Cycle World 10 Best Over The Years

[BMC55]

I have reviewed Cycle World's 10 best bikes over the last few years. The Super Tenere was named best adventure class bike in 2012. Since then BMW and KTM have surpassed the Super Tenere. With each passing year Cycle World bestows the honor on the machine that has the newest engine, electronics, etc etc etc. So I thought what if new isn't necessarily better. It's just new. Which takes me back to the 2012 best adventure class bike. I think if the basic design is sound and the bike performs it's intended niche with accomplishment is not all the rest window dressing? If you can get on an adventure motorcycle and tour anywhere with reliability, comfort, reasonable cost, and competence is that not enough? It would seem the engineers at Honda for example view things similarly if you look at the Africa Twin. What do the members of this forum think on this topic?

 

[OldRider]

I think "Best" is very hard to describe and means very different things to different people.

 

[patrickg450]

without a doubt the ST is the best bike I have ever owned. I am so happy with it, I dont eve ask others to swap bikes (so I can try out other ones). It did take a while to get it set up for me, but I am super happy and I still have yet to map it.



Die hard KTM'er

 

[rider33]

Cycle World "Best Of" lists favor the new for sure but they also seem to correlate rather well to the size of the ad budget from what I can tell. Me, I generally wait for a new bike to be vetted for 3-4 yrs. which puts the S10 in the sweet spot, old enough to be improved upon but far from outdated.

 

[WJBertrand]

Objective performance (i.e. Engine, chassis, suspension, features and comfort) which most mags judge bikes by, is completely different to the ownership experience. I don't care how much better another model performs or rates as expensive, dangerous and frequent repairs will quickly render all of that irrelevant.


-Jeff

 

[jmcgilroy]

I believe that all of the various magazine periodicals simply have a need to fill their pages with the "Latest and Greatest". When they keep the subscription base up, they get to charge more for the advertising space. Clearly, it's the advertising that keeps them in business as the subscription price doesn't even cover the cost of postage. So they pay their writers to come up with something new every month, oftentimes it's meaningless opinion of a particular style of riding. Everyone has a different body, ride in different conditions with different needs from their motorcycles. Although I may listen to the opinion of some "Pro Street Rider" or "Super Dakar Master" , I can't even say that I value their opinion because I just don't have the same needs.

JIm

 

[WJBertrand]

Motorcycle Consumer News would be the exception to that as they do not accept any advertising. The magazines are only providing what their readership wants. I will admit to wanting to read about all the latest and greatest. It doesn't mean everything they write is gospel, I think most moto-journos are true enthusiasts doing the best they can.

 

[Lutsie]

I think "Best" is very hard to describe and means very different things to different people.

I'm with old rider on this. It's all relative. Are the ktm and gs better? Yes, in someways no in others. Ktm has chain drive, for me (900-1200miles a month) that is a deal breaker. Parallel vs opposing twin, parallel for me. But I love engines and the parallel sounds the best to me.

And best bike, how much "best" and best for what dirt, street, commuting, touring? The magazines almost never touch on cost of maintenance, intervals, complexity of maintenance, such as valves. If I had a dedicated bike for long dirt miles and didnt commute I might have gotten a ktm. But for my real world bike the s10 fits the bill and I love it. It is the best bike for me.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk

 

[Juan]

As has been said, it's all relative. 'Best' is sometimes what suits the writer best. Other times it's the result of polls, which is greatly influenced by the type of respondents. For example, some business schools encourage their MBA graduates to respond to surveys of top MBAs worldwide, while other business schools do not. Top MBAs are rated according to such surveys. Rankings are way skewed due to such encouragement to participate in surveys.