Is Moto Guzzi working on a new adventure model? These spy photos would seem to suggest that is the case, as this bike was caught outside of Piaggio HQ, with the longintudinal v-twin heads popping out of the sides of the spoked-wheel machine. Caught by Moto.it, the Italian publication seems to think this is more of a super/hypermotard type of machine, though the proportions to us look to be more well-suited for adventure touring.
When you think of the ultimate adventure bike, your first thoughts probably lean more towards bikes like the class-leading BMW R1200GS. If we continue that thought, and said that the ultimate ADV machine was in fact a Yamaha, you would of course then expect to see the subsequent words to center around the Yamaha Super Ténéré (read our review of the Yamaha Super Ténéré here).
Well, someone in Yamaha’s French office is our flavor of crazy, as they let six-time Dakar Rally winner Stephane Peterhansel loose in the sand dunes of Merzouga, Morocco on a Yamaha YZF-R1. Shod with exquisitely hand-cut Michelin tires, Peterhansel flexes the 180bhp machine over the dunes with proper rallying style.
Truly gorgeous shots, if it is available in your area, you’ll want to pick up the latest copy of L’Intégral magazine to see them in the gloss and read Peterhansel’s thoughts on riding the R1 in its non-native habitat.
When the Triumph Tiger 800 came out, speculation immediately set forth on when the British brand would build a “full-size” adventure bike. Then the 2012 Triumph Tiger Explorer broke cover ahead of the 2011 EICMA show, and officially added a 1,200cc three-cylinder adventure-tourer to Triumph’s motorcycle line-up. Along with a plethora of other motorcycles, the Triumph Tiger Explorer hopes to take on the BMW R1200GS, the undisputed king of ADV riding.
Since the Tiger 800 gained favorable reviews and traction in the marketplace, the Tiger Explorer was expected to also be a market favorite for 2012…that is of course if Triumph could price the big-displacement Tiger competitively against the Ducatis, BMWs, and KTMs in the US market. Getting a $15,699 MSRP price tag, that element of our question has been answered, and sets the Triumph Tiger Explorer as the cheaper alternative in the premium-adventure market.
The bike that made the brand, the BMW R1200GS is about to get updated for the 2013 model year, and the Bavarians have been busy testing their new adventure bike. As such the ever questionable “spy photos” have made their way onto the interwebs, and we diligently give in to the new trend in motorcycle marketing to bring you some very clear photos of the 2013 BMW R1250GS. While the new BMW R1250GS looks ready for prime time, and is expected to be a liquid-cooled version of the now iconic GS, we imagine BMW is still surely stepping carefully with the R1250GS’s final design.
One of the best-selling motorcycles worldwide, the BMW GS has defined the now lucrative adventure-touring market segment. Accordingly, BMW must be keen on making sure the new 2013 BMW R1250GS doesn’t alienate its core constituency of GS riders. However, the German brand is surely also feeling the pressure to update its air-cooled line with water-cooled motors, as well as bringing other modern features to its motorcycles.
Suzuki continues to string us along with dates and teasers of its expected V-Strom replacement/update. Showing three more blurred, yet revealing, photos of the new middleweight adventure bike, Suzuki is now saying to come back to its website on June 22nd for more details on the machine.
From what we hear from our European colleagues, Suzuki has sent out invites for the new V-Strom’s unveiling, which is schedule for June 27th in Croatia — a great venue, but also a week and a half away. Whether or not we’ll get a glimpse of the machine before then remains to be seen (or more teasers for that matter), but there is at least now a definitive timeline on when this madness will conclude. More photos after the jump.
Rumors are still fuzzy on the upcoming release of a new middleweight Suzuki adventure bike, with there being some debate as to whether the V-Strom replacement will be a 650cc, 1000cc, or perhaps even an 800cc machine. Suzuki is pushing the adventure statement hard, which to us means that this new bike will be more off-road capable than the current V-Strom, which to us has always seemed like a sport-tourer duped into doing something it wasn’t intended to do.
With Suzuki’s US website even sporting the teaser images now, this looks to be a worldwide release; and we won’t have to wait long to find out all the details, as this Saturday should bring us more information on how the Japanese brand is finally getting on this mid-life crisis bandwagon. So far the best guess we’ve heard are new look, new chassis, and new motor. More teaser photos after the jump.
