Government Issue

Love the smell of diesel in the morning ?
You're a sniper and have to sneak up on a target you've been assigned to eliminate. You have a long distance to travel and must go undetected by the enemy for some 200 miles to the targets lasl known sighting. You've parachuted into hostile territory and have no ground support except for the HDT M1030MI diesel-powered motorcycle that made the air-drop with you.
At least that was the scenario going through my head as 1 made my early-morning rendezvous with HDT's Fred Hayes and Bryon Schmidt-who arrived in a diesel Sprinter van-in the high-desert at 0-dark-30 for a ride of the Marine Corps-issue diesel dirtbikc. Shortly after we rolled up, Clark Jones, our guide and IIDT's hired-in suspension engineer, arrived. As the 61 lec diesel Single warmed up in cold crisp morning air, its industrial clackity cadence made it clear that this was no ordinary enduro.

BMW R1200GS

SENSE OF ADVENTURE. In the right hands, BMW's GS can be a formidable overlanding tool, but we're not all Dakar experts and something as sizeable as the BMW can be a tad intimidating to those less experienced. Chris Moss took on a steep learning curve at the launch of the 2008 R1200 GS Range.

Honda CB600F Hornet

The Hornet 600 is one of Honda's better known and best selling bikes, and it's easy to see why. The first advantage it has is style, and plenty of it. Accepting that the colour of our test bike in its divisive Marmite-esque hue certainly won't please all eyes, few could argue that the Hornet isn't one of the better looking bikes from Japan. The sharp, yet flowing lines of its bodywork are bang up to date and the hi-level exhaust can add to the modernity. With mast of its mechanicals also on view to give it extra life and individuality, it makes a refreshing change from many of the plastic-covered and more anonymous offerings we usually get from the land of the rising sun.

Lexus LX570

Bodacious Ballerina SURE, SHE'S A DANCING HIPPO, BUT SHE'S LIGHT ON HER BIG FEET. A JET-LAGGED, carb-loaded mind is wander-prone, so while the Lexus rep described how the cross-linked variable-rate shocks use a spring-rate valve to help limit dive, squat, and roll in the new LX 570, improving its dynamic handling, I daydreamed first of hippopotami in ballerina skirts, then of the rubenesque Motormouth Maybelle dancing to "Big, Blonde, and Beautiful" in the musical adaptation of John Waters's "Hairspray.'This largest Lexus has no more business vamoosing through chicanes than it does scaling 45-degree slopes, fording two-foot-deep streams, or straddling nine-inch-tall rocks; yet it's capable of doing all the above.

Aprillia RST1000

LIVING WITH THE FUTURA
Comparing the Futura to other sports tourers isn't really fair, but will always happen as it shares many similar attributes with the likes of the mighty VFR800, and yet deep inside the Aprilia is a heart of a real sports machine. The chassis being little different to the Mille with just a few social niceties added to make life a shade more comfortable for long distance use and a beefier front end to improve stability.