The BIG adventure bike group test: BMW R1200GS-A vs Ducati Multistrada Enduro vs KTM 1290 Super Adventure vs Triumph Tiger Explorer XCa

The journey begins - BMW R1200GS Adventure

The British Isles almost aren’t big enough to test these kings of the road, which is why we loaded up on Monday morning with enough camera kit and clothes for a month long expedition and set the sat nav to Balmaha, on the banks of Loch Lomond, some 350 miles away. 

I say sat nav rather than sat navs, because only the BMW came fitted with one, meaning that it was lead bike for the three-day trip. They’re popular for a reason. We head up the A1 before taking off on a sweeping road for a quick lunch stop at the Penny Garth Café in Hawes. 

No other bike on the road has as much presence as a fully-loaded BMW GS Adventure. That all commanding riding position, some five feet in the air, that squidgy yet supportive seat, those massive engine bars, that big boxer twin engine. The UK’s new counter terrorism firearms squad were right to choose a GS, but they really should have been big R1200GS-As chasing down terrorists in London, not 800s. No bike looks harder.

That liquid-cooled engine is smooth yet has enough character. You know it’s a boxer. It’s the least powerful bike in our test at a claimed 125bhp, but you never want for more when you’re riding it. Stick it in Dyna mode and the throttle is sharpened up nicely. The power is always where you want it to be. It’s gutsy low-down and makes a decent warble when it’s revved. Combine the best wind protection here, including a screen you can adjust on the go with your left hand, the biggest and most robust panniers, neutral handling on the Michelin Anakee tyres and semi-active suspension adjustable for your every ride or mood, and it’s easy to see why the GS is the biggest-selling bike here.

It even has an auto blipper system to change up and down the gears. It sounds like a gimmick but you’ll soon fall in love with it and wonder why you need a clutch at all.

The GS is established, it’s loved, and more importantly it works. It may look like a beast but get moving and the GS carries its weight so well.

One thing is for sure, the BMW is so good and one of my favourite bikes of all time. It’s going to be hard to beat.

After lunch - Ducati Multistrada Enduro

After lunch I switch to the Ducati Multistrada Enduro. The latest breed of the Italian Multistrada may share the same name as the 1200 Multistrada but has more than 100 different parts to transform it into the Enduro. 

Bike test legend Phil West has ridden it this far and he says ‘I can’t understand why you’d want one more than a standard Multistrada.’ He’s wrong, of course.

You may lose around two per cent of the Multistrada’s sportiness, but the all-conquering round the world ability trumps that in my book.

The Multistrada Enduro has 200mm of rear suspension travel for off-road forays (the BMW has 210mm), it has a more durable double-sided swingarm, new spoked wheels, a different riding position, new bodywork with better wind protection, a retuned motor for more torque, a 19” front wheel for better off-road stability and control, retuned suspension, a wider and bigger rider and passenger seat, different geometry for better stability with luggage, chunky off-road footrests, a steel rear brake lever in case you topple off so you can bend it back, the ability to carry more luggage. And that’s just for starters.

I’ve already been well acquainted with the bike at its launch and during a two day Ducati DRE Enduro school in Tuscany last month, where I learnt how indestructible the Multi E is. Through obstacles ranging from muddy forests to a see-saw and getting over logs, the Multistrada Enduro amazed me with its low-down grunt from the DVT (Ducati Variable Timing) motor.

On the road from Hawes up to the M6 it’s doing the same impressive routine. Strangely for such a massive bike it feels smaller and more compact in terms of the riding position than the Beemer. The Pirelli Skorpion Trail II tyres find immense grip too.

Fully-laden with a load of camera kit and overnight luggage, the Multistrada is doing a very good impression of being fast, smooth and comfortable. Okay, so the seat isn’t quite as comfortable as the BMW’s, and I’d opt for the higher screen, but it handles, it stops and it goes. How it goes. That 160bhp motor and its variable valve timing means it’s flexible low down, and then also allows it to rev to 10,000rpm and beyond where it takes on a whole new personality.

Like the rest of the bikes here the Ducati has semi-active suspension. It’s Sachs in this instance. Fully-loaded the front-end feels a bit soft to me, but it’s easy to adjust using the menus on the full-colour dash to just turn the damping up to ‘harder’. 

