A constant theme you will hear in the ADV space is how you can’t do real off-road riding with a big dual-sport, like the Ducati Multistrada 1260 Enduro and its siblings in the category.
They are too big, too heavy, and have too much power to be real off-road machines, some will tell you. Of course, to say that, you have to forget some history – namely that iconic off-road races like the Dakar Rally were competed on machines that aren’t all that different from today’s ADV bike.
What something to look forward to once the coronapocalypse is over? Reports from Europe are telling us to expect the Honda CT125 to become a production machine, perhaps as early as the 2021 model year.
For those that missed the bike’s “concept” debut at the Tokyo Motor Show, the machine takes a riff on the old “CT” bikes from the 1960’s and adds a modern touch, as well as the 125cc single-cylinder engine found in the Honda Grom.
Cake Kalk INK, Cake Kalk INK, Cake Kalk INK…say that three times fast. This Beetlejuice of electric motorcycles is the epitome of the growing “not a motorcycle” segment of the motorcycle industry, which is straddling the divide that sees bicycles on the other side of it.
This is of course nothing new for the Swedish company Cake, which has been working on its e-mopeds since 2016. Now, we have the latest iteration of the Kalk series, the Cake Kalk INK, which tackles perhaps the biggest criticism of the Kalk line: its price tag.
Coming with a price of $9,500 MSRP, the Cake Kalk INK still isn’t as cheap as many would like, but it does fit in the pricing scheme of being just above high-end e-bikes and just under pricing of potent electric dirt bikes.
When it comes to long-range dirt riding, the Husqvarna 701 Enduro LR seems like the perfect choice, with its potent 75hp 690cc single-cylinder thumper, and its 6.6 gallons of fuel capacity.
The model is a new one for the 2020, and was shown to us at last year’s EICMA show in Milan with quite the positive reception. There is just one problem though: what if you already have a Husqvarna 701 Enduro?
Realizing that many riders are not going to trade in their bikes for one that simply has a larger fuel capacity, the smart minds at Husqvarna have decided to make the cleverly named “Additional Fuel Tank Kit” available for current 701 owners.
In case you haven’t been following every day of the Dakar Rally – held this year for the first time in Saudi Arabia – you might want to keep your eyes on this iconic off-road racing tonight/tomorrow.
This is because American rider Ricky Brabec is on the verge of winning The Dakar, as he holds nearly a 14-minute lead over his next-closest competitor, Pablo Quintanilla.
A win from Brabec would be a huge disruption to the order of things, for several reasons.
It is with a heavy heart that we report the death of Paulo Gonçalves, who died Sunday while racing Stage 7 of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia.
Always one of the riders to watch each year at The Dakar, Gonçalves was competing this year under the Hero Motorcycles factory team banner, making his 13th start at this iconic and grueling race.
Right on schedule, the Triumph Tiger 900 has debuted with an updated ADV offering for fans of the three-cylinder adventure bike. As was expected, the 2020 Triumph Tiger 900 comes in five slightly less confusing varieties.
That said, there is the base model Triumph Tiger 900, the road-going Triumph Tiger 900 GT, and the off-road focused Triumph Tiger 900 Rally.
On top of this, there are “Pro” options for the Rally and GT models. There is also a low-seat height option for the Tiger 900 GT model.
While still a handful of models for what is essentially one motorcycle, the designations are still clearer and easier to understand than Triumph’s “XR, XRx, XRt, XCx, and XCa” alphabet soup of uppercase and lowercase letters.
If the Husqvarna Norden 901 was one of your top picks from the 2019 EICMA show, then we have some good news for you, as the adventure-touring bike has been given the green light for production by the Swedish brand.
The news shouldn’t come as a surprise to astute ADV fans, as spy shots of the new Husky have already been spotted in the wild, and Husqvarna has a strong track record of bringing its EICMA concepts to reality.
What will be interesting though is where Husqvarna lands on the feature list, and more importantly, how the Husqvarna Norden 901 is going to be priced against its competition.
The bike we never thought would make it to the United States is getting closer to actually landing on American soil, and today we have even more good news about the Yamaha Ténéré 700.
This is because Yamaha Motor USA has just shared with us pricing for the 2021 Yamaha Ténéré 700, and the Japanese brand has nailed things on the head with their $9,999 MSRP for this middleweight adventure-tourer.
While the Streetfighter V4 S was center stage at the Ducati stand at EICMA, our eye drifted over towards the Scrambler setup, where the Italian brand was showcasing two concept bikes for the Milan show.
At the Ducati launch event in Rimini, the Ducati Scrambler Desert X concept was the big tease, with the Italians saying very little about the bike.
Really, all that was revealed (beyond a couple sketches) was that the motorcycle would use the brand’s 1,079cc air-cooled engine, and instead Ducati encouraged fans to see the bike at the EICMA booth, if they wanted more than a rendering. So, we obliged.
For us, the Ducati Scrambler Desert X concept was the star of the Ducati EICMA experience, perhaps because we knew so far in advance that the Streetfighter V4 was coming, and had a pretty good idea about what this 205hp street-shredding machine would look like.
If there is a complaint to be made about the Husqvarna 701 Enduro, it likely has to do with the bike’s 3.4 gallon (13-liter) fuel tank.
The size of the tank isn’t unreasonable, mind you, especially since the Huqvarna 701 Enduro does pretty well at sipping fuel, despite its big single-cylinder engine, but if you really want to explore where the trail ends, there just isn’t enough go-juice on the bike…until now.
Say hello to the Husqvarna 701 Enduro LR, and as you can probably figure out for yourself, the two-letter designation stands for “long range”.