Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128165
~[fD~D® cruw ~ @@@ ~@][g)@ ~@[f@ Mark says the Triumph grew on him, but the only thing that grew on me while riding the Aprilia for mile after mile was hemorrhoids. Being a fan of most things Italian (including my wife), I had intentionally chosen the Capo Nord (which means "North Pole" in the land of pasta), and it did indeed prove to be a product of its home country. The instrumentation read in kilometers, the high-flowbeam switch was opposite of what I'm accustomed to on American-spec machines, and the whole thing just had a look that was very Continental. I liked those quirky characteristics (the Garmin GPS IV that I had damped to the handlebar made the Euro odofspeedo easier to endure), as well as the V-twin motor's quietly dependable nature (not always a characteristic of Italian creations), but the seating position proved another matter altogether. Judging from the Aprilia, Suzuki and Triumph, manufacturers of adventure-tourers place a lot of priority on achieving a low seat height - perhaps to accommodate the shorter stature of people in those European countries where these bikes are so popular. I, on the other hand, am on the taU side, with stilt legs accounting for much of that height, and sitting on the Capo Nord's lowboy seat while placing the balls of my feet on the highplaced pegs had me feeling like a praying mantis - tolerable for a couple-hour jaunt, but nearly unendurable for the long stints intrinsic to true adventure touring. By the waning moments of the next-to-Iast day. as we blitzed across Mojave National Preserve in the dark, my body· understandably convinced that this crouched riding posture had become its new default - had accepted its fate by permanently adopting it. Much of that midnight run was spent dodging huge rabbits, with only a headlight and some aggressive brake-application preventing me from leaving a string of bunny-frisbees between Baker and Amboy. Ught and brakes both proved up to the task, and I was thankful to them for sparing the long·eamed creatures whose crouching posture I had come to permanently mimic. - Chris Jonnum We initially thought of doing a marathon dual-sport ride, but since only a couple of manufacturers make decent street-legal dirt bikes, we were leaning toward an all·tarmac jaunt. But. inspired by his recent experience covering the Arras-Madrid-Dakar Rally and a purchase of a Garmin GPS IV. managing editor Chris Jonnum hit upon the idea of doing an Adventure Touring experience. Not exactly the most popular segment in American motorcycling (though it's huge in Europe), this category also includes just a few current models, and the manufacturers have varying concepts of exactly what comprises a good Adventure Tourer. BMW has the most experience in these exploits, and its Rl150GS is the bike of choice among those who truly Riding with your buddies not only makes adventure touring more fun, it's also the right thing to do. Emboldened by the company, you'll be more likely to be a little more daring In your exploration. travel the world from the seat of a motorcycle. At the opposite end of the displacement spectrum is KTM's 640 Adventure, the single with which the Austrian company finally broke BMW's stranglehold on the Dakar Rally last year. We're really looking forward to trying the bike that backed up that win this year - KTM's twincylinder LCa 950, which Alan Cathcart tested last issue - but in the meantime, we coaxed KTM into lending us the smaller, more dirt-oriented machine. The remainder of the lineup consisted of a trio of bikes that are elng on an adventure·tourer encourages a rider to seek out places one normally wouldn't visit. Our dayone lunch stop was In the bustling metropolis of Randsburg. " cue' • really a stretch to take off.road, espe· cially with stock tires. Aprilia's Capo Nord and Triumph's Tiger at least both like to think they're on-foff-road worthy, while Suzuki doesn't even pretend to entertain such ambitions; all are much, much happier on tarmac than even dirt roads, but all nonetheless were sporting a healthy layer of dust by the conclusion of our four-day ride. That 1000-mile ride was a loop around Southem California, officially starting at the Redlands, California, airplane hangar of associate editor Kit Palmer (though most of the riders spent a couple of early-morning hours riding there); then hitting overnight stops at Lake Isabella, Death Valley and Joshua Tree National Park. We spent a minimum of time logging freeway miles, instead sticking primarily to highways, two-lanes and even the occasional smooth dirt road (we had initially entertained ambitious plans of navigating more challenging dirt two-track, but quickly learned how out of place some of these bikes • and especially their tires - were in n e _ s • JULv31,2002 45