Bikes that already depreciated

Sport-touring anchor

Concours 14

This is the bike the rest of the sport-touring talk hangs on. In some markets Kawasaki badged the same idea as the 1400GTR. Either name, you are looking at a full fairing sport-tourer whose inline-four comes from the ZX-14 family, turned down from superbike manners into a bike you can sit on all day. Final drive is a shaft. A lot of used examples already wear hard side cases, which is half of why they make sense as a first long-distance bike.

The riding character is pace with luggage on. The fairing takes the wind off your chest. The seating is sport-touring, not a clip-on crouch and not a chair. It will cover a highway day without asking you to apologize for the bike, and it will still change direction when the coast road or a mountain two-lane starts bending. It is a big motorcycle at walking pace. Parking lots, U-turns, and a sandy shoulder are where you remember that. Those are not reasons to avoid it. They are reasons not to pretend it is an adventure bike.

On the used market it often costs a fraction of a new luxury tourer — a new BMW RT, a new Gold Wing — without giving up the basic tools of the job: wind protection, a shaft, and somewhere to put a week of clothes. The bargain disappears if the tires are ancient, the brake fluid is a mystery, or the luggage mounts are cracked. Buy the maintenance history. The badge already did the depreciating.

FJR1300

If the Concours is the anchor, the Yamaha FJR1300 is the other classic answer to the same question. Inline-four, shaft drive, a tall fairing, and a reputation built on highway days rather than trail days. Some bikes in the family have more electronic adjustment than others. Read the ad instead of the folklore, and ride it. The character you want is a stable sport-tourer that settles under luggage and does not need a chain cleaned at every fuel stop.

It suits the same roads as the Concours: coast highways, paved passes, the long connector between two interesting places. It does not suit a plan that includes washboard on purpose. Used, it is a budget sport-tourer because the design has been around long enough for depreciation to do its work, not because it was built as a cheap motorcycle.

ST1300

Honda’s ST1300 is the V4 in this trio. Shaft drive, a full sport-touring fairing, and hard luggage as part of how most people remember the bike. It has been out of new showrooms for a long time, which is exactly why it belongs here. You are not cross-shopping it with a new flagship. You are finding one that was kept, or rebuilding your expectations around one that was not.

The character is smooth pavement miles with a more sporting edge than a full dresser, and less dirt ability than any of the adventure bikes below. It likes the same corridors as the Concours and the FJR. Age is the tax: fluids, tires, fork seals, and whether the cases still latch. A low asking price that skips those things is not the budget win.

R1200GS and GSA

The adventure side of this site is a slightly older boxer, not the current flagship. That means the R1200GS and the R1200GS Adventure: earlier air/oil-cooled bikes and the later liquid-cooled R1200 generation. Both are a step back from the newest GS, which is the point. You get the tall, upright, shaft-drive adventure character people crossed continents on, after the new-bike payment has left the conversation.

The standard GS is the all-rounder. It will eat a highway morning and still take a graded road in the afternoon if the tires match the plan. You sit high, over the front, with sight lines a sport-tourer cannot offer. You also feel the height in a crosswind and in a parking lot. It is not a light dual-sport, and it is not trying to be.

The Adventure, the GSA, is the one riders pick when the day gets more remote. More travel-ready gear than the standard bike, and a larger tank, which matters when the next fuel stop is a question rather than a certainty. It is the better desert and back-road tool of the two, and the worse city bike. On either one, ask when the final drive was last serviced. Older GS bikes will quietly spend your “savings” there if the records are blank.

What this is not: a directive to buy the newest R1300GS, or to pretend a showroom flagship is a budget motorcycle with the right financing. If the route is almost all pavement and you want the fairing, go back to the Concours. If the route includes dirt on purpose, this is the family.

Africa Twin

Two different motorcycles share this name, and both can be the budget adventure bike if you buy the right one for the age you actually want.

The CRF1000L is the first of the modern Africa Twins, the generation before the later 1100. Parallel twin, chain drive, a real adventure seating position, and more willingness on a rough connector than a Concours will ever have. Honda also sold a dual-clutch version. It is a different machine to live with. Ride it before you believe an ad that calls it “just like the manual, but easier.” The manual is the straightforward used buy. Either way, the chain is part of the budget: cleaning and adjustment are the cost of not having a shaft.

The XRV750 is the earlier Africa Twin, a generation older and a different kind of cheap. It is a used dual-sport from a previous era, carbureted, lighter in feel than a CRF1000L or a GSA, and happier on dirt than on a full day of slab. Parts, rubber, and the honesty of the odometer matter more than the badge. It fits a used-budget garage. It does not replace a Concours for pavement weeks, and it does not replace a sorted R1200GS if you want one bike to do both without a project.

Tiger 800, KTM 1090 and 1190

A few other used ADVs belong next to the GS and the Africa Twin, as long as they are the earlier ones.

The Triumph Tiger 800 is a middleweight triple, chain drive, and easier to turn around when the road gets narrow. Triumph split it between a more road-oriented XR and a more trail-oriented XC. Ads get sloppy about which is which. Look at the wheels and the suspension, not the headline. It is the lighter way into this kind of riding when a GSA feels like too much motorcycle for the connector you actually have. The earlier big Tigers — the Explorer and the first Tiger 1200 generation — are the larger, shaft-drive triples if you want more presence and still want to stay off the newest showroom bike.

KTM’s 1190 Adventure and the later 1090 Adventure are the slightly older big KTMs, before later flagships took over that role. V-twins, chain drive, with a sharper off-road reputation than a shaft-drive GS. There was a more road-biased version and an R set up more for trail. They suit a rider who wants that bias and will keep up with the chain and the service. They are not here as new bikes, and they are not a reason to skip tires and brakes to make the purchase price look clever.