What do you ride then? Because just because you haven an ADV doesn´t have to make you slow. When I ride in Austria, in the alps, with serious switchbacks as well, somehow the big 1200GS are often faster than the sport bikes. Feels like that bumblebee situation, where they actually can´t fly but since nobody told them that, they do it anyway.

Nope, don´t really miss it. I sometimes miss the seating position and the wind protection, although the seat itself was awful for long rides, but I don´t miss the “do it all”. And that, I fear, is mainly because at least in the end, I didn´t really do it all any more. See, I live in Germany. Where it´s not trivial to just ride off road. And I never hat the time or budget to really go on adventures. And while I did the off dirt road on the first two sets of tires, I quickly found myself 99% on regular roads. I was too proud to do full stree tires, so I opted for some 80/20 type ones. Still, gravel was as wild as it got. Don´t get me wrong. I had the AT fpr 10 years. And it was just a great touring bike, even on regular roads. I don´t regret not using it “properly”. Still, that fact made it pretty easy to switch to a different style of bike. Not radically different, since I still have relatively upright seating and good wind protection, but different enough to matter.

So for your situation, I guess look at the way you actually use your current bike. For me, the decision was easy. But if you regularly ride off road, I fully understand your hesitation.

I was a bit sceptical back then if such a huge bike with a center of gravity so high would be a wise choice as a first bike. But once I have ridden it, I was in love! I still rejoice whenever I spot one of them old ones out in the wild.

That Fazer is the perfect small step up from the AT. It has more power but not excessively so. It still has good wind protection but not as insane as the AT had. And it was also pretty cheap to come by, altough not as cheap as the AT was back then. It´s the perfect dad bike and I´m a bit sad that this type of bike, naked in the back, proper fairing in the front, with a nice windscreen, has become so rare. You get either full on naked, full on sport or real heavy tourers.

I did not actually. Even the used “new” ones are well above my budget. So I won´t even make myself want one by trying it out. Judging by the fact that, big rig enduro wise, all I ever see are GS and AT, it shouldn´t be that bad. Still won´t ride one until they are well below 5k used ;-)

Because I mentioned it in the post, here´s my previous and also first Bike right before I sold it. I had it for 10 years and sold it for a little more than what I originally paid for it.

I checked one out at an event once. Seemed like a really solid bike to be. Especially for the money! If only it wasn´t so weak…

I love how the fins line up with the helmet there!