By adventure trips I mean mixed roads between pavement and gravel.
I am interested in fuel economy, maneuverability of the bike and practicality on the road.

From my test rides so far seems to me I should keep gross weight under 200kg/450LB. Surprisingly most adventure bike like XT660z etc weigh over
that limit. Wonder why...

Hi i have tried a lot of bike over the years and ruled out most BMW's or other bigger bikes . The two bike i used all the time now that have proven to be good for motorways and offroad work are the Africa twin weighing in at just over 200 kl or for places were your doing more off road then on road i like the KLR650 .

I would recommend the Africa twin as a good arounder if you can check one out

I think the optimal weight would be 0 kg but like allways you have to take some compromises. Single cylinger bikes dont like long highway use, water cooling helps you in the desert, light bikes cant carry as much stuff as big bikes and old heavy bikes are more easy to repair and dont have a high loss of value as modern hightech bikes. The optimal bike for me was a 700 Euro Transalp with 200 kg, wich I could sell for the same price after the trip:

http://motorradtouren-suedamerika.de...en_transafrika

That looks like a GREAT Blog .. bit confusing to navigate, hard to tell Ads from content? Strange format! But great pics!

Love the Transalp! 700 Euros is a gift! Great reliable bike for sure.

Can you lift it Solo with all luggage on the bike?

Some singles are really OK on highway, but certainly not all. The KLR650, DR650 and BMW F650 Dakar are all quite good doing LONG highway. A good seat and proper set-up make all the difference. Owned & ridden many singles long distance
(XL600R, XR400R, KTM 640E, KLR650, XR650L, XR600R, XR250R, KTM Duke ll) DR650 is the favorite so far!

Rode 1000 mile day on my DR650: (Guerrero Negro, Baja, Mexico, to San Francisco, one day) I've done dozens of 300 to 400 mile days doing many long highway rides since 2006. Good seat makes all the difference but the DR is quite SMOOTH at 75 mph.

Generally, I would agree, water cooling is an advantage in very HOT weather. But does add some weight and complexity to any bike. DR650 has no radiator, no hoses, waterpump, just an oil cooler.

The DR650 has been fine riding WEEKS in 100F plus heat, including Death Valley at 118F. LOTS of Mexico too ... all at 70 mph. Absolutely no problems. Common story among DR650 owners ... Suzuki's SACS Air/Oil cooling system is very effective. Truly amazing motor in hot weather.


Death Valley (this pic in Winter)


Colorado from California, mostly highway. Here in Utah.
3500 mi. ride, 80% highway. Average highway speed, 75 mph. HOT HOT HOT!

DR650 is the easiest bike i've ever worked on. The fact that it rarely needs anything or breaks also helps! It weighs 324 lbs. dry (147 kgs) 368 lbs. wet (167 kgs. WET and loaded)

What are you doing in Brazil?

it's all good but why did they stop making those great old bikes? like dr650, transalp etc??? I'd like to get a new one and what? no luck...

I think its BECAUSE they are so great. People who buy a Transalp or AfricaTwin etc. will never return to the dealer again for the next 20 years but keep riding and riding more then 400.000km without any problems.

http://www.touratech.de/nc/vollmeldu...ratech/29.html

This way you cant earn any money but people who buy a BMW have to get another bike every year because they keep breaking down

BMW R 1200 GS Dauertest : TOURENFAHRER ONLINE
Dauertest-Abschluss BMW R 1200 GS - Motorrad-Dauertests - MOTORRAD
Dauertest BMW R 1200 GS Getriebeschaden - Motorrad-Dauertests - MOTORRAD

For the same reason printers and washing machines these days are specialy designed to fail after the end of warranty
People today dont care about quality anymore. Everyone wants the newest phone and newest model of what ever...

Stopped making them? Huh!??? You can buy a brand new 2014 DR650, KLR650 or XR650L at any Suzuki, Kawasaki or Honda dealer in USA. Right now! The Honda is same dry weight as DR650, the KLR about 15 kgs. heavier.

