What's the best touring bike? (2)

In my opinion it was the BMW R1200RT until only recently but now it just has to be the all new Triumph Trophy! Just ordered one after test riding it for a full day. I have had Pan, FJR & RT in the past & all were great bikes but the Trophy comes straight in at top of the class! Kevin Ash has written a review on this website so don't take my word or it! There are numerous reviews on the web & to date I have not found one bad word against the Trophy!

Well when riding around pisces du europa in N spain i remember shouting inside my helmet thankyou kev and thankyou honda ,(kevs review swung it from me getting a second hand er6f)tho i kinda wished i waited for a second hand one at 4300 for a 3k miler i see on cheepbay. That would of paid for another month in Europe. 16500 miles since feb and i have no intention of selling whatsoever.The nc700x is a cracker and can carry loadsa weight without effecting handling .Of course more powerful bikes are fun but there outa my league for servicing ,tyre life, and mpg.Hope i can squeeze the money for a Norway stint next summer. I Really like the Shoie Qwest but ive ripped apart some eardefenders and used the foam to fill the gap for intercom up to alieviate some low frequency turbulance noise.Its so annoying when earplugs pop out a bit though usually if they survive the helmet being put on there good for a bit. To well inserted they all hurt my ears a bit. Its a poor area of motorcycling in my opinion. Its true i wouldnt brag about my 60 to 80 roll on power but its kinda fun working the bike hard and ive held 95 for long periods where allowed with small stints up to 115 (eventually)I think it will be easy to home maintain too looking at the engine access. I look forward to jag passing me with an even bigger grin on his zx tho :)

Ok Jag & Kharli then I will pass both of you with a really big smile on my face!

My is a nice cool lager!

Having done some 220 miles in really rather cold (But thankfully dry) conditions today my 2011 Triumph Sprint ST 1050 is one of the best touring bikes I've come across. The weather protection isn't as good as my previous BMW 1200RT but that triple sound and the horizontal torque curve just make it a cracking machine.

Glad I got the heated grips though!

Hi y'all.

Any bike will do, as far as I'm concerned.

Jag, have you actually got the zzr1400 now? If so, tell us more.

Take a look at Blitz Motorcycles website, under "lifestyle" for a more " casual" approach to "touring". Ok, it's mainly an image thing, but what isn't? It lifts the spirits anyway and there are some cool bikes. Some well produced video's.

Main thing is, have fun!

"Nice one pittsy. i`m definatly not going to wash my bike now! I wish Scotland would allow that casual riding but it can get truly attrocious. Ah it made me feel like just getting on my bike right now..looks outside ..pouring down on frozen roads covered in hawthorn from the hedge cutting ..sigh.(well i cant actually see a road i live down a dodgy farm track) Maybe we should start a cool link comment heading for days like this when i really cant get out :)"

Really good idea kharli,

Winter is sooo long here in Canada. You get up and go to work in the cold dark and come home in the cold dark for months on end.

I pass the bike every morning when I go to work. Sometimes I give her seat a gentle tap.

To feel inspired sometimes I view the Isle of Mann TT youtube videos. That to me has to be the Holy Meca of motorcycling. The riding skills are at such an amazing unbelieveably high level.

Regards,

JAG

I think everyones right and the beers good . and lol jag im a bike patter too. But big country Canada must be great in the summer ,as is Scotland especially in the years when we actualy get one !!
And captain..it was those old thumping H-D from the local biker gangs that probly got me into biking (even tho my first bike was a dumped suzuki ts i used to throw in the back of my truck and sneak into the local gravel pits...followed by a far to long break)they sure have the phwoooor power and jag zz is a truly awesome machine...id be interested actually in the story of all you nice chaps intro into biking if you can spare the time and kev dont mind :) .For me the Ash on bikes site is slowly migrating into an intresting bike orientated social media but i guess thats living in the middle of nowhere :)

Got you Captain Scarlet ;-)

I was hoping if I poked the bear with a little stick I would get a reaction. You really socked it to me.

