Why Adventure-Touring Bikes Are So Popular

• Africa Twin
• Adventure
• DesertX
• ADV

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A few years back, when SUVs suddenly seemed to be taking over the world, a friend of mine said, “Why are people buying those big, tall things instead of a normal car?”

Maybe they want to carry a canoe on the roof. Or carry five people in comfort, haul a beer cooler and tow a boat. All the things their big, old, standard rear-drive Chevy or Ford sedans used to do but with the added attraction of going through the snow.

I suppose you could make a similar case for the rise of the adventure-touring motorcycle. These tall, industrial-looking devices do all the things that a standard, unadorned bike like my old Kawasaki KZ1000 used to do but with the added attraction of being able to blast down a dirt road without crashing in a cloud of dust. In an age of specialization, they’re something of a throwback to the basic virtues.

Honda’s venerable ADV bike, the Africa Twin.

I thought about it a minute and said, “Maybe they want to carry a canoe on the roof. Or carry five people in comfort, haul a beer cooler and tow a boat. All the things their big, old, standard rear-drive Chevy or Ford sedans used to do but with the added attraction of going through the snow.”

I suppose you could make a similar case for the rise of the adventure-touring motorcycle.

Ducati’s brand new 2022 ADV bike, the DesertX

On an adventure-touring bike, you can sit up straight, ride comfortably two-up, carry luggage, stand up on the pegs to stretch your legs or just add a windshield that fits your personal height and climatic needs.

I was about to say that adventure-touring bikes have become the Jeep Wranglers of the motorcycle world, but that’s not quite true. Jeeps are relatively slow and ill-handling on pavement, while a Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Sport can absolutely carve when the pavement gets twisty. They’re essentially sportbikes for riders who revel in peripheral vision.

Did I mention the word leverage yet?

Browse our inventory of Honda’s Africa Twin.

Low bars and rearsets are wonderful things when you’re circulating at Road America or Willow Springs—or riding fast on a nice, smooth mountain road.

The Ducati’s Multistrada line makes a great ADV Touring bike.

And a good thing, too. We crossed a swollen river that would have drowned the KTM’s low-mounted battery and knocked the flat-sided bike over in the powerful current.

Generally, I’d rather be saddled with a bike that’s a little too small on the occasional boring road than to drop a big one in the middle of a river.

Which brings up tallness. Why are most adventure tourers so tall? No one knows. Perhaps it’s to accommodate the five percent of expert owners who can use all that suspension travel, but half the guys in my local motorcycle club won’t even sit on my Ulysses because they’re afraid of dropping it in the parking lot.

But I may be treading on delicate ground here, because romance is a big part of why many of us choose a particular motorcycle.

When you look at an adventure-touring bike in a showroom, you see more than just machinery. You also see the Alcan Highway, the emptiness of Patagonia or a road to the ruins at Machu Picchu.

And if you’re Ewan McGregor or Charley Boorman, you might see a road across Siberia.

Someone once described adventure as “nothing but a badly planned vacation,” and McGregor and Boorman proved that all the planning in the world doesn’t protect you from the realities of weather and distance and human whim.

Or looking at a map of Peru—to see exactly where Machu Picchu is.

Browse our ADV Touring inventory here

Reserve the DesertX here