BMW R 1250 GS vs. Ducati Multistrada V4 S vs. HarleyDavidson Pan America 1250 Special

We took three of the most powerful adventure touring motorcycles to Utah to find out which one was the best allround performer. BMW, Ducati, or HarleyDavidson?

We had big—no, huge—plans for a bigbore adventure shootout. This included five national parks, numerous state parks, camping off the bikes, and long miles each day. And then an experience common to most ADV owners came to be for us as well.

Everyone has dreams of long journeys on their largedisplacement rigs. But the reality is that getting more than a long weekend in can be incredibly challenging. As it turned out, some in our group couldn’t be gone for a week or more. Others got COVID. Some test units became unavailable due to supply chain issues. So we settled on a shorter test: three days of intense riding in Southern Utah, a land crafted by the gods for adventure motorcycling.

There’s nothing like loading up the panniers on a big ADV rig and setting out for a long weekend, and the three machines we chose for this test all do the job of crunching miles and finding new sights. Yet they go about it in very different ways.

No bigbore ADV comparison test can even be considered without our first bike, the BMW R 1250 GS. Simply put, it is adventure motorcycling. Close your eyes, think ADV, and you’ll see a GS. BMW has ruled the segment for so long, it’s almost surprising that riders don’t say “let’s go GSing.” Our particular test unit was a 2021 R 1250 GS40 Years Edition GS, a long name for a long history of rallyinspired travel.

Ducati’s Multistrada V4 S is the spiciest meatball in the ADV world. Ducati launched the Multistrada in 2003, and it’s constantly evolved and improved through the years. Now, 19 years on, this 2021 model has V4 power by way of Ducati’s Panigale superbike, but with conventional valve springs for long valveinspection intervals (a remarkable 37,260 miles, to be precise). Even without desmo, the V4 S is the superbike of the ADV world. But that doesn’t mean it can’t go offroad with confidence. Multistrada means “many roads” in Italian, and Ducati means it, especially with this latest generation.

HarleyDavidson shocked adventurebike fans when it first teased its Pan America concept in 2018. Three years on, the 2021 Pan America 1250 Special hit the market and was favorably reviewed after our first ride. It’s no pretender to the segment; it has the required equipment for all things big ADV and even a few tricks up its sleeve. Don’t think pushrods and a potatopotato soundtrack; an allnew 60degree DOHC Vtwin powers the Pan Am with a character that is both modern and powerful. It’s a new challenger in a fiercely fought arena, and HD is serious about taking the crown.

Our test base in St. George, Utah, gave us access to a variety of roads: winding asphalt, fast and smooth dirt, roughandtumble twotrack, and everything in between, allowing us to ride from a hot and dusty 2,700foot baseline to a breathtaking 11,312 feet, with bouts of cold rain thrown in. The route would test our patience while moving through the crowds in Zion National Park and test our skills in the rocky and loose terrain of Dixie National Forest. Big miles and long days on the bikes are a must to really understand these three adventuretourers, so we did the thing.

In preparation for the test we ran each machine through Cycle World’s thorough and rigorous datagathering process: weighing them, measuring them, running them on our inhouse Dynojet 250i dynamometer, and performance testing them at our airstrip test bed. Each step of this portion of testing was executed with each model’s streetfocused standard tires on offroadready wirespoke wheels; once this was complete, each brand’s optional offroadfocused tires were mounted and OEM panniers were installed. The BMW and HarleyDavidson strapped on their soft luggage; the Multristrada’s plastic hard bags are its only option, but those come as standard equipment on the V4 S.

Read the full Big Bore Adventure Comparison here: https://www.cycleworld.com/story/moto...

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