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So after my wonderful trip to the Smoky Mountains and my buddy's purchase of a Tiger 800 XCA, I've been seriously considering trading my not so reliable sportbike-turned-naked-tourer in for a full fledged adventure/ST bike. The wife and I made the trip over to both National Powersports and Freedom Cycle to check out the offerings, and I've been doing a lot of research to see what people think of each of the adventure-y/sport touring bikes.
I think what I've decided from my brief research is that I'd prefer something road oriented, but something that can do a bit of offroading comfortably too. I want to be able to ride up to the Adirondacks, explore and not have to turn around if we encounter an unimproved C6 road. A budget is not firm, but probably no more than $15,000 if I do pull the trigger.
The bikes I've looked at and various thoughts:
The vanilla offerings:
- Kawasaki Versys 1000 - I loved the engine in my Z1000, and given that this is just a bored out Z1000 engine, I'm sure I'd love it. Comes with a lot of stuff off the showroom floor, but I'd need to load it up with about $1500 more in toys to get it where I want it. So let's say $14500. Only downsides is it's a bit heavy at 550lb, and is a sport-tourer primarily.
- Yamaha FJ-09 - Seemed well loaded, powerful and light, pretty much a direct competitor to the Versys. Again, a sport-tourer, I don't know how it'd do on nasty dirt roads. I've read that it's buzzy and not as smooth as other bikes. Also read that it's awesome, so who knows.
- V-Strom 650/1000 - The bread and butter sport-tourer/adventure bike. Everyone and their mother has one. My mom had the DL650 and although it was a decently comfortable ride, I kind of want something more powerful. Only problem is the V-Strom 1000 shares the same 20 year old engine my bike has, but doesn't gain much in the power/weight ratio. It seemed heavy for its purpose.
- Super10 - Don't know much about this bike still, I've read more negative things about it than anything, i.e. that it was a let down. Seems expensive.
- Africa Twin - Again, don't know much about it, but its not even out yet. Seems like a decent in-the-middle bike that'll need $2000 above sale price to round it out.
The "exotics":
- Tiger 800 XC/XR - Ticks a lot of the boxes, comes with lots of toys standard that some of the more expensive ones don't come with. Has just enough extra power to make it stand out above the middleweight adv bikes. Only problem is my buddy already bought one...it sounds silly but I want something different so we can swap rides on occasion.
- Multistrada - Checks off a lot of the touring oriented boxes, but is again sport-touring oriented. It's also very expensive.
- 1190 Aventure - I have an unnatural drawing to this bike. Beautiful, plenty of power, starts relatively inexpensive although will probably take an extra $2000 to get it where I want it. Seems like the perfect compromise between sport-touring and adv. Only thing holding me back is reliability...I've never owned a KTM, to me they're "exotic" in that I don't know what to expect for quirkiness. Many people are happy with them from what I've seen.
Thoughts/experiences/comments?