There's gotta be a term for adventure bikes that spend their whole lives without ever touching dirt. AINO? (Adventure In Name Only?) Our Bikes of The Week - actually, there are two of them - are the opposite of that.
Icon Motosports partnered with Triumph and Motoworks Chicago to come up with these two modified Tiger 800XCs. And they are awesome.
These two Tigers weren't made for the showroom. Yes, they are a great way for Icon to market their forthcoming Raiden line of ADV wear. But make no mistake. They are competition models - as Joe Gustafson from Icon put it, "they're a throwback to the Dakar bikes" - and both of them did the NORRA Mexican 1000 and the Alcan 5000 this year. To survive both rallies, the bikes were fitted with Ohlin's suspension, enduro-capacity tanks from Safari Tank Australia, Rally Raid armor and rear fuel tanks, PIAA lighting, and Woody's super laced tubeless wheels. To keep from getting lost - although if one had to get lost in the desert, this would be a good bike to be on - the bikes were equipped with GPS navigation panels.
Riders Mark Vanscourt, Joe Bolton, Johnny Scheff and Ernie Vigil were the team riders for the Mexican 1000.
READ MORE: Farewell Triumph Tiger Explorer
In August of this year, Ernie Vigil and Johnny Scheff took the bikes on the Alcan 5000. The bikes rode from Kirkland, Washington to Anchorage, Alaska on a mix of blacktop, gravel, dirt, mud, and water.
READ MORE: 2015 Triumph Tiger - EICMA
Between the two rallies, the bikes had spent 18 days and thousands of miles going through some of the toughest terrain anywhere. And despite incurring a few wounds, the bikes performed admirably. For a complete account of both rallies, check out the Icon Raiden website.
(Photos courtesy of Icon Motosports)