The Shocking state of adventure bike development!

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Eddy81

Race Dog
Joined
Jul 9, 2010
Messages
565
Reaction score
17
Location
George
Bike
KTM 990 Adventure
I have been reading some of the new posts about the new adventure bikes... I feel that as consumers when will we say No!

Let me explain.  A while back I made a post about test riding the new 1190, I wasn't impressed with it. There were also some people that weren't impressed with me stating my experience.

But lets be honest, yes the 1190 and new 1200gs are truly amazing creations in terms of, electronics and motors.  But I'm seeing posts about soft rims, suspension upgrades, tank slappers (yes, please don't forget to ask yourself why the new 1190 comes with a steering damper as standard, maybe they hiding something? Like Hilton Hayward says... Yes you can fit a steering damper, it will def. help but it's more important to sort out the reason for it happening!)

Now I'm sorry but, people complain in a restaurant when their food is cold or overcooked. There are many other examples of people standing their ground and saying... This is just not good enough!  I will not pay for this!! But yet, for some reason people are willing to pay 150000+ for a bike and then still have to spend money on fixing issues like this!  Even a KLR for R60 000.00 new still has issues that should have been sorted out by the factory! Doohickey is one of them.  

We are telling these manufacturers, that yes, all we need is HP and electronics... If we have those two thing we don't care about the quality of the rest of the bike!!

I'm sorry but at this point how can BMW still launch a bike that can be such a danger! Surely they should know by now how to make a bike that can handle dirt riding better! And don't just slap on a steering damper like ktm to "hide" any issues that cause these problems.  Surely KTM should have known that the front wheels are too soft for their bikes (I think it's a combination of poor fork internals and soft wheels causing these issues).

Is it really to much to ask for?  Imagine a ktm 750 twin in the ktm 640 adventure frame? Yes I know that one won't be able to just put in a bigger motor, some engineering and altering will be needed. But surely the r&d would have been much less than on the 1190?

I know I probably sound like an "ou vrou met a net broek" but realistically, surely we all deserve bikes that get better with every new model launch, not just faster and smarter?

Yes, I ride a f800gs(with full aftermarket suspension and steering damper) had a ktm 990 adventure and 690 enduro with dakar kit conversion, also had a f650gs twin.  Of all the bikes the 990 was the best.  The f800gs is very good with the aftermarket suspension.  But I hate the fact that I needed to put that on myself and just brings me back to the point that I am trying to make.

Journalists the world over, are singing the praises for all things new because of sponsorships and advertising money from the manufacturers and motorcycle shops.

There is no point this this post, all these bikes are good, but are they really good enough? I don't think so.  



 
 
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