We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? Adventure motorcycles, at least in the top-tier big bore (1200 cc-plus) category, can now lay legitimate claim to being the most technologically advanced motorcycles on the planet, capable of traversing any kind of terrain, on any area of the planet, in supreme comfort and certainly speed.
The biggest of the big, this category is not for beginner riders. Indeed, many riders who buy these bikes will take them on dirt roads and rocky terrain occasionally at best, with most of the riding done on paved backroads as they go in search of, well, whatever got them riding that day.
We’ve gathered the traditional three in BMW, KTM and Ducati and thrown in the homeboy, Harley-Davidson, just to give them a bit of a red, white and blue mix.
Each bike is as standard as we could get them from the manufacturers, and as close as possible to what you’ll get in the show room. Some of the bikes on test were already fitted with aftermarket/performance parts, like BMW with their Enduro Pro mode, but mostly, they are very close to what you’ll pick up.
To score these bikes as fairly as possible, we tried to compare engine, chassis, and electronics performance, as well as value for money and each rider’s overall ranking. We then averaged them together to give the final order.