Add a pillion, or luggage, or fancy a sportier ride and you can choose from different settings to stiffen or soften the ride. It’s a great set-up. Even the panniers are good. Not quite as robust as the BMW, but they’re massive, easy to load and strong. Original Multistrada 1200 panniers were a joke, so it’s good to see the Touratech touch. The German gurus have helped develop the bike and the bolt-on packs on the Multi E.

Rider modes are also available, like on the other bikes. The Touring map isn’t the smoothest Ducati map ever, making the power feel stilted low-down and then rushing in at higher revs. Stick it in Sport and it’s all you’ll ever need. Unless you want to ride off-road of course, then, like the BMW it can be put into Enduro mode. On the Ducati it lifts the suspension, softens it all up, reduces power to 100bhp, adjusts traction-control to allow spin, and turns ABS off the rear so you can skid it in to corners off-road. The BMW’s system offers a similar set-up.

But there’s no need for off-road skills today, just navigating back roads through Yorkshire into Cumbria.

Motorway - Triumph Tiger Explorer XCa 

Ask me what the six different levels of Triumph Explorer 1200 spec are and I’d struggle to answer as the whole range I find frankly confusing. But what we have here is the XCa, which is the top-spec bike in the ‘off-road’ Explorer range. 

That means we get a heated seat, wide and chunky aluminium off-road footrests, WP semi-active suspension, rider modes, an electronically-adjustable screen (as with all 2016-spec Explorers) and 137bhp claimed from the three-cylinder 1215cc motor. Only the BMW makes less.

Let’s get one thing out of the way first. The Triumph is incredibly heavy compared to the other bikes on test. It weighs in at 258kg dry. Unfortunately, Triumph don’t quote a wet figure, but, the Ducati with all its fuel, oil and crash bars is 254kg wet, the KTM comes in at 259kg, and the mammoth GS is 259kg wet.

It feels it too. Carrying all that weight in the engine means there’s a lot of weight over the front wheel. That the WP semi-active suspension sometimes struggles to cope with it and occasionally crashes over bumps if it’s firmed up, although the system is good and can be adjusted to soften it off and make for a nicer ride quality.

I did the launch of this bike and remember the suspension being much plusher, but maybe the roads were smoother in Portugal?

Fully-loaded and at speed you need the suspension somewhere between normal and hard to take out some of the high-speed wobble the bike occasionally suffers from when loaded.

The panniers fitted to our test bike are the smallest here too, although bigger ones are available, however that you can filter through traffic more easily.

That big heavy motor is lovely to ride though, with loads of creamy low-down power and plenty of mid-range. On the motorway, 90mph equals 5000rpm and never needs to be changed down to get past cars as we head north.

It makes a great triple howl as you rev it, and although down on power compared to the Multi and KTM, it doesn’t need any more. Like the others, the Triumph is a rapid, comfortable cross-country tourer and on the motorway it is a very nice place to spend time, if ever that could be said about riding on a motorway.

The Metzeler Tourance Next tyres combined with that suspension offer incredible levels of feel and grip in the wet too. Stiffen it up when the road gets twistier and the Triumph can be ridden fast. It loves flowing corners and if you ride it fast it’s easily a match for any of the bikes here.

The screen is electronically adjustable and works well. It is the only one here with electronic assistance.

The menu seems a bit fiddly at first to change engine modes, traction control and suspension settings, but you get used to it. It’s the least intuitive system here though.

It may seem that I’m giving the Triumph a bit of a hard time, but it’s a very good bike and you wouldn’t be disappointed of you bought one, but in this company it’s just a little but behind in a few key areas and with a 20-litre tank, compared to the 30-litres fitted to the rest, it needs fuelling at about 150-miles. The others will get 300+ miles before they’re empty, though in truth, after 150 miles you’re ready to get off any of them and stretch your legs and mind for a bit.

Out of all of the bikes here it may look like the least likely to be taken off-road, but I’ve ridden them off-road in the wet and for such a big, heavy bike I was impressed by how well it performed. The Triumph is a really good bike, it’s just that the other three are all fantastic in their own ways.

