HARLEY-DAVIDSON PAN AMERICA VS. BMW R 1250 GS ADVENTURE VS.
KTM 1290 SUPER ADVENTURE R VS. DUCATI MULTISTRADA V4 S
COMPARISON TESTI
P98
W
e've come a long way,
haven't we? Adventure
motorcycles, at least in the
top-tier big-bore (1200cc-plus) cat-
egory, can now lay legitimate claim
to being the most technologically
advanced motorcycles anywhere
in the world, capable of traversing
any kind of terrain, on any area of
the planet, in supreme comfort and
certainly speed.
The biggest of the big, this catego-
ry is not for beginner riders. Indeed,
many riders who buy these bikes will
take them on dirt roads and rocky ter-
rain occasionally at best, with most of
the riding done on paved backroads
as they go in search of, well, whatever
got them riding that day.
We've gathered the traditional
three in BMW, KTM and Ducati and
thrown in the homeboy, Harley-
Davidson, just to give them a bit of a
red, white and blue mix.
Each bike is as standard as we
could get them from the manufactur-
ers, and as close as possible to what
you'll get in the showroom. Some
of the bikes in this test were already
fitted with aftermarket/performance
parts, like BMW with their Enduro
Pro mode, but mostly, they are very
close to what you'll pick up.
To score these bikes as fairly
as possible, we tried to compare
engine, chassis, and electronics per-
formance, as well as value for money
and each rider's overall ranking. We
then averaged them together to give
the final order.
Let's meet the players, shall we?
