How to build up to sport tourer

[Wildmalta]

Hi all,

I recently got into motorcycles. I did a brief stint a few years ago, then paused and in January got a Moto Guzzi Breva 750 which I love.

I'm keen on a larger sport tourer (1000cc + ) in a year or so for overland travel on and off road and wondering how best to build up to it. Meaning, i have zero experience with a motorbike off road, nor with higher weight & power bikes.

I'm keeping the Breva, so wondering whether i should just go for a bigger bike and learn on it, or if it makes sense to start with a smaller/lighter bike to try off road. And if so, should i go really small like 250 or 400cc, or with a medium size, say 600 - 800cc?

All ideas welcome.

Thanks
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'04 Moto Guzzi Breva 750

[Nobby the Bastard]

You don't use a sport tourer off ride if you can help it. They are passably sporty (i.e. race rep sporty) but have more tolerable geometry for riding long distance, but only on the road.

I think you are talking about the gay adventure bikes.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Triumph Sprint ST 1050

[Bhud]

Yes, start with a smaller/lighter bike to go off-road. In fact, stay with a smaller/lighter bike to go off-road.

You don't want as tall or as heavy an adventure bike as you can get, for your forays off-road. This is because of gravity plus centripetal force. Some experienced and skilled people can do it, for sure. But those same people are even better on smaller, lighter bikes. A nice, low centre of gravity plus a lighter weight will give you more confidence, and you won't break your knee or hip in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Watch this video as many times as it takes until you realise what the problem is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_dxWpdVhY

Many people use tall, heavy adventure bikes for long distance touring, including on some rough paths and on gravel. But that's not quite the same thing as off-roading.

[ThunderGuts]

I never get why the big adventure bikes are marketed as the ones where you go careering across some remote desert where you're almost certainly screwed if it comes down on you and it's loaded with kit.

As above; light is better. If you can cope with modest performance (and you're touring, not racing) then get something nice and light, take the minimum of kit and just enjoy it, safe in the knowledge that if it lands on you it's less likely to break you, plus if you drop it you'll be able to pick it up again. Plus, if the thing breaks down in the middle of nowhere, you're not going to get the AA out, so you either fix it there and then (possible but it depends what it is and you can only carry so many tools) or you push it to the nearest road for help. Try doing that with over quarter of a tonne of GS or equivalent over gravel, sand, mud etc...

Edit: the other thing is to think about the context of where you're planning to go. Nothing says "arrogant w4nker" more than £15k of adventure bike rocking up in some poor village in remote Asia/South America etc.. (and you won't get a much warmer reception in a sleepy UK village either). Turn up on something more humble and you're more likely to be welcomed into the fold. Personally, if I had the time and inclination to do a massive tour, it'd be on something really humdrum like a CG, C90 etc.. which despite not being designed for off-roading, will deal with a lot of overland travel, plus is likely to be familiar to mechanics, spare parts availability etc. etc.
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TG.

[Wildmalta]

[Wildmalta]

[ThunderGuts]

[Freddyfruitba...]

[blurredman]

Have you tried picking up 5-600+ lbs of bike whilst you're slipping around on mud and are really tired as hell, whether it be through lack of sleep, physical exertion (offroading is tiring..) or otherwise?

Phewwwwiee
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CBT: 12/06/10, Theory: 22/09/10, Module 1: 09/11/10, Module 2: 19/01/11
Past: 1991 Honda CG125BR-J, 1992 (1980) Honda XL125S, 1996 Kawasaki GPZ500S, 1979 MZ TS150.
Current: 1973 MZ ES250/2 - 18k, 1979 Suzuki TS185ER - 10k, 1981 Honda CX500B - 91k, 1987 MZ ETZ250 (295cc) - 39k, 1989 MZ ETZ251 - 50k.

[Keithy]

Just from the username, you aren’t actually in Malta, are you?

[A100man]

[CorriganJ]

To ride off road takes a lot of skill. I did it the wrong way - jumped straight from a 125 onto an Africa Twin, thinking I could do touring / adventures.

On road the weight is manageable but off road it's a lot. Take some lessons at an off road school, they are good. If I could do it again, I would buy a CRF300l. Not a sexy bike, but it will get you anywhere you want to go. Or, buy a GS1250 but know you will only ever ride it on road.
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1991 RD04

[CorriganJ]

[struan80]

I could think of nothing worse than to take one of those beasts off road. I bought a my nephew a PW80, he was 10. Honestly that bike was fun around the farm (I'm only small). I had DT125's as well, more than enough for offroad adventures...lacking on the road right enough. These big bikes are basically road bikes pretending to add to the off road experience, they don't.

So it depends on where you plan to spend most of your time. On road or off road. Two completely different genres.