Off the motorway - KTM 1290 Super Adventure

As we head further up the M8 motorway I get the KTM 1290 Super Adventure for the last stint to our base for the next two nights at Balmaha.

The seat instantly feels harder than the rest, and its feels narrower, taller too.

KTM is clearly proud of its off-road heritage and that design ethos has been passed along to its top-of-the-range super tourer. Though I’ve never ridden one off-road, as I have on the other three, it feels like it would be the best balanced on the muddy stuff. The bars are narrow too, and it feels stiff and purposeful.

But for now we head into Glasgow and I try and adjust the screen. Convinced it doesn’t adjust using the two knobs either side of the screen, fellow Bike Social team member Michael Mann shouts over: “Use two-hands on the knobs’. Using all the strength I can muster with both hands off the bars I finally manage to set the screen higher and take out the bluster of the wind. When it’s up it works, but it’s so stiff that you can’t adjust it on the move.

Thankfully the KTM has a lot else going for it. The menus are as simple to use as the BMW, even if it doesn’t have the full colour tele screen of the Ducati. You can switch between Comfort, Street, Sport and Off-Road, and each mode feels very different. In Sport it’s aggressive, lifts the front wheel readily and feels the sportiest of the four bikes. In Street the bike has great response and it still feels lively. The chassis feels lazier to steer than the GS and Ducati but it’s sporty and arguably handles better than the rest of the bikes here.

The WP semi-active suspension is a revelation and it’s the only bike here where I left it in the standard auto setting. Riding through Glasgow rush-hour I was actively seeking out bumps because I couldn’t believe how well it rode over them, and how plush the suspension felt even on really rough Glaswegian back roads as we got lost in the middle of town. It comes on Continental Trail Attack II tyres that work well and warm-up quickly.

Out of the city and the KTM is eager to please. It hits hard at the low-end of the power, even harder in the middle and has plenty of top-end go. No surprises because with a claimed 160bhp and the biggest lump here at 1301cc, the KTM is stupidly, hilariously rapid!

It feels a bit less refined than the other bikes though and a but lumpier low-down too. It’s a feeling that most KTMs give me, and if you like that then great. It’s certainly exciting!

But somehow as amazing as the Super Adventure is, how fast it covers ground, it’s not quite as accomplished as the BMW or the Ducati. The panniers are plastic instead of metal, it doesn’t seem as well finished as the BMW or Ducati either. But it is a fantastic motorcycle. At the end of the day it all comes down to personal preference, but the four of us on test agreed on this at least.

With good reason. There’s very little the bike does wrong. And though it may look massively unrideable, in its latest liquid-cooled guise with a 30-litre tank compared to a 33-litre tank it’s much easier to manage.

The suspension takes some getting used to with the Telelever front end feeling a little remote at first, but I’ve had some five or six GSs over the years and ridden them tens of thousands of miles so it’s a feeling I’m more than used too. Likewise, our photographer Mark ‘Weeble’ Manning owns a standard GS and prefers the front-end feel to the more conventionally equipped bikes with forks.

We do some more pics and I jump on the KTM again. Yet again I’m staggered by the way it turns bumpy roads into racetrack smooth tarmac. It’s so fast, like a slightly saner KTM Super Duke with softer suspension, rather than what you may first think of as an adventure bike. I say slightly saner because, even compared to the Ducati, the KTM is barking. I love its attitude, the aggressive way it comes off corners trying to wheelie, to the point where the traction-control system has a bit of a fit and malfunctions, meaning any electronic traction or anti-wheelie assistance is turned off. Turning the bike on and off resets it and to be fair, the road I was on with its crests and rises would have confused any bike.

I love it, Phil thinks its agricultural and Weeble is scared by its aggressive nature.

I get back on the Triumph and delight in its smooth, easy-going nature and the way it makes the flowing roads of the A821 feel mellow, yet fast at the same time. I crank the suspension to stiffer and the bike feels more alive, and easily able to keep up with the rest of the bikes as we pick the pace up, you just have to be smoother with it. As a fast tourer it’s very accomplished.

At the end of a very long day on some fantastic roads and some incredibly accomplished motorcycles we hit the bar and debate the winner. It’s not an easy debate.