Street Out Dirt Back | ADV vs . Dual-Sport

A 600+ mile, two day time, one-night camping trip with a mixture of dirt, street, and highway seems like the perfect ride for an adventure bicycle, yet that wasn’t the bike I had in mind for the journey. Contact me a contrarian, or just dumb, but I wanted to see how well the street-legal 500cc off-road bike can handle all of that riding.

Joe McKimmy, our own art director and the guy I used to be trying to get to go with me on this vacation, didn’t want anything to do having a skinny-seated, single cylinder, non-wind-protected bicycle on the pavement for that long. “How about you grab an journey bike and we can see who has a much better time, ” I offered, actively playing to his love of warmed grips, large motors, and aluminum panniers.

“Sure, but I can tell you right now that you are going to suffer, ” Joe said.

The route we decided on would take us from our offices in Irvine to Lake Isabella in Kernville, taking us through tons of highway and dirt street, some trails, and the OHV traveling area known as Jawbone Canyon. When it comes to bikes, we had the off-road performance-oriented dual sport Beta 500 RR-S, and for the adventure bike, the new Ford CRF1000L Africa Twin. Both bikes were kept completely stock other than the Honda getting Motoz Tractionator Adventure tires and Honda Legitimate Accessories Panniers, and the Beta obtaining Kriega Overlander 30 soft bags and a Giant Loop Gas Bag.

Joe was able to take more stuff with him: extra tubes, tools, a resting bag, camera gear, a gal. water jug, clothes, a outdoor camping burner, a camp fuel bottle, a large thermos, cups, a tent, a sleeping pad, and some food with room to spare.

I only got a couple blankets, a one-liter fuel canister, a case of GoPro accessories, and a water bottle in the Kriegas, and the bags aren’t that simple to get on the bike since the Beta doesn’t have any racks or many anchor points, so I also needed to wear a large backpack with equipment, clothes, and other essentials. The advantage in traffic was a slimmer bike. May well had a hard time splitting lanes; I could have left him in freeway grildlock… could have, but he had all the pipes and the tent we were sharing.

SoCal isn’t known for wet things falling out of the sky but it just so happened that as we embarked, Irvine was getting a freak drizzle of water. Not a downpour yet any moisture is more than we are used to. It became clear the fact that bigger bike had an advantage within variable weather conditions. Joe relished the truth that he had a wind screen, heated grips, wider tires, fairings, and also a specific rain riding mode that made the Africa Twin the safer and more comfortable choice at that time. For me, as long as I avoided color lines and used extra extreme care when turning and twisting the grip, the stock Michelin Enduro DOT knobbies on the wet street were surprisingly ridable.

Once the skies and traffic cleared, we had a long, steady stretch of asphalt. The Africa Twin was right at home. Really the only downside to the Honda on the highway was that Joe was trying never to fall asleep!

Just because a bike has a license plate doesn’t imply that it was designed with highway miles in your mind. Let’s be clear – the Beta 500 RR-S is a full-on dirt bike designed solely with regard to off-road riding with just enough extra equipment to make it 50-state street legal. Prolonged time at 70 to eighty mph at almost full throttle isn’t what this bike wants to do, but it did it without problem. I was in a full tuck praying that engine could take the kind of abuse I was dishing out which the DOT marking on the bike’s knobbies was legit and that they weren’t going to shred randomly from the rate. Every time I passed a partial and got thrown to the additional side of my lane with the wind wake, I could hear Joe’s voice in my head in an bad villain whisper… “You’re going to endure. ” I didn’t want to back again it down and lose your pet; after all he had the tubes and the tent and our morning drizzle could have warned of evening rainfall.

The Beta’s translucent tank carries 2 gallons, which got me between 85 and 90 miles before the bike started to sputter and swig for more fuel. It does have a gasoline light that came on regarding 15 miles before the bike has been completely out. Advantage to Joe? Suffering for me? Not really, since May well stopped when I stopped even without the need. And if I ran out, guess who’d be acting as my fueling tanker? Perhaps I shouldn’t ridicule Joe for his patience to wait for me because I know patience is a virtue that Joe is isn’t especially virtuous with – simply peek your head in the office when we’re getting the magazine out the door.

