ADV NEWS SEP 2021 | Honda Transalp | Norden 901 | Tuareg 660 & More

hey guys solid here and welcome back to another episode of adventure news except it's a monthly wrap-up yes they're backed by popular demand so we're going to go through multiple bikes we're talking about the trans oak that's coming we're also talking about the northern 901 we've got a couple of hondas that we need to discuss and a few triumphs so there's plenty to discuss so let's roll our intro and get into all this adventure news goodness [Music] so let's start with the mighty little honda cb500x it's a fantastic little adventure bike with a really great price tag it's hard to walk past these magical little adventure bikes and it's getting a few little upgrades that are really needed i think one is preload adjustable front suspension then moving to shower suspension which is great to see that upgrade and will really help in the versatility of managing different weight loads on the motorcycle which is something that happens with the adventure bike doing multi-day trips loaded up with gear maybe you're taking a pillion these are the kinds of things you need to be able to adjust for on your suspension so good job there honda the other thing is increased braking now this is something that's usually just good enough on entry level adventure bikes you don't usually notice it in my experience particularly on bikes like cb 500x or even the v strom the brakes are perfectly good that is until you put all your gear on them or maybe you take a pillion and then the brakes kind of show their lack of bite a little bit it's not dangerous but it certainly isn't as good as it could be and you do have to cut some slack for these bikes they really aren't at the bargain end of the spectrum so manufacturers have to cut costs here anyway the good news is honda are going to dual front discs and calipers on the front which means that should be a significant upgrade in brake performance another double thumbs up for that of course we're not getting the spoke wheels that we're always wishing for i've got my fingers permanently crossed that we will see a spoke wheel variant of the cb500x it looks like honda are just happy to coast on what they've already done with incremental upgrades and leave it to the aftermarket like rally raid to offer the spoke wheels and all those shiny updates i think this is a pretty underrated little adventure bike and it's good to see honda continuing to develop it so the next one is the 2022 crf 1100l africa twin the big boy adventure bike from honda this one definitely falls in the bold new graphics column there's not really that much being upgraded the dct transmission is being tweaked for off-road ability that probably means shortening the gear ratios for low speed work other than that color schemes a few little touches like accessories are now becoming standard the top rack is now standard on all models top racks should be standard from the get-go everyone is going to need one for an adventure bike so why they don't just make them standard it terminally frustrates me i don't know if you're like that maybe it's just me being a bit weird but i think top rack should probably be standard on every damn adventure and dual sport motorcycle case closed [Music] so a few websites have been talking about the new trans help that's imminent basically there's no new news they've just thrown up more design cues saying this is what it could look like there isn't really any more information i have seen a few articles start to say that this could be anywhere from 750 to 850 cc so that narrative has changed a little bit a little while ago everyone was speculating this would be 800 cc's plus now i'm starting to see 750 cc so that is interesting i actually think it would probably be smart for this bike to be 750 to 800 cc's rather than going higher as i would like to see middleweights actually represent a middleweight category and 800 cc's plus to me really is getting into big bike territories i think that would be a great move keeping it smaller lighter that's always my mantra you probably get bored of me saying it but it really does make it more usable for my kind of riding needs i do hope they keep this on the affordable spectrum they did manage to do it with the africa twin within reason and of course we've got the cb500x and there's a massive gap in between so i think they really do need a bike to nail the middles i'm looking forward to what happens with this whether it will go 10 or a 700 that is fairly hardcore off-road or whether it will go more v-strom 650 and that is is more of a road touring adventure bike remains to be seen but either way this should be very interesting and i'm looking forward to having a little more variety on the market [Music] next up we have triumph's flagship big behemoth the tiger 1200 there's three big things to talk about with this bike one triumph are claiming that this is significantly lighter than the outgoing model we'll have to wait and see on that one two is they're using the t-plane engine technologies we first saw this on the tiger 900 and i can tell you that these t-plane engines are very different to the standard triples i've ridden the tiger 800 and the tiger 900 with the t-plane and the torque characteristics are very different down low it's a lot burblier it's got a lot more low-end grunt i thought it gave the engine some much-needed character they do that by basically doing what you see in a cross-plane 270 degree crank engine like the r1 or you've seen the 270 degree twins like the africa twin we see it in the yamaha ten array that's how they get that burble and that great low down torque characteristics triumf have done it with a triple motor and they've called it their t-plane technology so it's great to see in this big 1200 it should bring the power more usable and lower in the rev range therefore making it more user-friendly off-road so i'm excited for that as well as i think it gives the motor a much needed dose of character i will admit i've never been a big fan of triple engines but i did think that this t-plane technology has made a greater case for these being fairly decent off-roads i'd like to know your thoughts if you've got a 900 what do you think of the new t-plane tech and are you excited to see it on the 1200 the other big thing that they haven't really stated but can clearly be seen in the pictures is that they've got a shaft drive on the triumph so that means it's basically neck and neck with the gs now you've got two options the super 10 went the way the dodo so basically the gs has been the mainstay of the shaft drive crowd so now tiger have clearly thought hmm we should get into the shaft drive thing i do like the idea of it on my big street tours it is just one less thing to worry about on a multi-day trip on these big adventure tours where you're not really doing much hard deep mud kind of riding i can see how these shaft drives make a lot of sense so sticking with triumph we've got the 900 in the headlines as well apparently there is going to be an ultra exclusive double james bond edition of the tiger 900 to which i say whoopty doo that was me caring by the way i really don't like the style of bikes i mean i'm sure it gained some attention from some people and maybe collectors who like these ultra exclusive bikes but to me i see no reason to pay more money for the same bike basically just not my speed if that