I am sure this will get a lot of comments , but as well travelled ,i feel able to talk about this .................... How many 1250's do you see off road ?
Last year i did 6000 miles in Maroc on a cb 500 x and i can say it was the best bike i have ever taken there !
Smaller bikes let you enjoy the views and are easy to handle .............. big ones get you there fast !! ......any point in that ?

It's nice to get there fast and comfortable, IF you have spare tyres to fit when you get there.

Otherwise I am doing 90-100kph and nursing my knobblies.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

It's an endless cycle of fashion for the Starbucks crowd and the manufacturers marketing men. F650 because it won the Dakar. Not enough power? R1250GS SssssirrrrrR? Behemoth too heavy SssssirrrrrR? F800GS would suit you SssssirrrrrR. Not enough power? K1900GS out soon.....

Everytime they create another Moto Guzzi Quota it cycles back to a Himalayan then starts again.

There is no right answer but if there was the manufacturers wouldn't like the lost opportunity to sell you bigger, faster, lighter, simpler....

I'd agree the CB500X is closest on current technology, but the Tenere self jacking swing arm thing might prove that old and allow bigger, or Enfield might drag 40 HP out of 480cc or....

Andy

it's all about skills, you can enjoy big bikes as well as small
and when you got proper skills they're more universal and rewarding then small ones.




so, definitely it's not death fd big adventure bikes, just the opposite.

fantastic riding on new tenere T7

Depends on where you are and how big your support team is, I guess.

I see video like that and think: moto travelers don't really ride like that. The idea is to get where you're going with minimal risk of injury.

No one in their right mind is out there sliding the rear around the corner on a obscure lonely pass in a mountainous little country with no rescue teams and no hospitals.

So, if you want to take the back roads you'd be better off taking a smaller bike.

just my opinion, of course............shu

I feel you are looking through the lense of what you use a bike for.

The big adventure bikes, IMO, are awesome sports tourers that can handle dirt roads. This would explain why they are so popular and one of the leading sellers for companies like BMW.

Everything is a compromise. Choose the bike with the least compromises for your use. I had a CB500x and my R1200GSA and the GS handled formed and secondary/forestry roads much better than the X. The GS does have Wilburs which probably helped.

In the end the X didn’t suit the adventures that I use it for. I doubt even post covid I will be going anywhere that the X would be worth the compromises it has over the GS. I won’t be going to Africa or South America, will be doing Japan, Russia, Mongolia and Europe. The GS suits that role well I think.

Have fun and stay safe.



EDIT: just wanted to say that the enjoyment you get is not just the trip but the bike and I think we fall in love with a certain kind of bike. I was fine for years on enduro bikes and small road bikes. But then I rode big BMW’s and Yamaha’s for work and power and comfort became like a drug maybe LOL...

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Hi Mal

Everytime I go past the honda dealer I look at the AG-XR and think that would be awesome for serious RTW stuff.

Cheers
D


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I hope to be living in Japan for a couple of years from next year and am thinking of a second hand Honda X-Adv 750.

New Ohlins, off the shelf protection and a Giant Loop SaddleBag would make an awesome machine for me - middle fifties and with a dodgy new right knee. At least when I fall off I wont get a leg caught as easily.

Options baby. Life is awesome.


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"How many 1250's do you see off road ?"

Well, not many, but then I'm not often off-road.

However, I saw an absolute SHEDLOAD on the roads of Lapland when I was there last week on my TDM900.

Forgive me but the thread title and the thread OP are a bit non sequitur.

There is no doubt that your smaller bike is a better choice for that sort of trip unless you know your potatoes and can ride accordingly. My "smaller bike" is an XL600V and that is still pretty heavy.

But, in the same way that most Land Cruisers never see trails, most 1250s never see dirt.

And the marketeers know that full well.

They make a bike that can munch miles of tarmac in considerable comfort, at considerable speed, with a considerable luggage capacity, all the while giving the owner the feeling that they could, if they chose to, go anywhere with their bike.

And why not? If their bike lets them feel freer, feel like all their worries are back at home, then I think their bike is an excellent investment.

Most people buy stuff because of how it makes them feel, rather than purely for what it can do. Even on here you get a traveller asking for recommendations. They get pointed at the "on paper" perfect bike for their needs, but they are often distracted by something that they simply like more.

