Helsinki Motorcycle Exhibition first time in 3 years!!
There was 3 bikes that were extremely interesting for me: Aprilia Tuareg 660, Honda XL 750 TransAlp and Ducati Desert X But lots of other nice bikes too!
Aprilia Tuareg is lighter than Yamaha Tenere 700 (187kg dry weight) but the engine delivers about same power than Yamaha. It seems to have more offroad capabilities and surprisingly low seat (86cm).
To the same “middle weight adventure bikes” comes Honda XL750 Transalp. It’s about same weight than Yamaha Tenere 700 but the engine delivers more power (90hp!) Seat is also quite low in this (86cm).
Ducati Desert X is bigger than those “middle weight” bikes. It has 900 cubic engine with 110hp! And it weights only little bit more than 200kg’s. This would be very very interesting bike to ride TET Finland all around!
It’s not very difficult to guess that New Honda Transalp will be on top of the list about sold new bikes. Let’s hope it is trustworthy bike for the new owners!
Here are the most interesting new bikes (my opinion):
1. Suzuki V-Strom 1050 New V-Strom has design that reminds a lot the old DR 800 (and 750) adventure-bike from 80’s and 90’s. Now it has 1037cc V-Twin engine with 107 HP.
V-Strom 1050
2. BMW F900R & F900XR 1 year ago BMW brought new 850cc engine and now they made it even bigger! This new parallel-twin gives 105 HP and XR version makes nice small brother for the S1000XR adventure bike!
F900RF900XR
3. Ducati Streetfighter V4 Ducati is now officially “the king of naked bikes”. This amazing bike has 208 HP and the bike weights only 180kg!! You can update the exhaust and the bike will have even 220 HP!!!
4. Harley Davidson Livewire HD makes a big surprise for quite many! It is bringing full electric bike with very reasonable price!! You can ride more than 200 km’s with one charge. And it’s totally silent.
This time it was very interesting! There was so many new models it felt like there’s no time enough to get to know all of them. Luckily I’m not a big fan of sportbikes… So few bikes wasn’t so interesting to me.
1. KTM 790 Adventure Maybe the biggest group of interested viewers was around this bike. It’s no wonder. The bike looks very good! It has hew parallel twin engine that KTM introduced last year. The engine has little bit less power than in 790 Duke but of course the torque is better is all rpm’s. Bike has almost all possible electronics: traction control, cornering abs, offroad abs, ridemodes and so on. It has 20 litres tank that gives the bike easily more than 400 km’s range on the road. Tank is placed around the engine so the center of gravity is very low. Price for this bike is 18500€ in Finland!
Tank around engineIt was difficult to take pictures of this bike! There was so much people all around it all the time.
2. Yamaha 700 Tenere Another adventurebike but totally different kind of idea! This is simple, not too much electronics and it looks more ready for an OffRoad ride! It’s almost 6000€ cheaper than KTM! The final price is still open but they said it will not be more than 12800€! 200mm travel is not much but they’ve tested this bike quite long time so I guess they think it’s enough. 16 liters tank gives this bike more than 300 km’s range.
It should’ve been white-red bike in the show!But this look very good! It calls me to make an offroad ride right now!
3. BMW R1250GS And here is another adventurebike but yet again totally different kind of thinking. This is legend of all touring/ adventurebikes but now it has bigger engine, more power and torque and it’s again more expensive. It has simply everything you can ever imagine the bike could have… -Ok, no reverse gear or automatic gearbox but anyway. The price for adventure version is more than 31000€ in Finland
Big bike to make long rides and tours
4. Suzuki Katana Suzuki makes a nice return to interesting and “modern” bikes. But the funny thing is that the design is very retro when it is based on 80’s Katana. The engine they take from GSX-S1000F so it delivers very nice power and easy riding. And the way it looks it will always give strong feelings to all pure motorcyclists!
Katana
5. Triumph 1200 SpeedTwin Triumph presents new line with 1200 Twin engine. The bike still looks totally retro but the engine is now more like modern and sporty. It delivers 96 hp with 112Nm torque in 4950rpm. Compare this with T100 engine: 64hp and 80Nm in 3800rpm -you can say that there is a big difference.
Go - Za 