Extreme adventure test: Part one

While for many, adventure bikes represent comfort, on road presence and load carrying abilities -- these clearly shouldn't be their only qualities.

The real design brief for an adventure bike is that it will take you and your kit wherever you want to go whether that's touring Scotland or navigating your way across the Sahara desert.

Unlike the majority of tests in the media that focus primarily on road riding with some token dirt action, this test is different. The 400 miles of road work covered on this test was purely to get to the off road trails we wanted.

This is a test to determine which of the four bikes you'd want to take into the depths of Africa and which would be better off sticking to well surfaced tarmacked roads.

Get all the latest news at http://www.motorcyclenews.com