The second of the MV Agusta’s dual-pronged approach to the middleweight ADV category, the MV Agusta Lucky Explorer 5.5 features the brand’s new 550cc parallel-twin engine.
While MV Agusta isn’t sharing all the details on either of its Lucky Explorer entries, the Italian firm is much more tight-lipped about the 5.5 version than its 9.5 model.
If you want proof that the middleweight adventure category is red hot right, look no further than MV Agusta, as the Italian brand has not one, but two machines for us this EICMA show that are designed to travel whatever road the world can throw at it.
Part of the larger “Lucky Explorer Project”, this lineup of ADV machines showcase the Italian brand’s two new engine platforms: a 930cc triple, and a 550cc parallel-twin.
If the you couldn’t figure it out on your own, the MV Agusta Lucky Explorer 9.5 is the larger of the two bikes on offer, and seems set to tackle the premium end of the Western market.
Start the countdown for MV Agusta’s adventure bike reveal, as the Italian brand has signaled that it will it be debuting, not one but two ADV bikes at EICMA this year.
Starting with its “Lucky Explorer Project” name, and imagery from the Dakar Rally, it is clear that MV Agusta is trying to draw a line to the company’s rally-raid history through the Cagiva brand (something another Italian motorcycle brand does as well).
We are just days away from this year’s EICMA show, which means new bike leaks are coming in hot and heavy. The latest comes to us from the folks at MV Agusta, which has been hard at work on its new 950cc three-cylinder platform.
The first bike that we seem to be getting from this new displacement is an adventure-tourer, as photos of the machine have been spotted on the road with an MV Agusta test rider onboard.
When I first met the Aprilia Tuareg 660, it didn’t make much of an impression. It was the 2019 EICMA show, and the bike was quietly on display in a glass box, covered with plants and vines.
The display was so nondescript, that thousands of attendees and hundreds of journalists passed by the Tuareg 660 without even noticing that it was there.
Nothing is subtle about the Tuareg 660 now though, as the middleweight adventure bike is riding the wave of success that has come with Aprilia’s previous two models from its 660cc platform.
Add into that notion how popular the middleweight ADV space has become recently, and we can begin to see why the Aprilia Tuareg 660 is one of the most anticipated motorcycles for the 2022 model year.
So to test its mettle, Aprilia brought us to the Italian island of Sardinia, where the winding mountain roads make for challenging and technical riding on the street.
And to get our feet dirty too, we tackled some rough gravel roads/trails, as well as an off-road circuit that Aprilia created with a good mix of sandy, rocky, wet, and bumpy conditions.
Is the Aprilia Tuareg 660 any good? Ask 31 riders and you will get a Baskin Robins of answers back in this highly personal two-wheeled space.
But, the Aprilia Tuareg 660 does seem to inhabit the Goldilocks zone of the middleweight ADV space that should impress many, and leave quite a few riders reaching for their wallets. Let me explain.
Buongiorno from the island of Sardinia, as this edition of “Gone Riding” sees us getting ready to ride the new Aprilia Tuareg 660.
The third of Aprilia’s 660cc parallel-twin lineup, the Tuareg 660 is the Italian brand’s middleweight ADV option, and it promises to be a potent offering for off-road riders.
I’m sitting in the airline lounge at JFK right now, waiting to hop across the pond to ride the new Aprilia Tuareg 660 in Italy, and I was thinking to myself how weird it is at this stage that we don’t have any proper photos of the Aprilia Tuareg 660.
Well, the minds in Noale must have been picking up what I was putting down, because there was a dump of high-resolution photos of the Tuareg 660 put on their press site today.
For $12,000, the 2022 Aprilia Tuareg 660 puts out 80hp from its parallel-twin engine, and tips the scales at 449 lbs at the curb.
To call the Husqvarna Norden 901 one of the most anticipated motorcycles for the 2022 model year might not be an understatement, though you might not be using that phrase for the right reasons.
It’s finally here. The Husqvarna Norden 901 is finally here. Two years after its concept EICMA debut, the Husqvarna Norden 901 is here for the 2022 model year.
While it might be the “Blue & White” version of the KTM 890 Adventure, you can tell from the photos that this isn’t simply a rebadged version of the Austrian machine.
A bike we have suspected from Ducati ever since the Multistrada V4 debuted, the Ducati Multistrada V4 Pikes Peak continues a long tradition from the Italian brand in making a sportier adventure-tourer.
That ethos gets taken to another level with this incarnation though, thanks primarily to Borgo Panigale positioning the base Multistrada V4 as a more all-round ADV bike, with its 19″ front wheel and double-sided swingarm.
Returning the Multistrada to its 17″ ways, the 2022 Ducati Multistrada V4 Pikes Peak features not only a smaller front wheel, but also a single-sided swingarm and other sport-focused choices.
Officially debuted today, there isn’t much that we didn’t know about the 2022 Triumph Tiger Sport 660, save for maybe its price.
What that $9,295 MSRP does though is it frames the features we knew and expected from the mid-sized adventure-sport, and tells a story of a feature-packed, budget-priced machine, which gets us fairly excited.