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Benelli TRK 800 Adventure Bike Surprises at EICMA

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In my EICMA preview article, for our A&R Pro subscribers, I wrote that the Chinese continue to impress each year with their two-wheel offerings, and that one would do well to watch what Benelli brings to the Italian trade show, as the Chinese-owned brand has a habit of bringing intriguing machines each year. I was not wrong.

There has been no shortage of middleweight adventure bikes debuting at EICMA (and before), but it is the Benelli TRK 800 that caught me the most off-guard.

Riffing on the Benelli TRK 502 that debuted in 2015, the Benelli TRK 800 is a middleweight ADV that features a 19″ front wheel, and plenty of bang for its buck.

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Bikes

2022 Yamaha Ténéré 700 Raid Prototype Teases an Up-Spec Model

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The Yamaha Ténéré 700 has become a popular choice amongst dirt-focused ADV riders, especially those shopping in the middleweight ADV category, but the Tuning Fork brand is surely feeling the pressure as that segment continues to heat-up.

So, it is not surprise then to see Yamaha toying with a more capable, more up-spec, and more expensive variant to the Yamaha Ténéré 700 ADV machine, to help fend off the entries from other brands.

This is where the 2022 Yamaha Ténéré 700 Raid Prototype comes into play, and it just broke cover at the 2021 EICMA show in Milan, Italy.

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Bikes

MV Agusta Lucky Explorer 9.5 – A Modern-Day Elefant Debuts

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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.

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Rumors

MV Agusta Confirms Its “Lucky Explorer” ADV Project

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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).

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Rumors

MV Agusta Is Working on a 950cc ADV Bike, And It’s Coming Soon

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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.

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Reviews

What It’s Like to Ride the Aprilia Tuareg 660, A Review

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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.

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Bikes

Here’s a Mega Gallery of the Aprilia Tuareg 660 Doing Its Thing

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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.

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