By 
It’s not easy to find the right bike.
I’m lucky enough to ride most new bikes every year, and even I can’t say, “Yep. That’s the bike for me.” There’s just way too much variation in both the riding we all like to do, and the bikes themselves.
And that’s something I think is a bit interesting.
There’s a trend among a lot of modern products toward homogenisation – that’s not a great word to use, but I mean it to describe the phenomenon where there’s less and less difference between items as they’re developed, but the marketing will tell us that one or the other is vastly different and superior to the rest. If we’re sensible and unbiased, we can see the products are actually almost the same except for the packaging and advertising.
Milk is a great example. Bottled water is probably the best example.
But who could confuse a KTM 1190 and a BMW R1200GSA? Painted the same colour and with the rider wearing a blindfold there’s no possible way they could be mistaken for each other. At the other end of the spending scale, could a KLR ever be confused with a DR650? Plenty of people will say the Yamahas are the ‘Toyota Corollas’ of the adventure-bike world, but compared with what? What other bike available in Australia looks or feels like a Ténéré? The same goes for the Tiger and Explorer. They’re all very clearly specific bikes.
We’re in a golden time in adventure riding. There’s a great selection of bikes available at a huge variety of prices and they’re all very different. They all have different strengths, and very few have any weaknesses at all if used as their designers intended. That should mean the majority of us can find a bike that’s pretty damn close to what we want.
The problem for me is, all those bikes are pretty damn close to what I want, depending on the day. There’s lots of times when a big-capacity cruiser is just the ticket for the five-day, 4000km ride I have in front of me. There’s numerous occasions where something light and nimble to deal with some tough terrain is just what the doctor ordered. Then there’s times where I need a little of both of those things, and I’m best off with the bike being a little smaller in its physical dimensions, but still having enough capacity in a multi-cylinder format that’ll let comfortably peel off some real distance.
And that’s just the adventure-riding choices.
I still like to compete, so that opens a whole other range of bikes that needs to be considered.
So how can anyone choose the one bike to suit their needs? I guess they can test ride them at their dealers, but I test ride nearly everything, and I still can’t make a decision on the one bike for me.
So how do we answer the vexed and important question of ‘which bike’?
It’s a huge consideration, but the answer is surprisingly simple.
What we need is a bigger shed and a selection of bikes.
Solved!
Comments