Motorcycle Live is the UK’s largest bike show and runs for 10 days. I was fortunate that @chriscole took me on the 3rd day of the show, which was a Monday and the show was still busier than the NZ Motorcycle show.
Yamaha had a few of their Dakar and other ralllye bikes on display.
Stephene Peterhansel’s 1991 Dakar winning YZE850T, a 4 cylinder 850cc machine.
Serge Bacou 1989 FZT900 – 911cc, 85HP, weighs just under 200kg.
The 2 bikes above from behind
Serge Bacou 1982 XT550
Yamaha 2 wheel drive machine.
David Fretigne 450cc WR450F Dakar class winner 2-Trac 2WD
Africa Evo Race
Yamaha had the new Tenere 700 on their stand. I found it pretty comfortable.
Not sure what was going on with this Indian
KTM had the new 390 Adventure on their stand.
I found a sidecar that would take care of any traffic.
The Husqvarna 701LR – Long Range
Suzuki had the new V-Strom 1050
The Suzuki DR Big was also on display to show where Suzuki got it’s inspiration for the V-Strom redesign.
@Mark Claasen maybe you could do your Big in these colours.
AJP had a small stand with their PR7 on display.
Royal Enfield haven’t announced a new adventure bike powered by their new 650cc twin-cylinder motor yet but they did have this adv customised version of their 650 twin road bike on display.
I also got to meet Austin Vince of Monda Enduro fame, if you haven’t watch Mondo Enduro you should. He rode across Russia almost 10 years before Ewan and Charlie did it.
Honda had a large stand with I think 5 Africa Twin 1100‘s available to sit on, plus another 2 on a set display, and 1 on a rolling road you could ride and try out the DCT gear system.
Moto Guzzi had the V85TT on display, along with their new Traveller variation with full luggage and spotlights.
Harley Davidson had one of it’s Pan America concept bike hidden at the back of it’s stand.
Lots of exhaust stuff underneath, along with some factory pen work.
This was the only thing that concerned me with it’s design, I couldn’t see exactly what it was but it’s very exposed.
At the Motorcycle Live bike show at the N.E.C event centre in Birmingham UK multiple manufacturers had setup a test track so that visitors could test ride adventure bikes, Triumph had their 1200 Scrambler and a 1200 Explorer, Royal Enfield the Himalayan, Yamaha had a lot of Tenere 700’s, BMW a lot of GS’s. Interestingly nothing from KTM.
I wonder if NZ manufacturers would ever work together on something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDy1VaJnws