Marketing gone mad. By the time you spec this up properly you are closer to £20k. That's a lot of cash to drop in the mud on a trail. I enjoyed the (on-road only) test ride but sorry the build quality doesn't support its price point.
I could not ever bring myself to spend 20k on a bike. I’m just in the process of buying some off road biased tyres for both my lads supermoto and mine. I can stand dropping my GasGas bud for off-road that’s too much IMO. Not sure how many would take a bike of that value fully off road.
I would like to know what the Desert X DP is going to be. I do wish they would make a bike to go against the KTM 890SMT.
They would need to resurrect the Hyperstrada or Ducati could opt to allow owners to spec a hypermotard to a strada spec. That SMT looks a great Swiss Army knife of a bike.
Indeed it does. I went to look at one a few weeks ago but didn't dare test ride it as I suspect I would have wanted one there and then.
Depends how you define tour, I guess. I took my SP on a 3 day trip to Cornwall last weekend, it was more than capable. I think if touring was the main objective of the bike, a supermoto of any description wouldn't be top of my list of bikes to buy.
I loved riding my 790scalpel, sometimes wish I’d have got the 890 instead of my GasGas. Such a peach of a bike.
The bike will do it but it would get tiring after a while being in the breeze all the time. It’s possible to tour on anything if you have the will.
It does look good but…..Personally I would say buy a Fantic Caballero 500 Rally or the Triumph 400 Scrambler X if you fancy some off road. You would need exceptional off road skills to get anything from the Desert x Rally…and deep pockets.
Unbelievable pricing for the Rally ! Seems a cynical attempt to milk the market given the relatively limited changes , maybe it’s meant to give them headroom to lift the standard DesertX prices given the current UK £4k gap between them.
Just get the more than capable standard X and cover it in mud, they’ll never know it’s not the top model?
Sounds like a VERY impressive bike if you do lots of off road. Even top riders saying the electronics make them faster and don't hold them back.