is your thing more power to you i do have a few friends who love those style of bikes and i've probably annoyed them with this video but it's just not my thing i really don't understand it other than from of course triumph perspective it's a great marketing ploy it gets their tiger 900 being talked about case in point so job well done their triumph but as a purchaser's perspective i do not like these silly special edition adventure bikes now i will caveat that with saying purple special editions where you're actually getting upgraded suspension or brakes or real tangible updates i'm on a board for that but these paint schemes with changing little bits here and there really doesn't get me going [Music] next we have the husqvarna nordon 901 i really like the design of this it captured a lot of people's attention when it first dropped now i want to say there's no real new news there's just more videos being released building the hype for this bike why did i like it so much it bucked the trend of adventure bike design if you ask me a lot of new adventure bikes they kind of look like megatron's illegitimate sun all angles transformerish and very robotic whereas the husqvarna 901 kind of harkens back to the good old days when headlights used to be round and that's all you got so i like that they've gone that little retro styling there it's obviously captured a lot of attention but more importantly this gets me excited about the possibility of a 501 if they do what they've done with the 901 that is premium suspension all the nice things focus on keeping the weight down and do it in a 501 parallel twin package my head would explode with excitement because i really think that is a big gap in the market and i have a lot of people telling me that that's the kind of bike they want to see so i think it would be fantastic if that was to happen looking forward to 901 but even more excited for the possibility of a 501 as soon as i hear some information on that bike i will let you know so the next one is the aprilia taureg 660. this is a massively popular bike it really caught me by surprise how much interest there is for this middleweight adventure bike and this bike really is growing on me when i first revealed the pictures i was a bit on the fence about the looks i was kind of like ah it's a bit ugly but then again it is an adventure bike and what adventure bike isn't a little bit ugly but the more i look at this bike the more the looks are growing on me and of course april have released a video and some footage of them doing adventure bike things presumably with a motorcycle rider far above the skill level of most mere mortals so of course all the pictures and the media are of this motorcycle doing amazing off-road things that i myself would not be capable of now this is a little bug bear that i have of course you really need to advertise your bike and show its capabilities this really is more of a rider problem rather than a motorcycle problem i firmly believe that it's 80 rider 20 motorcycle but in saying that it really is annoying when this does trick a lot of the beginner riders they see a big heavy adventure bike like this and think wow if i get this bike it can do those things and then there's this rude awakening as they realize they've got this massive bohemian of a bike that is far too unwieldy for their basic skills you're far better off starting with a light bike but it is nice to see the sealing of this motorcycle clearly it can be ridden pretty hard off-road so that is encouraging for riders with experience here in australia the aprilia dealerships do leave a little bit to be desired are you willing to go through the price the italian stigma and perhaps that lack of dealer support own a very interesting motorcycle regardless of those challenges i still think this is going to be quite a popular adventure bike moving forward [Music] the caddy desert x was a video i did recently i'm quite excited about this bike from a design and a theoretical perspective i really like what they've done with the look of this bike it will be interesting to see if they keep the twin tanks that they had on the original concept that's something that a few of you have commented on and asking about we're not really sure if this will happen or not we'll find out later on in the year of course the bigger news that i touched on in the other video was they're changing to the multi-strata 950 engine and they're ditching the entire desert sled platform the frame the engine everything they've started from scratch and they're using the 950 engines this indicates to me that ducati may be intending to use this as their off-road capable middleweight adventure bike to slot in next to the multi-strata which is more of an adventure tourist so very interesting times whether it will keep all of the dna and the great looks will have to wait the concerns that a lot of you did list are really legitimate in my eyes number one is cost the caddies are far too expensive for my wallet these are really dream bikes for me i still get excited about them but i certainly cannot pay the entry price on a brand new one but i'm a patient man and i'm happy to wait for a secondhand one to pop up in a few years times don't give up hope entirely if it's out of your initial budget range the other thing is that italian reliability stigma now i can't comment on the ducatis i've never owned one so i don't really know about the reliability of a modern ducati but it is fair to say that that stereotype is still circulating out there and maybe a hurdle that they will need to get over but i certainly think there's a place in the market for these kinds of bikes those kind of aspirational halo motorcycles at top of the range that pushes the design edge has some fresh thinking and really is a great thing to look at so i'm excited for this bike yes it might be expensive yes it might be too pretty to drop and ruin off-road and maybe you might not trust it as much as your yamaha way out in the middle of nowhere but god damn does it look good so that's it for this monthly wrap-up of adventure news if you've got some bikes you'd love me to talk about in the next monthly wrap-up chuck them in the comment section below and i will try and get to them of course if you've got any ideas thoughts or critical analysis on what i talked about chuck it in the comments section below i really do like seeing your thoughts and ideas it's one of the fantastic things about this channel and the community that's built around it all the different perspectives that come together in a love of off-road motorcycles so i wanted to thank you all for your support don't forget to stay shiny side up and i'll catch in the next video guys see you later [Music]

Channel: chroniclesofsolid

Views: 99,587

Rating: 4.8749423 out of 5

Keywords: husqvarna norden 901, honda transalp, kawasaki, klx300, klr650, dual sport, dualsport, adv, motorcycle, motorbike, news, adv news, bike, adventure, honda, crf300l, crf300 Rally, rally, dirt bike, dirt, off road, enduro, suzuki, yamaha, wr250r, drz400, dr650, ducati, bmw, ktm, 490, norden, husqvarna, tenere 700, royal enfield, chronicles of solid, triumph, tiger, 2022, 490 adventure, 501, ktm 490, tuareg, aprilia, 660, aprilia tuareg 660, tiger 900, tiger 1200, cb500x, africa twin, norden 901, desert x, transalp

Id: SW2pn86ZpFQ

Length: 14min 4sec (844 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 01 2021