Finding the sweet spot adventure

The middleweight adventure bike market has exploded, with a huge variety of bikes to choose from. We picked two from the more offroady side of the field, and two from the road-adventure camp. With a few days of Tarmac and trails in the Yorkshire Dales, we got the measure of the lot.

- Ross Mowbray, Gary Hartshorne, Dave Manning, Mikko Nieminen

MOTO MORINI X-CAPE

The left-field one

While fashion is constantly changing, style remains and – from the eyes of this jaded hack – the X-Cape has style in bucket-loads. While it may not be everyone’s cup of Oolong, the pseudo-Dakar look, with the humpty-backed fuel tank, low seat and full fairing, really appeals to me, especially with updates such as the sleek LED headlights.

Although the name does niggle a little, surely it should be S-Cape?

Ridden in isolation

There’s nothing out of the ordinary when slinging your leg over the 845mm seat (a lower, 820mm version is available), and it didn’t take very long for me to realise that this was a rather pleasant place to be. The engine is the CF Moto version of Kawasaki’s ER6 motor, in a detuned state. As such, it hasn’t got the absolute power of the Kwak’s powerplant, but will therefore be near unburstable, regardless of mileage or the owner’s level of mechanical sympathy.

It does need revving to properly get a shifton, and to be kept above 6000rpm –which is where the airbox starts to make a decent noise, although it’s all over by 9000rpm. The bottom end is a little gutless when compared with the other bikes on test, and the fuelling isn’t what I’d call perfect, but ridden in isolation there’s nothing wrong whatsoever, it’s just comparing it with bikes that have near perfect fuelling. And, of course, the engine first saw production back in 2006, and engine tech and fuel injection management have come a long way since then…