As Winter settles in and I recover from a total knee replacement, it’s a good time to ponder the two wheeled world...as a Proud Owner of (what I consider) the most shockingly competent motorcycle ever built, the FJR, I fail to understand what any ADV Bike has over the FeeGer. Yes, they can be ridden off road, I get that. What I would love to see in a survey from ADV Owners is the percentage of miles ridden on / off road per year. My educated guess would be far more miles are ridden on road.
I will be adding a lightweight Dualsport to the Man Cave this Spring, for the opportunity to take on the trails, which leads to more riding proficiency on the street. It’s just a blast to bomb through the woods!
If I had the Ching to buy the latest $30,000 BMW GS, $1,500 plus on all Klim gear, and look like I could take “The Long Way Around” with Ewan, would I?
To me, I want the very best Sport Touring Bike when I’m on the Asphalt and a cool lightweight Trail bike to blast around town and get muddy enough for a Tide Commercial.😂
I think, if ADV Riders had the chance to test ride the FeeGer first, they would know where I’m coming from...
What are your thoughts Fellows?

Maybe I should refer to the FJR as FeeJer...

Or just call it what it is, a FJR1300. "Feejer" sounds so juvenile. Same with Gixxer, Crotch Rocket, Joe Rocket... Millennials, always wanting to change things. GET OFF MY LAWN, darn kids!

Categories in motorcycle business are all over the place in recent years; in order to boost sales the industry will use whatever classification is currently most popular, that's why you see bikes that are 90% road bias sold under ADVenture umbrella since like you said "everybody want's to conquer the world "on GS and in Klim style" (i read someplace the GS won't even start unless you are wearing Klim)

Everybody wants "one bike for all conditions and terrains" solution, but that usually doesn't work in real life, and even if the bike is equally good on pavement and gravel, tires are a limiting factor, and you always need to ride asphalt to get to gravel (and vice versa).

If you can afford a second bike beside your FJR, there are many bike choices to explore some "off road" trails, depending of how serious you want to get in the dirt. I was always ridding road bikes, and this summer picked up a '18 Vstrom 650XA to get a taste of gravel, and happy to report this bike does excellent job on both pavement and gravel. So for the price it was a no brainer, and a great entry level bike to get some experience "off road" without breaking the bank. And from what I could see when ridding gravel trails this summer, there are not too many of the big (GSA's) playing in the dirt.
Once when you get better off road (and if your knee will allow), a natural upgrade would be bikes like Afrika, Tenere700, Tiger's, KTM's etc and all the way to GS.

I researched soo much and like always, the more you look, the less you know...so this bike came up for sale, liked the color, liked the price and since I read a lot of positives about the Vstrom's, I picked it up, didn't even test ride it. Based on my limited ownership and 5000 km I would definitely recommend this bike to my friends.

Good luck with your "new knee" recovery and with your second bike whatever you choose.

more pics here:
https://www.fjrowners.com/forums/14-...dv-office.html

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Chico, with ya, I want a street bike for sport touring and second bike for dual sporting would be great if I had enough dual sporting roads. How about a nice DR650, they're cheaper than WeeStroms, still street capable.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on dual sports as well. I was originally thinking of a light ADV bike as it would be perfect for the bulk of the riding I would do. The problem I have with ADV bikes and the larger dual sports is that even the lighter ones are, in my opinion, much too heavy if you get yourself in trouble. While I’m not necessarily going out looking for technical single track I know me and would see a new trail and wouldn’t have the maturity to turn around if it got rough. Therefore, I believe a smaller dual sport that can do highway speeds is what I want. I realize that no dual sport is gonna be much fun on the highway but, as was noted, as every bike has some compromises and accept that if where I want to go ride is much more than an hour or two away I will probably just trailer it. Pretty much the only bike out there that meets these requirements is a DRZ400 but it is a 20 year old platform with a carb and I am done with carbed bikes. The Japanese 250s just don’t have the power for highway speeds loaded down with camping gear. The Japanese 450s and all of the offerings out of Euroland are really just plated dirt bikes with race motors that have ridiculous maintenance schedules. Those maintenance schedules won’t work as I would like to do BDR trips. The new 300s from Honda and Kawi sound promising so looking forward to the ride reports once they get out in the wild for a bit. Yamaha just killed the WR250R due to EU5 emissions and haven’t announced if they are going to do anything to plug that hole in their lineup. A modern 350 or 400 would probably be the sweet spot I am looking for but I’m not too hopeful that that unicorn is going to show up anytime soon.

All of you should find this video funny, no matter the bike you're riding.
Keep in mind that he got banned from Adventure Rider.com for indirectly making fun of the snobbish BMW riders. I congratulated him on YouTube after watching the video.

Nine of my 42 motorcycles were Beemers but I never found his video offensive in any way.
Some people couldn't help it. Gave up on the BMW cult and HD cult a long time ago, and I never looked back.
This is funny!

Thanks for that vid. I sent it to two of my buddies that have VStrom 650s - I’m sure they will find it hilarious.

Some sections of that road are good examples of situations I would not be comfortable riding a 500 lbs ADV bike and why I am leaning toward a light dual sport. Maybe if I were younger or a more talented dirt rider but I am neither.

Well, will have to get myself into a Suzi dealer and lookie at the new Wee.... and a test ride at the next event...... definitely changed from 2011. I'd have to get back into it and find out all about it.
Wee weighs in at 475 lbs., DR650 at 366 and the DRZ400 at 317. I have friends with both DR's and DRZ's.... either one would be fine for some street...... just depends on how muddy you want to get...... not that useful to me around here. Carbs wouldn't bother me, they are pretty simple on a single lunger.

Having both a 1250 GSA and a '13 Feeger (excuse if the slang term offends anyone, or everyone) I can perhaps supply some information, or at least opinion. As mentioned above, all motorcycles are a compromise in one way or another. You want more comfort, less weight, off-road ability, touring, cost, maintenance? There is no perfect bike, in my opinion. I am just over six feet tall and the GSA makes for a more comfortable riding position over a period of several hours, but if I was any shorter in the legs, I would have trouble putting both feet flat on the ground. The lower center of gravity of the Feeger makes it's weight a non-issue, even though it is about a hundred pounds over the GSA. Getting the Beemer up on the center stand is a matter of faith and profanity, the Yamaha, a non-issue. The Feeger is as close to a sport bike as I'll probably ever ride, while the GSA, with it's nine inches of suspension travel is as close to a Rolls Royce as you can get on two wheels. If you only did one kind of riding, you would only need one kind of bike, if you could determine what you really needed. For different riding, and different types of riding, get whatever suits your style of riding and ability. I won't get into the merits of the Road Glide...