New Honda Cross Tourer

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The market for the Adventure Tourer is booming. Honda has now eyed it and the heavyweight is moving in with a their new Crossover.

The bike is built around their V4 800CC engine (782cc V4 liquid-cooled engine – a successor to the engine that powered the VFR800) and has been shown as a ‘concept’ at Milan – however they admit they can have it on the road in time for ’12 spring season so they must be a long way toward production already.

There are several reasons for this move but the main one is the market segment of this class has really grown in the last few years.

Many avowed speed freaks, like my friends Albie, Neel and myself have, through circumstance, landed up with bikes in this class and I believe I speak for all three of us, that we would now not consider any other type of bike.

Whats in it?

Firstly it is definitely the Charlie and Ewan effect. I know that I can go on a long journey to exotic locations. (Believe you me you seem some exotic things in Scotland.)  These are also all-weather, all-terrain bikes and are, by their very nature, built to last.

The Suzuki VStrom 1000 GT - the model I ride

Then for me the most important factor:

This bike may look sedate but it is the most fun I had on a bike in decades. My specific model has the engine of a 1000cc racer and you can definitely feel it.

Following on from that the ride itself lasts so much longer. On a racer you ride at a maximum of 2-hour increments. More than that and you are facing muscle aches and strains.The adventure touring class has been designed to sit upright and comfortably and the bike can tick over happily for hours. (Witness the 14 and half hour single session trip I did up to Scotland earlier this.)

This hasn’t gone unnoticed with manufacturers.

BMW has made a fortune in sales with the GS1200 (and had the added resultant bounce in life style marketing) since “The Long Way Round”.  KTM who was first choice but backed out must still be kicking themselves.

The current market has a few contenders other than the omnipresent GS. On the one end of the scale is my bike, the Suzuki VSTROM 1000 – less off-road than the GS but with similar performance on other levels. However it comes in at literally half the price (and its smaller 650CC stablemate even more so).

In the middle of this range are Triumph Tiger, KTM Adventure, Aprillia Caponord, Ducati Multistrada and if you are a US biker the Harley powered Buell  Ulysses.

The reality is that most people like myself (my SA friends excluded because they have the terrain) will do 95% of their riding and touring on road  - albeit windy Scottish single lane roads.  So in a sense this market is booming at the cost of other classes such as sports tourers and street bikes.

There is a whole brace of bikes coming from other manufacturers.

Triumph is copying Suzuki and has created a second smaller Tiger model with a mid-sized engine while Aprillia has been testing the new Tuareg.

However the exciting one, the potential game changer, is the Crossover. Having owned a VFR this is going to force me into some hard decisions in two years time…

An example of performance of existing bikes in this class was done by MotorcycleUSA.com where my model came in tops.