MCN's Top Ten Adventure Bikes under £4000

[Alun]

I see Motorcycle News has just published a top ten list of big trailies under £4000 and the results are;

1 Yamaha Tenere 92%
2 Cagiva Navigator 90%
3 Triumph Tiger 955 84%
4 Honda Varadero 125 80%
5 Honda SLR650 80%
6 Suzuki Freewind 80%
7 Kawasaki KLE500 80%
8 Aprilia Pegaso Trail 80%
9 Honda Transalp 76%
10 Kawasaki KLR650 74%

The feature quotes 'as voted for by 11,000 readers' but then goes on to say that 11, 000 readers have completed their MCN bIking Britain Survey. So my guess is that not all of them have taken part in the vote for adventure bikes. Never the less, the bike nation has spoken. Though having just written a not so great review of the Tenere and absolutely loving the 885 Triumph Tiger, I should point out the above does not include my votes.

[Treadtrader]

And where was the Africa Twin??
Lots of nice percentages but 100% of nothing is still nothing!
What do MCN know about anything other than R1's and Fireblades.

[Alun]

Coming from a media background I'm always sceptical about these 'top ten' style features. As a reader you'll never know if they've been manipulated, or by how much. And I've spoken to enough magazine editors to know that a lot of these lists are just dreamt up in editorial meetings rather than produced from genuine data. Sad but true.

Totally agree about the Africa Twin, no top ten big trailies list is credible without it. Perhaps we should do our own on this site one day.