Down in the Dirt with the Harley-Davidson's Adventure Bike
By Bruce Montcombroux

A polarizing design meant to attract new riders, but will it work?

 

I’m excited to see the new bikes and more about the new power plant

 

From the story:

Cruise control? Seriously?
I'll admit I've never done dual sport adventure riding. Off road, on road separately, yes. Is cruise control a seriously needed feature in an adventure bike?

 

Look at the specs for all the other 1200+ cc adventure bikes. They all have cruise control.

From what I've seen around here most of the adventure bikes are like all the SUV's they never go off road. They make a great touring bike, that long travel suspension makes for a really nice ride on the road, hit a pot hole or RR crossing and they don't jar you around.

Besides even the people who do actually ride them off road will ride on the road to get to the off road location. So yea cruise control is seriously needed or they won't be competitive in the adventure bike market.

 

To the Op: could you please put a bit more effort into your posts than to simply post links, how about posting an excerpt or God forbid...your own own summary backed by the article. Otherwise...I’m not reading further than the subject title.

 

I read in a motorcycle mag just a couple months ago that ADV owners admitted to riding mostly on the road with about 10- 15% doing light off road riding. They stated they light the style on the bike but really didn’t take it off road much.

 

If i was in the market for that style of bike,It would be the BMW adv rgs 1250 it looks better.

 

The engine is just what I've been waiting on. When I see the bike, my mind immediately starts: Change out to street tires. Lower bike. Get rid of that obtrusive upswept muffler and add full bags and tour pack. A serious long duration seat and backrest for Shelly. A serious shield, or maybe rip off that whole front end abortion and redo it. Ehh... I'm tired of mods... why can't the moco provide me with a serious faired bagged mid-sized (approx 600lb) water cooled 2-up motorcycle?

 

I was hoping the new line would include a more "standard" layout. The Streetfighter (Bronx) could be made into something, but that ball-buster ****-high seat really limits what I could do with it without major frame surgery. The low location of the headlight would also present an engineering challenge to convert to an upright touring-friendly shield/fairing.

ETA: The Street 750... well, I've sat on it at the dealers and my mind races, but there is just something clunky and "shrunken" feeling about it to me. It's not totally out of the question as a basis for what I want to do, but I was hoping the new lines would bring out something closer to what I want. I can wait.

 

Absolutely!

I did 5,000 miles on a small ADV over the summer. 3,500 was a trip to and from the Continental Divide Trail. 900 highway miles to get to the start of the trail at the border with Mexico, then 1,300 miles of off-road and highway up through the Rockies and into Wyoming, then 1,400 highway miles back home. That bike didn't have cruise, and I was seriously missing it.

ADV bikes are highway touring bikes that can go off-road too. They're not dirt bikes that can go on the highway; those are called "Enduro" or "dual sport" bikes.