Each company have over 1000 dealers in USA. Also, you can buy NEW in Australia. Only the Honda is for sale in the EU.

The DR650 has not changed since 1996, the KLR was the same from 1986 to 2007 (only minor changes made in '07). The Honda XR650L has not changed since 1992. Of all three bikes, IMO, the Honda is most in need of a re-model/upgrade. If Honda did this, they could DOMINATE this little segment. (which is quite strong ATM)

Having owned and traveled on all three bikes for thousands of miles since 1990, I prefer the DR650. It's low and easy to ride. It's pretty good off road once upgraded suspension ... but most of all ... it's extremely TOUGH and crashes very well. (almost no damage from light falls)

I would consider the KTM 690 if it was a bit less expensive and more reliable. KTM will get there ... and I will be standing in line to buy.

Only Yamaha have stepped up with modern dual sport singles. (Tenere 660 ect). Yamaha don't import any of the those bikes to USA. I love "the look" of the Tenere' but not a fan of the weight.

4500 lbs????

The "optimal bike debate" has been carried out so many threads here its not even funny. Go test ride some single cylinder bikes. Try and find bikes under 150 kilo. Then with your gear it will be around 200. My 690 is less then 210 kilo with all my gear. The Atwin is over 210 kilo unloaded.

You should also be honest with yourself about what type of riding you want to do. In my opinion, offroad ability of a bike is better than onroad comfort.. It makes you explore the small roads instead of burning slab all day and dealing with traffic. But, I want to be able to ride up that huge dune on the left to see what the view is like from the top. Also my opinion: You should be able to be able to pick up your bike by yourself... Not just on tarmac, on all surfaces. Doesn't seem practical to have to unload a bike to pick it up when you tip over or get stuck.

As light as possible & practical
Layout your intended gear, halve it & then cull some more !
How many trips have been done with clothing not worn, gear not used & just sitting there taking up space ??? Plenty !

Playing top-trumps with the manufacturers spec sheets is pointless IMHO. The only way to take account of the different shapes and seat widths and engine "happy spots" and hundred other factors that please or annoy is to use them. Which would you rather have, 5 litres of petrol or 4.5 Kg lighter or a bike weighed without any oil in the engine? It's all compromise.


My current choice (Moto Guzzi V7) is supposedly under the magic 200Kg at 179 wet. If feels small and light and on gravel roads in third gear it plonks along as well as road shaped bike. My former V-strom was a whopping 14 Kg over the ballpark magic number but listed as "kerb" weight was certainly more capable off road due to the 19-inch front tyre when moving, but when forced to walking pace by how far ahead you can see was a top heavy lump with a seat height and width that made getting a foot down fretful. The Wee's bulk and extra 20HP would actually make it the superior road bike in many people eyes, but if you stick to the speed limit anything over 40 HP is pointless anyway.


I'd try talking to people with similar use and shape to you rather than reading the manufacturers web pages. It's taken me 20 years and 14 bikes to reach the conclusion that a 5'8" bloke doing 95% road use, who needs to take any road at 20 mph in any weather, has a pillion ten times a year and wants to do his own maintenance is better off with a bike that pretty much looks like what Ted Simon used in 1975 and has between 30 and 60 HP (but other choices also work to most of the spec)! Would you believe the only manufacturers who agree with me are Triumph (so long as I ignore their lies about the weight), Moto Guzzi and the odd Kawasaki dealer who knows their product range includes bikes that aren't snot green missiles ;-) The rest think having a bike that looks like something from the Transformers film or that is the weight of my lunch lighter than last years model is more important to me.


Look at the bikes that are doing the job, old BMW's, KTM's, Japanese singles and twins, Chinese 125's, Honda Step throughs..... The published weight figure doesn't coincide with success or failure.