That's one of the best feelings about riding: being on something that you love riding, even if it's not the most logical choice.

So, no, I don't think the big ADV is dead.

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Adventure: it's an experience, not a style!
(so ride what you like, but ride it somewhere new!)

I'd have to disagree with the poster....if u said sportsbikes and 600 race reps were dead , I'd agree cos apart from v4 and V2 panagales our shop doesn't sell any . However we sell shed loads of ktms naked and adv , teneres, multistradas , streetfighters and pcx125s lol
Given the general age of current riders seems to be late 40s and upwards , they cant fit on sportsbikes anymore and unless you track them they are totally irrelevant in today's busy camera infested roads . Who needs a 600 rep when you could have a mid sized ktm that will spank it on a b road and not leave you needing a neck massage at the rides end.....

You can also forget the new fireblades....
No one wants one . As for dedicated adventure bikes , that is small cc , lightweight etc they arent big sellers, other then the 700 tenere , as customers arent interested in them . If u r lucky enough to go to places afar then u r in a happy minority.......as I would guess less then 5% of people I deal with do that sort of thing in fact it's probably less then that . Most bikes seem to be pcp for a couple of years , used for a bit of fun then chopped in when something else comes along
.

So what is an adventure bike? And what is a big bike? And what is a big adventure bike then? Is there a unison understanding and agreement about these terms? I dont think so....and if so the value of this discussion isnt very high.

Any bike can be an adventure bike - some people say. Any trip, one day long - 100 kms, one week trip - 2-3000 kms long can be an adventure. Right or not? You dont have to ride London to Sydney or Alaska to Ushuaia to do an adventure? Right or not? So any bike can be an adventure bike and any trip can be an adventure. Yes I personally think so and like this attitude towards bikes and riding.

And what is a big bike then? Any unison agreement and understanding about the term «big bike»? I dont think so. For example - I spend a good bit of time in Thailand where I ride a 250 cc bike. When I ride to the local shopping mall to buy my groceries Im always shown to the big bike parking as everything over 150 cc is considered a big bike down there. And big bikes have a different parking lot than those smaller ones 100-125 cc. And its annoying as its further away from the entrance than the regular small motorbike parking
So I have started to use my gf old Honda Wave 100 cc on my grocery shopping trips as I both can park closer to the entrance and it has a shopping basket mounted...
On the other hand - when I bought my first «big bike» here in Norway and it was a Honda Transalp 600 cc most of my friends and surroundings commented - hey mate thats a womans bike, hey mate - when are to going to buy a real bike ?, yeh its a good beginners bike but you soon will want a bigger decent bike (oh - how wrong they were...) etc etc. So here a 600 cc bike isnt considered a big bike, not even a «real» bike.

Anyhow - I dont think theres any danger that big bikes or big adventure bikes will be extinct in the near or even distant future. The good thing as Touring Ted mentioned earlier in this thread is that many manufacturers have started making smaller cc bikes that can be used as travel bikes the last 5-6 years or so. And by that I mean bikes in the 150-500 cc range. And that is great thing as the choices and selections are getting better. If only the manufacturers could make the smaller cc bikes a bit lighter. Most new 250-500 cc bikes still weigh much more than the old Suzuki Dr650 - which I consider one of the best, if not the best alternative and compromise for a adventure/overland/travel bike....

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

This topic is like a sushi bar and goes round in circles and gets plucked off for a fresh bite every now and then....
I'm stuck on the fence with this one, at later 50's and still very able I much prefer the feel of a bigger bike on tarmac and my smaller bike (500cc) for the looser stuff. I'm a builder of bikes so I've built two adventure bikes that are at polar opposites of the weight scale. One for solo trips and one for pillion adventures.

Neither bike does everything perfect and am I willing to make sacrifices on a trip....YES of course. Am i worried about the weight and can I pick it up or not..... NO..!!

Big 'ADV' bikes and aggressive sales staff are going nowhere and will continue to punt bikes out the door while the 'Horses for Courses' comment is the valid statement here....

I'm not getting any younger but as long as my biking mojo remains at high output I'm gonna stay with big bikes !!!

One more comment tho, my smaller adv build uses the CB500F engine, I had to use it for a commute of around 120 miles of pure slab a couple of weeks ago and it amazes me how that little engine can soak up the miles and sit at 70mph without flinching one iota, ironically the same speed my GS12 feels comfy at these days.....