I guess the question is what is an Adventure bike? Is it an on road/off road bike used for weekend fun or is it a bike for taking year long trips to far away places? If the latter, as this group is about that, I would say the least stressed, mot designed for longevity and carrying heavy loads is the best. That means a simple, understressed streed bike.

Very good point there! That label «Adventure» what does it mean? It means everything and thus nothing. Every trip, short or long can be an adventure. So every motorbike can be an adventure bike.

I would also agree that for a travelbike/overland bike/long distance trip bike - a bike with an engine that is understressed and that doesnt need to revved to death would be a good and logical start. Not a bike where the power has been squeezed to a maximum at a trillion rpms. And there are quite a few of those nowadays....

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

No argument with that - what you need primarily in a long distance bike is something that starts, stops, doesn't break or fall to bits and continues like that for longer than your trip is likely to last. Not wearing you out or bankrupting you with fuel costs while it's doing that would also be a bonus. As you say, well designed and understressed. In other words something where the adventure element is mainly in the trip rather than the transport.

Unfortunately bikes like that tend to be a hard sell for the manufacturers. How many of the bikes we gravitate towards have some element of 'the adventure is in the ride' built into them? It's marketing nonsense but it's persuasive marketing nonsense based on probably a better understanding of human psychology than most of us have. We'd rather trust something that tells us it's a bike built for 'adventure' than the evidence of our own eyes and/or experience. I've no doubt any of the big manufacturers could build what would be close to an ideal overlanding bike but what would the headline on the brochure read - 'The bike you hardly notice'? 'Goes on and on for ever'? Sounds about as exciting as a pension plan. That's going to be the one gathering dust down at the back of the dealer's showroom.

I like your 'trillion rpm' phrase. It reminds me of a spoof advert in one of the Ogri cartoons from way back - "Honda - a million fly power". That's even better than Sylvia Plath's 'ten thousand maniacs' in her bee box. And how many times have I headed off somewhere with that lot buzzing away below me.

Sorry chaps, I spoke to the marketing/colouring-in department at Honda and an adventure bike is a tourer with a tall hard seat, beak, Dakar colours, fake sump/hand guards and photos of just before their half-tamed MX champion broke the subframe round the back of the Rabat Hilton. You can spot them by the use of the words "aspirational" and "extreme" in the press releases.



I think this mythical beast you guys want is called a well maintained bike.

Andy

Yup, that's about it - an adventure bike is just an uncomfortable tourer. You have to suffer for your art. Just goes to show Mr Honda (et al) knows us well.

Yes of course - reliability and fuel efficiency is very important. But that kinda goes without saying. And if a bike is constructed with an understressed engine were the power isnt squeezed out to a maximum at very high rpms - the better chance it is that it is reliable and fuel efficient.
High rpms means high stress on the engine, and it tends to give more vibration which again tends to vibrate loose electrical connections, bolts and nuts etc etc. and high rpms also tends to mean higher fuel consumption.

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

SB the f700gs pretty much sums it up a derated 800cc eng capable of 95 hp from the factory this engine is in many bikes and I don't know of any manufacture that does this
the f700 has 75

As you can probably tell I come from a prehistoric era. One where the world was turned on its head and motorcycles were strange devices that hardly ever started, and if they did, continued in a straight line until they hit something because their brakes were useless. In that world it was the low rev plonkers that dribbled oil everywhere, vibrated the fillings out of your teeth and ran their main bearings in 5000 miles. And that was because they were all small workaday bikes from the 1930's pumped up and stressed way beyond their design limits by the steroids of marketing necessity. They often fell apart faster than you could screw them together (the ones of my acquaintance anyway).

It was the new design 'million fly power' oriental screamers that were the reliable and (mostly) under stressed travel bikes of the era. Now of course we're all eco friendly and as a litre of fuel not used is a flower saved there's quite a few low stress, low rev designs around. But old habits die hard. While my head says low rev everlasting plodder my heart wants to feel some kind of adrenaline rush as the revs build - even if I'm just trying to get out of a mud pool. These things sing to your soul - and the manufacturers know it.

Quite where we'll go when electric motors replace I.C. engines I've no idea. So far I haven't heard any electric vehicle - car or bike - make a distinctive sound other than tyre noise and a faint milk float style whine. Still, I suppose they said the same when cars replaced horses - "no more clatter of hooves on cobbles on a moonlit night, no more sweat rising into the mist after a hard early morning ride, no more free fertiliser to bring on our early season roses, just that anaemic farting sound and an oil slick along the drive". It'll be the triumph of beige logic over dayglo emotion. Pity in some ways but transitions are always like that.

Well - Im from the era right after you. The first bikes I owned were japanese two strokes, who needed 5 trillion rpms to get the power out. And they were mostly very unreliable. How fuel efficient they were I dont know as fuel often was «collected» for free after hours....
I remember one of the guys in the neighborhood had a Kawasaki 100 cc who he «hometuned» to the extend that the tachometer went around one loop and the needle was at zero and the engine was screamin louder than anything I ever heard in my life so far at that time. I think that was something like 18-20 000 rpms....
I got so impressed I soon after bought an identical bike. But my bike could only get 13-14 000 rpms though...

The Suzuki AC50 I owned before was extremely unreliable. Changing to a new piston and rings were a biweekly affair for some months.

Those were the days....so many memories...

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