Great overall summary and all good points CS

Nice to have so many options and types isn’t it.

I think their basic designs have been around for so long probably because they work so well for so many riders. I’m just a little jealous because I don’t have one.

In regards to touring bikes,

I read an article about a chap who toured the world on a 6 HP Douglas many years ago. When people asked how fast does it go he answered, "I'm not interested in how fast it can go, I am only interested in how far it can go."

In regards to racing,

It's not the fastest that wins the race, it's the one that crosses the finish line first.

Regards,

JAG

"I think their basic designs have been around for so long probably because they work so well for so many riders."
... it's a little bit of that, a little bit of fashion too. In the late seventies/early eighties, most HD dealers were on a hiding to nothing really. The Evo 1340 engine, Arnie's iconic FB and living on the never-never credit in the yuppie late eighties helped drag them out of the mire that might had otherwise been as bad as the AF era. Same with the boxer too. Kicking around since '23, copied by Ural and then not developed for an age. But when BMW tried to kill the line off after the K was introduced, the (then) pipe and slippers brigade got all national home service on them and demanded the boxer stay available. With the demand quantified, BMW built the 1100 and with the help of a well known actor, and another actor who makes his living by being friends with the first actor, the rest is history as they say.

"I read an article about a chap who toured the world on a 6 HP Douglas many years ago. When people asked how fast does it go he answered, "I'm not interested in how fast it can go, I am only interested in how far it can go.""
... times have changed but that's not a bad ethos is it? If I wanted to cross continents on undetermined roads, I'd choose a Tenere 1200 every time. More dependable than a politician's lie.

"It's not the fastest that wins the race, it's the one that crosses the finish line first"
... I rode a circa 260 mile route a couple of weeks ago that I've ridden a few times previously on the Diavel and eXplorer. I was genuinely quite suprised to find out that by the end of the trip I'd actually covered the total distance quicker on the Road King Classic. It obviously wasn't the top end of the HD that made the difference, I was only cruising at 70-85 mph. It was the six gallon tank that didn't need filling up, the thorax protecting screen and the wonderfully comfortable saddle that enabled me to use up twice as many miles between leg stretches. I finished the day more refreshed and was also able to wear more kit and peel off layers to stuff in the luggage as the day got hotter (70F/20C today). Tortoise and hare, who knew?

"Maybe we should start a cool link comment heading for days like this"
.. interestingly Symantec (pedantic?)kicked in to say maliscious cookie on that web link? Maybe it was nothing? This isn't my machine, I use a proper box (Mac) personally! :-D

CS wrote:

"... I rode a circa 260 mile route a couple of weeks ago that I've ridden a few times previously on the Diavel and eXplorer. I was genuinely quite suprised to find out that by the end of the trip I'd actually covered the total distance quicker on the Road King Classic."

Funny you mentioned that CS.

This spring on one of my early outings on the old naked Honda V65 Sabre I was zipping along on a 4 lane highway. Traffic was light. Off in the distance I saw what looked like a cruiser. Full of beans I picked up speed to catch up. The bike was running good. As I got closer I saw that famous rectangular taillight. It was a full H-D dresser with a passenger cruising along at about 75 MPH.

I finally had my big chance to put a H-D in its place. With my head full of thrust curves, RWHP and power to ratio graphs I dropped it down into 5th and let her fly. Boy did she go. I blasted right by that old thumping V2. I so wanted to show what a hot V4 could do. Well I passed the H-D right proper. Got up to over 100 MPH but after a very short time I was done. With the wind blast and a loose fitting helmet flopped back against my neck I slowed down to just over 60 MPH. A few minutes later as I approached my turn off, that old, heavy, low HP H-D had caught up and passed me.

I was finished but they just kept on rolling along as comfortable as can be listening to some tunes.

I ate a little crow that day.

He just looked and smiled as he passed me.

