Mollydog - great to see a Strom in those pictures, as an ex-DL650 owner myself! Still miss that bike a bit, I must say... not 'cool' or 'sexy,' but still easy to love somehow.

Re: Been there and done it - I've only been riding at all for about 4 or 5 years. But in that time I have done a few 4000-5000 mile trips. What I haven't done though is any long trip that has involved any off-road sections, other than riding from the road to the camp site. Actually, saying that, I did ride some gravel roads along my Route 66 trip, but didn't really learn much from that other than that a 700lbs cruiser with zero suspension travel isn't the right bike for unpaved roads... but I already kinda knew that!!

The reason that I'm in the market for an 'adventure bike' is that I'm interested in doing some rides that have a little off-road in them. Not a lot... probably less than 10%, maybe less than 5%... but still a little.

I think you're probably right that the new Africa Twin isn't going to be the best road bike of the class... in fact, that was the premise of my opening post But I don't know, somehow it is appealing to me nonetheless. Maybe the other big adventure bikes are biased 90/10 in favor of road riding, and the AT is 87/13? I'm finding that strangely interesting for some reason...

Shrek - I think you're right, and it's not stated enough that actually, riding long highway days on an uncomfortable bike can really put a downer on your trip. I've had days where my back hurts, or something like that where I can barely think about the riding and enjoyment because I'm so preoccupied about being sore. I experience a lot more on a trip if I'm comfortable and can enjoy what I'm seeing.

Yokesman - talk my boss into giving me another few months off work so that I can travel slowly, then we'll talk. By which I mean yes, traveling slowly is preferable to traveling quickly. But if you're not able to travel slowly, maybe traveling quickly is still better than not traveling at all?