top of that list would be the BMW R1200GS Adventure, which is predictable extension of the new GS, which debuted last year. BMW, it would seem, has beaten me to the punch.

Officially official, the 2014 BMW R1200GS Adventure has broken cover now, and is ready for you to ADV on until your heart is content. Not only does the new R1200GSA do away with the oddities in BMW’s 2013 lineup, where the old “air-cooled” GSA sat next to the new “precision-cooled” GS, we really wish this bike had been available for A&R‘s recent Broventure.

C’est la vie, as the French would say. We’ve got all the changes, photos, and so forth for you after the jump.

Rumors have long been around that Honda was looking to bring back the Africa Twin model to its line-up; and with a quick scrolling through Honda America’s “Adventure” category, one can see that the less-than-inspiring odd-couple that are the Honda NC700X and Honda CB500X, while fine machines they might be (though we’ve heard the word “soulless” used more than once to describe them), proper adventure-bikes they surely are not.

With the tuning-fork brand putting out the stout Yamaha Super Ténéré, and Suzuki teasing the 2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000, Honda and Kawasaki have been late to the Great American Adventure Bike party  — though at least Team Green fanatics can pretend like the Versys is a viable option for this category.

With Europeans having a variety of adventure motorcycles to chose from in the Honda brand, bikes like the Honda Transalp, Honda Crossrunner, Honda Varadero, and Honda Crosstourer, us Americans have been left out in the cold.

Well, that might be set to change, as our stroll yesterday though the USPTO’s online database (check-out our find on upcoming Ducati Scrambler) has revealed that Honda Motor Co. has registered “Africa Twin” for use in the American market. Could a proper adventure-tourer from Honda be headed our way?

The dirt-going counterpart to the road-bound 2013 BMW F700GS, the 2013 BMW F800GS sees a modest update to its adventure/enduo platform for the next model-year. Unlike the F700GS, the new F800GS doesn’t get a power-boost, and sports the same 798cc four-valve parallel-twin liquid-coooled motor that we have all grown to know and love (and was the basis of the Husqvarna Nuda 900’s 900cc motor).

Making 85hp at 7,500 rpm, and 61 lbs•ft of torque at 5,750 rpm, the real changes to the 2013 BMW F800GS come to its updated gauges, controls, and bodywork — oh, and of course the now standard anti-locking brakes system that BMW is pushing across its entire model line-up.