JAG

Weren't a lot of classic, vintage and veteran bike tanks seamless? So in one sense a seamed tank is "modern"
... that's a good point Pits. I certainly concede you are indeed right. But, maybe, just as fast-food is a relatively modern invention, efficiency doesn't always equate to progress! ;-D

Good comments Rebel/JAG. Big-twins of all angles and manufacturers that are comfortable, are real easy to click off the numbers on the odometer. I guess it's their galloping lope that makes them the big-easy.

Now that's a TRUCK!
... yes, that was awesome wasn't it! I still think they could of got across it on KTM 125's mind!

"Big-easy"

In two simple words you pretty much summed up what I tried to express in my entire post.

I like it!

For me you now have two famous bike classification terms,

Tall rounders and big-easies

Regards,

JAG

"what constitutes "quality" isn't always so easy to define"
... the best definition I've heard is a succinct one: 'Meets Requirements'.

As requirements are personal and therefore subject, it stands to reason that people's opinions of what represent good, bad, and indifferent, are really down to a mixture of historical and current experience vs their own perceived expectation levels.

If you can clearly define the requirement versus a datum, then you have a good yardstick for measuring quality. E.g. 'The end result must feel better than Ohlins TTX suspension to me'. But in the main it's all subjective.

Vehicle wise, I always seperate 'design, components, fitment and reliability' in terms of quality. Most bikes will have some components which are badly designed, using cheap materials, are shonkily fitted and at some point will give up the ghost. Other aspects will be fit for purpose, utilise quality raw materials, be lovingly attached and represent a paragon of operational reliability. Without evaluating all four aspects which are crucially entwined in their relationships, the overall picture is not normalised and therefore harder to gauge 'quality' wise.

I'm a VP of Quality, and have been in continual improvement / quality roles for a score and ten decades, so I spend a lot of time thinking about all this kind of milarky!

"I look at the seam welded tank on my 93 fzr thou, and it doesn't look out of place"
... I hear you can get used to acne too ;-D

"The weld quality is good"
... I prefered Yamaha's built quality to Honda's in the early 90s. There's not much in it nowadays either. A Fazer of any capacity or age is a good buy too.

" I think we are now in an era of regression, when it comes to quality of manufactured goods brought to market"
... hhmm, I'm not sure I can think of any good examples? Honda certainly dipped from the nineties to the noughties, but the VFR12 and CrossTourer are more VFR800 true to form in terms of build quality nowadays. Harley's are certainly far better built than they've ever been before. They were really ropey 20 years ago and had some bad legacy stuff even a decade ago really. Maybe mass produced goods have taken a step back? Then again, look at the iPad/iPad Mini - how do they make a trillion per week and yet retain that high build quality? I guess some more exclusive items have held their own too - I bought my wife a Mulberry handbag for her birthday and the quality of that is really lush - thinking of making another saddelbag out of it ;-D Anyway, you're probably right in some instances, any examples would be good!

"'Big-easy' - In two simple words you pretty much summed up what I tried to express in my entire post"
... it's a gift! ;-D Journalist Dan Walsh used to have a knack for that. He used throwaway comments like 'stick naked fool' or 'happy as a fat man in a truck' and it just instantly planted the right level of self painted image into your head of what he was talking about. Instead of simply acknowledging his words you were suddenly part of the scenery and along for the ride.

"For me you now have two famous bike classification terms, Tall rounders and big-easies"
... much obliged Sir, all proceeds to the Save the Meercats Foundation. Simples.

"Things change. Progress is a human judgment of change. Is change good or bad?"
... depends on perspective. Judgement and perspective. Is being human a good or bad thing?

"If a rock fall down a mountainside is it good or bad? It really depends on your point of view"
... it really depends on altitude. If one is above it all, it's not so bad :-D

"In the end change is just an event"
... unless the change is evolutionary, or an oxymoron of moving-constant, say 'time' for instance. As David Robert Jones once sang (in '72 I fink?) 'Time may change me - but you can't change time'. Mista Jones was completely wrong of course. There's usually some kind of dial on the back of the clock to account for BST etc. Tschh - what did they teach those kids back in school in them days?