Modern adventure motorcycles all look pretty dang good, in my opinion. That said, they also all look pretty similar, as they follow a very similar design. There's a large windscreen, a boxy and aggressive middle, tall suspension, and some knobby tires shod on wire wheels.
But that design language of aggressive and angular in the towers and bodywork sorta just follows the same path, leading many to look like carbon copies or as if I was copying someone else's homework. I get though, it's what the market is demanding.
Again, I have no problem with that design language being put onto almost everything. But it can get stale. You sort of end up looking at a bike and wondering, "Which make is this?" You absolutely can't do that with the new 2026 BMW R 12 G/S, which looks like it was plucked out of the 1980s and off the sands of Dakar. The only thing missing from this retro adventure motorcycle is a Marlboro livery and a mustachioed rider smoking cigarettes by the side of some cafe.
