Group test
Four elevated all-rounders, each promising to be a two-wheeled Swiss Army knife. So, which adventure-sports-tourer is best? Time for a two-day trip to Wales…
It’s not too much to ask, is it? You want a bike you can ride all day, then get off at the other end without instantly needing a hot bath. You want instant grunt, a motor that’s right there as soon as you crack the throttle. You want sporty steering: an agile chassis that gives you confidence to yomp along back roads. You want modern creature comforts, from heated grips to high-tech electronics, because this ain’t black-and-white days any more. Most of all, you don’t want to pay through the nose for the pleasure.
Sounds like you want a full-size, high-rise, all-round street bike. Not a silly-cc, big-ticket, heavyweight; nor an undersized middleweight. One that treads the fine line between ‘more than plenty’ and ‘way too much’.
Something like KTM’s 890 SMT. Its 990 namesake was a Bike favourite – does this new version fill its shoes?
Or did BMW get there first with the underrated, understated F900XR. Speaking of overlooked, don’t forget Kawasaki’s Versys 1000 – a lusty inline four blessed with one of motorcycling’s most sumptuous saddles. Or what about Yamaha’s Tracer 9 GT+, the most sophisticated version of one of the world’s best‐loved tall-rounders?
All four offer a taste of sports-tourer skill set, a hint of dual-purpose stance and a dash of roadster rawness… but which really is best for a rider who wants a bike to truly do it all? Let’s load up and head west on a two-day, cross-country fact-finding mission to Shropshire and the Welsh Marches.
KTM 890 SMT
Ahead, Versys-mounted Jason is pointing wildly at something off to his right. Meandering down the largely unremarkable A49, brain battered flat by three hours of multi-lane monotony this morning, his frantic air-prodding has my senses fired up once again. But what is he drawing our attention to? Maybe it’s a funny-looking dog. Or a sign for a rude place name. Perhaps a meteor hurtling through the sky about to deliver a fiery finale to humanity as we know it.
It’s none of those. Way off in the distance, climbing enticingly up a steep, verdant hillside, is a road. Narrow and delicate, from here it looks to be a mere sliver of tarmac carved into otherwise empty greenery. I can just about make out tiny ants driving tiny ant cars and tiny ant trucks up and down on their way to their tiny ant jobs.
It looks like the perfect playground for KTM’s 890 SMT. Launched to the world’s motorcycling media on a closed-road hillclimb, KTM’s latest (and perhaps final) 890 model takes its initials from squidging together SuperMoto and Touring. That means it’s for thrashing up and down tight, twisty roads a long way from ho
