2011 Adventure Touring Shootout

2011 Ducati Multistrada 1200 S, 2011 BMW R1200GS, 2011 KTM 990 Adventure Dakar, 2011 Triumph Tiger 800 XC, 2012 Yamaha Super Tenere

Who wins?

Click here for the Adventure shootout.

Looks to be one very large glaring omission, the Yamaha Super Tenere. Would love to see how this bike would of fared in this group of adventure bikes.


K.B.

R1200GS, MTS, S10, KTM, Tiger.

Believe it or not, the Tenere was included. Seemed to be a reasonable fair test to me.

For an omission it did pretty well in the test...

To scared to have a DL 650 in the mix then

Pete
​

Can you imagine how well it would have done if it was included

Yep The V-Strom and Postie Bike were conspicuously absent.

It would have smoked them all in every category but a drag race.

pretty good article, lots of good info

Is the "Wee" really that good to compete against those heavy hitters (the big BMW or the 990)?
I'm thinking about several in the mix and have been looking at the V-Strom pretty hard. Lots of aftermarket kit available for the Suzuki at fair prices.

Pretty good article all in all. It seemed like they were pretty honest about what was good and what wasn't.

It would have been REAL nice to have the Stelvio NTX tossed into the mix, why it didn't make it is beyond me, probably none available to test.

Really don't know what "off-road" means for these guys...gravel road at worst?

The Duc on par with the others in "off-road" riding? Even better than some? Come on.


OK...maybe with OEM tires but put AVAILABLE DOT knobbies tires on the rest of the group and you'll sing a different song. A fair shootout should take available aftermarket stuff into account, especially when it's about things you'll have to change anyway because of wear.




Ask me, I ride an Ulysses.

Soon this cast of characters will be joined by the Tiger 1200XC, or whatever Triumph will call it. Should be interesting to be in the market for a large adventure touring bike in a year or so...

It makes me wonder if they really rode the Tenere: "Best wind protection/comfort. Unforgiving ABS. Off road handling is the downfall due to ABS, heaviness, slow handling and high center weight. Absolutely no vibration from the engine or road......." :huh<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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Hey guys,

I'm the Associate Editor for MotoUSA, and I have been a lurker here at ADV Rider for years. Glad you found our shootout! It was a extremely long test, but we wanted to make sure we did it right. Thanks for the comments, good or bad. It is really important to us what the hard-core ADV set thinks.

As for the Stelvio, we were all set to have the standard model in our test, but at the last minute (literally) it became unavailable. We were bummed, but not as bummed as our sixth rider who got left behind at the office.

The dirt roads varied from super-smooth gravel to some decently deep silt and big rocks. Most of the time we were behind the eight ball in terms of time, so some of the nastier sections we had to pound through without shooting video. We learned our lesson on this one and plan to allot more time to video and photography on the next test.

We are already thinking about next years shootout and would like to get some input of what you guys would like to see from us. Locations, additional testing criteria, etc...

SgtDuster - I know it sound's unbelievable that the Duc was so good in the dirt, I didn't expect that it would be worth a damn. But it really was. As long as there was ground clearance and traction, the MTS was one of the most fun in the dirt.

And Supa12 Pilot - We did ride it, and we don't make this shit up. We take this very seriously and stake our reputation on every test we do. I hope you will continue to read and even criticize our tests. Guys like you keep editors honest, and we appreciate that.

Hi there, and thank you for the reply. As for the Ducati performing as well as it did in the dirt, can you please elaborate a bit more on the actual type of dirt road it encountered? Plenty of ground clearance and traction (given the MTS' tires) gives the impression of a very rideable or easy to ride road surface. I could see why the MTS12 would be a lot of fun in those conditions (for the record, I own one). As for the Super Tenere, I think the amazement stems from the owner/rider reports that are out there, many which seem to point to poor wind protection, a very low center of gravity, and its light weight feeling (under power), basically the opposite of what the article mentioned.

Anyhow, thanks again for providing your comments and thoughts.

No they get their copy delivered from BMW

Well, how is it possible you write the Tenere has a high COG, because it has the lowest of any ADV bike, easily checked with a scale (?)
and if you look at the bike and where the biggest mass the Crackshaft is lokated, a measurement is almost superflues...

Just look at the picture, the blue circle of little dots is the s10 Crank. The GSses is right inbetween the cylinders, almost 20 cm higher, then look at the gearbox and shaft hinge at the back. the two blue dots are footpeg and hinge of the S10. the two red dots are the footpeg and hinge of the GS about 7 cm's hiher as the S10's, and the axles of the GS box are above the hinge, the clutch being in line with the crank of the GS, while the Yamaha has a stacked gearbox bringing the weight down even more...

Just take a fotograph of all the beasts, with the front wheel in the exact same spot, the camera 30 yards away rectangular to the approximate common ground middel of all bikes, fix the camera position there, put a marker on the ground, put the frontwheel of the five bikes on that marker with the bike held upright, and you will see it for yourself

Then post the photographs, and i will make a nice layered PSD for you, with the common points colored, so you can see it for yourself, and dont forget to aknowledge the weigth of the Feul, which is centralised behind the cylinderblock with the Yamaha, whereas teh GS carries it in two lobes aside the enging almost in front of the cylinders, which make it very crash prone in loose sand by frontwheel overloading...

I specially need pictures of the MTS because the 17" wheel make it very hard to get a good "overlay", whereas the 19" of the others makes it very easy to line up the front rims

P.s. i know tjis next question is on teh edge, but the S10 being written down as a slug, and you guys being the first to have it tested objectively with the switches on full power delivery, could you send me medium-res (1024x768) jpg's of the performance graph's or post them here.
(i wont post them anywhere without your consent, and will just keep them for self reference, but would like to have your consent to at least post the S10 Graph on our Lazymotorbike.eu site)

We rode dirt roads that were hard packed with light gravel that allowed triple digit speeds, but we also rode some sections that had 1-2' deep silt with ruts that required finesse and commitment to power through. Later on in the trip we encountered some rutted, rocky sections where we passed a group piloting KLX400s, DRZ400s and KLR650s. We did bottom all of the bikes on rocks, and even on some big bumps. As a hard core dirt rider I would say the terrain was moderate at best for a lighter dual sport, but decently challenging on a large adventure tourer. JC and I would have like to have found some really gnarly stuff, but the rest of the crew wouldn't have survived. And we would have probably damaged the bikes. Not a good plan for a 10-day ride.

I think your choice of the MTS is a good one, as it was more fun than a ADV bike should be!

Please tell me then how you got to the statement the ABS of the S10 was a problem, or did you only use the back brake...