4WD vs. Moto: Which is the Best Adventure Vehicle?
The Motology crew heads to the Outback for an unlikely vehicle comparison.
Australia has incredible places to ride motorcycles off-road. It also has incredible distances between them. Since buzzing down the highway on a dirt bike is one of life’s least entertaining activities, racer and filmmaker Adam Riemann decided to throw a couple of two-stroke KTMs in the back of a Mitsubishi Triton truck to explore the remote Kimberley Region for his latest video, 4WD vs. Moto — Motology’s version of a Top Gear Challenge!
Riemann and his riding buddy, Louis Calvin, cooked up the idea for the challenge while knocking out more than 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from their starting point in Perth to their riding destination in sparsely populated northern expanses of Western Australia. They would score both forms of transportation, 4WD truck and dirt bikes, and see which one prevails. It’s the kind of apples-to-oranges comparison the TV show Top Gear is famous for.
Riemann has been making videos since 2009, and his speciality is hauling camera equipment around the world on dirt bikes and bringing back stunning footage of his travels. His Motonomad series, for example, is a modern adventure classic and a study in creative use of drone footage.
4WD vs. Moto is full of the same kind of dirt-bike magic. The eight-day road trip finds the pair jumping through a fat boab tree, ripping mile-long wheelies and carving up sandy tracks in crocodile country as they take viewers on a tour of the wide-open Australian countryside. In fact, the riding seems almost secondary to the scenery at times. Riemann and Calvin are great riders, but shots of places like Mitchell Falls, the Bungle Bungle Range and Purnululu National Park steal the show.
Viewers are treated to the full Australian experience, from dingoes to snakes, sloppy red mud to campsites far out in the bush. And of course there’s plenty of Riemann’s signature aerial footage to capture the immensity of it all.
A dropped cell phone, lost luggage, and flat tires add narrative tension to the film, and the “competition” between truck and bike is only half serious at times. Both have their strong suits, of course, and they complement each other perfectly on a long-distance trip like this one. So which adventure vehicle wins? Apparently, Reimann isn’t done answering that question yet. We’ll have to tune in to the next exciting installment to find out.
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Something like a 990 adventure would more likely be the equivalent of a 4×4. A dirt bike would more like a buggy.