Andy

I have a KTM 690 and a BMW R100GS. My preference for any 'adventure tour' will always be the old BMW. It's much heavier than the KTM but still fine for the unpaved roads, much more suitable for extended road travel and I wouldn't be put off exploring less travelled routes because of the weight.

The KTM would be my bike of choice if the intended journey was almost entirely off paved roads (trans Pyrenees for example) as the bike is much lighter making it a lot less hard work. I always try to travel as light as possible these days but even so the BMW carries the gear more easily.

I'm pretty much the same size I was forty years ago. OK, the leather bike trousers I bought in 1974 are a little tight these days but nothing a week on bread and water wouldn't sort out. Bikes, on the other hand, seem to have been spending the last few decades on a Big Mac and Lard diet and have become huge and bloated, lumbering their way down the tarmac and needing car sized parking bays.

How do I know this? Because yesterday I spent an hour or so wandering round my local Triumph dealer's showroom. They keep a small collection of classic (70's mainly) bikes scattered here and there in between the current stock so it's possible to do a direct comparison. The older stuff - many of which I owned in the past - looks tiny, almost like toys, yet I happily did many thousands of miles on them round Europe and beyond, often with pillions, without worrying about their weight. The current bikes were mostly all physically bigger and a lot heavier (the exception being a secondhand Enfield).

No doubt they were a lot more sophisticated and, despite much bigger engines, were probably just as economical but my point is that I'm just the same size as I ever was but I'm having to manhandle much larger heavier lumps of machinery around. No wonder they're unwieldy off road. There's nothing wrong with 200kg+ bikes that become 250kg+ when they're loaded up as long as you're riding them along smooth endless tarmac. It's when you have to ride them on a cross rutted sandy piste or push them uphill on an adverse camber that the problems arise. And lets not talk about snow.

Lighter bikes do exist - I have three of them under 150kg but mostly they're small capacity (my 125 is 88kg) or crude to the point of needing a mechanically adept (or insensitive!) rider (My XR600 is about 130kg, my CCM is about 145kg). The market seems to have decided though that more weight is an acceptable compromise for more sophistication - or maybe it's just that bigger sells easier. Either way, we now have still normal sized people trying to manhandle bikes that would have been laughed at a few decades ago - even the original Gold Wing looks small now.

"What Bike?" is a frequent question here & you'll received great advice. But the truth is, only you can decide - only you know the type of road you'll use & what your capabilities are

You may be 6'2" and weigh 20 stone or 5' nothing and weigh 7 stone. It also depends on what you define as a "gravel" road and what skills you have/lack.
I agree that some of the ADV Bikes are too tall, too heavy but some riders would be happy picking up a 1200GSA and relish a muddy trail or a boulder strewn river crossing. The svelte Tiffany Coates manages to ride her R80GS all over the world & pick it up. There are techniques.

__________________
Elaine

Striving to live the ordinary life in a non ordinary way

the problem is with today's products, everything has to either too big or too small
Look at any company offer for so called adventure bike and you'll see.
If something is smaller, it has small tank or other thing making it harder to use for longer trips.

We thought we were doing well on our tricked up DR650 2up around Uyuni in Bolivia and then met a Czech couple riding 2up on an Enfield Bullet 350 on the original road tyres doing all the pistes we did and a few more difficult ones. There a lot to be said for lower lighter bikes.

A 650 is as heavy a bike as I want to use for travelling, even the DR with a full tank and luggage is fairly heavy ~ 200kgs.

The 'optimal' bike does not exist, what we have to choose from are all compromises, you have to decide which is the most important to you: 150 hp and weighing 250kgs, or weighing 75kg and doing 120 mpg with 20 hp.
Most of us choose something on the lighter side.....but as has been demonstrated you can ride nearly anything, nearly anywhere.

__________________
Cheers
Grif

'11 KTM 450 EXC
'09 Suzuki DR650
'00 Discovery Series 2 V8
'95 Defender 90 300 Tdi Overlander
http://gipperstravels.blogspot.ca