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Armageddon Bikes
The April issue of Cycle World had an article on Amageddon bikes - what will you ride to the end of the world? And then picked five bikes that make little or no sense - unless it really is the end of the world.
It's a California magazine so the end of the world to them means riding from LA to the desert areas to the east. How it makes sense to ride to a desert is beyond me.
But their rankings reflected a more realistic bent: "picking one as a survival tool, one that you could depend on in a wide and unknown variety of circumstances."In order of their choices, worst to best:
Triumph Tiger 800XC
Husquavarna TR650
Yamaha Super Tenere
KTM 990 Adventure
Kawasaki KLR650
The only problem is if I was looking at bikes as a survival tool , the answer would be "None of the above"
First of all, in the Northeast it isn't really practical to have only a motorcycle for transportation. So choosing a bike that is too big and heavy to easily transport doesn't seem practical. The lightest bike they tested weighed 427 lbs.
Second, taking off someplace on a bike means you are leaving a lot of resources behind, not to mention being vulnerable to almost any kind of attack.
Finally, the bikes they tested are relatively new and relatively complex.
Personally, I consider chance of total societal breakdown to be quite remote. Based on reality, the biggest need for emergency transportation would be during a hurricane, snow storm, or other natural disaster. This also means you probably want a bike that is street legal.
It seems to me that a 250cc (plus or minus 75cc) dirt bike with a headlight would be about the most practical choice. And there, you'd want to pick one that had been in production for many years with little or no change, was light, strong, and had significant fuel range. Whether it was plated or not would depend on your view of what the end of the world really looks like.
So what is your For Emergency Use Only choice? The usual suspects - turbo 'busa or Supermoto?