The Honda Crosstourer is getting closer to production, as the Japanese adventure bike was caught testing by the eagle-eyed lens of Brenda Priddy & Company. Sans some panniers, and with a cover over the bike’s crash bars/fairings, it looks like the Honda Crosstourer has remained largely unchanged from its 2010 EICMA debut.
Based around the same V4 motor that can be found in the Honda VFR1200F, the Crosstourer looks to be fairly off-road capable, and will compete against bikes like the BMW R1200GS and Yamaha Super Ténéré. It’ll be interesting to see how the dual-clutch transmission on the Crosstourer fares in off-road duty.
You can check out the spy shots of the Honda Crosstourer over on Edmunds Inside Line.
If you were disappointed by the low-resolution/low-quality spy photo of the Aprilia Caponord 1200 (Aprilia Tuareg 1200 to some) published yesterday, then have no fear because the folks at Moto-Infos have your back, and have whipped up a photoshop of what the bike should look like when it debuts later this year at EICMA. Since the Aprilia Caponord 1200 basically is a Dorsoduro 1200 in sheep’s clothing anyways, the work here is pretty damn faithful to the image we saw just 24hrs ago.
Husky fans are going to have something to talk about for the next 8 months as BMW Motorrad VP Hermann Bohrer has confirmed that the Husqvarna brand would be dipping its toe into the street bike waters with a new bike launching at EICMA later this year. Said to have German technology with Italian design, the new Husky will be a middleweight adventure bike that features a BMW F800GS parallel-twin motor that’s been increased to 900cc in displacement, which makes it not too dissimilar from the Husqvarna Mille 3 concept (shown above) we saw last year at the Italian trade show.
Asphalt & Rubber was recently one of a few blogs, along with the usual suspects from the American media, to be invited out to Arizona for Yamaha’s press launch of the Super Ténéré adventure-tourer motorcycle (because we know Americans have no idea what to do with an accented “e”, think “tay-nay-ray” for pronunciation…or just cheat like us and say “ten-air-ray”). The earth is orange here in Arizona, and between the mesas and evergreen forests, Sedona makes for a picturesque setting, that’s away from the bustling metropolitans and city life. This serves our purpose well as its an ideal environment to show-off the 2012 Yamaha Super Ténéré against the desert’s beautiful backdrop and star-filled skies, but it also serves as the type of destination Super Ténéré owners would likely visit on Yamaha’s new motorcycle, putting us right in the shoes of the target customer.
A market segment based around compromises, adventure-tourers sit somewhere between the juxtaposition of dirt and touring bikes. Based on the idea that the journey doesn’t end where the road does, the adventure-tourer market has taken over from the Harley-Davidson crowd as the next expression of freedom on the open road. Essentially created by the BMW GS series, it is impossible to talk about adventure bikes without mentioning the GS, but other manufacturers as well have entered into this growing market, coming up with different ideas on what riders are looking for when they want to escape from the daily grind.
Built to ride both on and off the street, adventure bikes pose the unique problem of having to decide where to make the trade-offs between these two different purposes, and in this regard we find the 2012 Yamaha Super Ténéré, leaning more heavily to the street side of this equation than say the BMW R1200GS. As a publication that centers around street bikes generally (hence the name Asphalt & Rubber), we too lean towards the street side of that equation, making the Yamaha Super Ténéré a strong congruency to what we look for in this motorcycle segment, and a bike we wouldn’t mind adding to our stable of daily riders and long-distance tourers.
Although Honda likely needed to explain its thought process more fully regarding the 2011 Honda Crossrunner, the Japanese company has also put together a quick video clip with designer Yosuke Hasegawa, and his vision behind the Honda Crosstourer Concept. The more purposeful occasional off-roader, Honda’s Crosstourer Concept takes the V4 motor from the VFR1200F, and mates it to an adventure-based platform.
We imagine the idea is that the Crosstourer picks up where the Crossrunner leaves off, and it is interesting to note how Honda’s naming scheme for both bikes encourages that idea. Cross for crossover concept, the Crossrunner is sportier with its “runner” designation, while the Crosstourer seems destined for more of a “it’s the journey, not the destination” thing with its “tourer” badge. Again don’t take our word for it, watch Hasegawa-san explain his creation after the jump.