Light is always best. Except when it's windy

[jeffyjeff]

Ever hear of Alex Chacon? Prudhoe Bay to Cape Horn on a KLR. This 10 minute video documents highlights of his trip, catchy tune, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85VErvTqgWc

Nice to have a bike with ample suspension travel and off road capability, because when you get far enough off the beaten path, the roads will not be paved. I read that Chacon chose the KLR because of its basic design; mechanics in South America would not be intimidated by a larger version of engines they were already familiar with. Ultimately, I don't believe he had any maintenance issues other than oil changes and tires.
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History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men - BOC

[stinkwheel]

If you are just going to be doing occasional unpaved roads and they are actual roads in reasonable state of repair, pretty much any bike will cope with it although it is less fun with clip-on handlebars.

I reckon your Guzzi would do just as well as a big BMW GS on an unpaved road.

If you're going on slightly rougher stuff (so unpaved roads with patches of significant rutting or potholes) then you want to be able to get up off the seat and be in a comfortable position and in control while doing so. Within reason the bar and footpeg geometry is more important than the suspension design.

To echo the above, for more gnarly stuff, the smaller and lighter the bike, the better. If I was going to do something more extreme like the pan-american highway or similar, I'd probably want something like a Yamaha Serrow or a DR350.

I suppose it all depends how much offroad you are planning to do. If I was doing a huge European tour, I'd say having a bike that's truly comfortable for the 95%+ on road riding you'll be doing is more important than the small amount of offroad. If you are specifically looking for offroad routes, then something more specialised for that kind of work would be better.

I would go so far as to say my 350 enfield bullet when it was still in roadgoing trim was more capable offroad than a BMW GS. You just had to take it into a wet and muddy camping field at a rally to see that in action. The big adventure bikes just got mired down and landed up being footed about digging a big trench behind them while you could ride the bullet around.

The bigger bikes can be taken into some pretty extreme conditions but they are a major handful, people do hard enduro on KTM950s and similar. I'd want to be honing my skills on something considerably smaller and lighter before I attempted it though.

If you wanted something larger in the way of a newer, fully capable offroad bike a couple that caught my eye were AJPs "adventure" bike and Beta X-trainer.

If you're looking for something that is essentially a road bike but will cope with a slow amble on unpaved roads and moderately rutted tracks without being a certifiable nightmare to get out of trouble with, maybe something like a kawasaki Versys?

Oddball suggestion of the day (you ride a Guzzi so you obviously like something different anyway) Royal Enfield Himalayan.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[ThunderGuts]

Himalayan is a good shout actually - they will do the offroad stuff, are still light enough to be manageable and you can get the luggage on them. Not exactly fast but probably fast enough if you're touring rather than ripping up the blacktop.
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TG.

[to v or not to v]

[arry]

[stinkwheel]

If you want to know what a Himalayan can do, have a look at itchy boots on youtube.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Keithy]

Had a Himy on a group ride on Sunday, with the ‘big bore’ kit (up to 460cc or thereabouts) We didn’t do any motorways, lots of Wales A, B and unclassified roads and it kept up with the pack. No hooning though.

[Bhud]

I don't know if I'd consider a Himalayan the right sort of bike for touring with a significant off-road component. The wrong sort of people (i.e. attention-seeking career Youtubers) tend to go for Enfields of all sorts. It's like a reverse indicator - whatever these people do seems to be the wrong thing, except it's right, as long as it keeps the views (and Youtube income) coming. That goes for Itchyboots as well. If your bike breaks down up a rocky mountain pathway in northern Spain, you're not going to think "wow my viewers will praise my intrepidness on this adventure", but rather, "I'm fucked out here, and nobody knows or cares").

When the Himalayan is shown going off-road, it seems capable enough but nothing really special:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4eTI583DDQ

It's not being shown at its limit of performance in the video above - the guy uses his off-road skill and it burble-burbles its way up like, say, a 250 with knobblies.

Here's an alternative view of the Himalayan (from a guy in the Phillipines):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1GYlfRhpZU

The alternatives that have been suggested are things like the Yamaha XT Serow - this is a classic and increasingly rare bike and I don't think the old Japanese bikes are a realistic proposition, although in Youtubeland anything is possible.

[blurredman]

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attachments/motorbikes/1910593d1566913956-royal-enfield-himalayan-broken-into-two-pieces-69083083_514302259331421_1462607381295792128_n.jpg
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CBT: 12/06/10, Theory: 22/09/10, Module 1: 09/11/10, Module 2: 19/01/11
Past: 1991 Honda CG125BR-J, 1992 (1980) Honda XL125S, 1996 Kawasaki GPZ500S, 1979 MZ TS150.
Current: 1973 MZ ES250/2 - 18k, 1979 Suzuki TS185ER - 10k, 1981 Honda CX500B - 91k, 1987 MZ ETZ250 (295cc) - 39k, 1989 MZ ETZ251 - 50k.

[to v or not to v]

[stinkwheel]