I did have to concede an additional point to Joe and his Africa Twin in the cargo capacity section because of how cold it got that night. Since the Beta’s luggage situation was so minimal (and because I naively believed that California camping wasn’t going to get that cold) I only got my blankets, not a sleeping handbag. At about 40 degrees, I was totally freezing and I used my riding jacket as an extra “blanket. ” Even then, I didn’t sleep a wink. Joe had their bed pad, sleeping bag, and pillow while kept having to filler my extra shirt into a cushion and try not to shake too violently as to wake him up (ofcourse not because I cared about his beauty rest, but because I didn’t want to hear the ‘I told you so’s).

The dirt road is absolutely where an adventure bike plus dual sport meet in the middle. When we say “dirt road” we are talking about Jeep roads, gravel roads, powerline roads… Any road that isn’t paved but that a four-wheel vehicle could make it down. While an ADV bike has a higher top speed on the pavement, you can only comfortably go so fast on the dirt, which is about the same for both dual sports and ADV bikes. On this particular ride, I would even provide the advantage to the Beta since the dirt roads we spent a lot of time on had a few cross-grain edges plus raised-road crossings that made Joe on the Honda slow down while I didn’t even hesitate.

There is no shock that the Beta 500 RR-S was your overwhelming favorite once we got into even moderate trails and two-track. In order to ride comfortably and safely, the particular Africa Twin had to go a lot slower through whoops, up and down loose, rocky hills, and flat out couldn’t go down certain trails. Joe said that there were some sections of the dirt where he was white knuckling via, yet it was just the opposite for me personally. This was my chance to push the pace and make Joe scramble to keep up like I had to in the freeway. Another downside to those large bags on his bike was that these were bouncing around so much the rear from the Africa Twin looked like it was doing jumping jacks; there was suffering taking place again, but the shoe was on the other foot. But my fulfillment turned to dread has we found a fence that wasn’t around the map and wasn’t there the last time Joe had come through. This turned the advantage to the device with a seemingly endless supply of fuel and I had my fingers crossed that the fence wouldn’t last too long and/or my extra fuel would be enough.

Soon enough we achieved a sand wash. It was deep and long and Joe strike the ground. Based on how quickly he obtained up and picked up the bicycle I think he was hoping that I didn’t see it, but I did. With the Beta there weren’t any problems and the 500ccs kept the bicycle easily on top of the soft wash. To be fair, I also had one get off, but I get to rub it in Joe’s face it turned out also his and the Honda’s mistake. He had suddenly veered out-of-control in to my line and my incredibly elusive maneuvers pitched me off the bike. He maintains that if I were more aware that I would have already been fine. I claim that when an out-of-control, five-hundred-pound motorcycle cuts me away from suddenly with the rider desperately wanting to stop the bike, said driver was going too fast for the exotic ditch he was crossing. And we both suffered a bit in the sand, even though I can pin the fault for it all on Joe.

And The Dumb One Is…

We both are usually. Well, at least according to one another. Easily were to do this again, I would choose the Beta 500 RR-S again without hesitation, yet I would like to get somewhat bigger panniers, a bigger tank, possibly more 50/50 dirt/street tires, as well as a softer, wider seat. With all those mods, I feel I could ride definitely anywhere I wanted to go. Joe, on the other hand, would still pick the Africa Cal king for the same ride, yet he really does concede that if we were riding in an alternative state where you could ride dirt from your garage, he would pick a 500 dual sport as well. Therefore , which is one vote for the Africa Twin and one and a half for the Beta. As for the dumb one between Joe and am, I’d have to call it a tie up. We picked these two very different bicycles on purpose, and had a lot of fun riding collectively, but each bike limited another. So my advice to you will be to talk your adventure bike buddies into buying plated dual sports activity bikes. Joe’s advice would be the opposite, and how dumb is that?!