It’s a classical GS experience. Half an hour ago I was cruising comfortably along a Spanish motorway; 10 minutes ago I was scratching down a twisty, smooth-surfaced back road with my boot-toes clipping the Tarmac. And now I’m standing up on the pegs on a gravel-covered path through the arid Andalucian countryside, gassing the big boxer motor to send up a satisfying rooster-tail behind me...
This off-road excursion isn’t very ambitious or exciting: just a short dirt detour before it’s time to get back on the road and head back to our hotel. There again, most R1200GS owners’ globe-crossing daydreams aren’t matched by reality. And that hasn’t prevented the amazing success of the dual-purpose boxer, which contributes more than half of BMW’s total two-wheeled production and has notched up almost 200,000 sales since being launched six
years ago.
Both the GS and its heavy-duty Adventure sibling have been updated for 2010 with a new version of the air/oil-cooled boxer motor, incorporating twin overhead cams for the first time. The engine, which is developed from that of the HP2 Sport (and is shared with the latest R1200RT) keeps the traditional GS capacity of 1170cc and features four radial valves per cylinder.
STRONGER
Performance is increased to a peak of 110bhp at 7750rpm, 5bhp up on the old unit. The new motor revs 500rpm higher, to 8500rpm. It’s stronger by several horsepower almost everywhere from 2500rpm to that limit, especially at 5000rpm and 6500rpm, where it’s about 10bhp more powerful. The exception is a distinct dip between those points, where the old engine (whose own dip is 500rpm earlier) briefly goes ahead.
FRESH DETAILS
Styling is unchanged except for four new colour options, and the red bike I chose looked good in its accessory hand protectors. Having always admired the GS’s tall, bird-like profile I was glad about that, but less impressed by the appearance of that new exhaust valve. The valve with its twin cables is fixed to the exhaust pipe low on its left, and the whole thing looks a bit messy and tacked-on.
My negative thoughts were banished as soon as I’d hooked a leg over the BMW’s tall saddle, and fired up the motor to unleash a notably louder exhaust note through the repacked silencer. After the mild-mannered old GS, this bike’s harder, thrappier note – still a distinctive flat-twin bark – gave an instantly more aggressive image. The bike’s ability to pass emission tests presumably owes much to that valve, so all credit to it.
The aural accompaniment made me even keener to give the GS some stick as we set off from the launch base near Malaga in southern Spain, with a plan to follow the coast road eastwards to Motril before veering northwards onto the steeper, twistier roads of the Sierra Nevada. Even before we’d got out of town and reached the A7 coast road, it was clear that the new sound was matched by extra straight-line performance.
IMPRESSIVELY FLEXIBLE
The improvement is not dramatic, and were it not for the exhaust note you might not even notice it unless you’d just climbed straight off the old model. But I’m sure I wasn’t imagining an extra spring in the boxer’s step as it charged forward in response to a tweak of the throttle. It pulled from 2500rpm without complaint, punched hard through the midrange, and generally felt lively and impressively flexible.
Just occasionally I was conscious of a slightly slow response in the midrange, at about the 5500rpm mark where that torque dip occurs. But it certainly wasn’t a problem, and there was always acceleration at hand even when the Bee-Em was loping along at a lazy 80mph in top. If anything I was more conscious of the bike pulling with extra enthusiasm as its torque curve headed sharply upwards approaching 6000rpm.
The GS was happy to rev, heading towards that higher 8500rpm redline with only a touch of vibration. But apart from one top-speed blast – it managed 115mph into a very strong headwind – there was no real incentive to work it that hard. I much preferred to short shift through the six-speed box, which worked very well except on a couple of later occasions when, wearing motocross boots, I struggled to get my foot under the lever.
Fuel economy doesn’t seem to have been hit by the four-valve layout, either. The GS was averaging over 40mpg despite some pretty high cruising speeds (assuming the accessory onboard computer could be believed), giving a range of well over 150 miles from its 20-litre tank. That computer also shows remaining range, and is a useful accessory. But talking of electrics, I was slightly disappointed to find BMW have retained their old-style indicator switches on each handlebar, instead of changing to a conventional button on the left, as they have with the R1200RT.
OUTSTANDING
Comfort is another aspect of the GS that’s basically unchanged, which is no surprise because it’s outstanding. The one-piece bar (which can be reversed for standing up riding off-road) and thick two-piece seat give plenty of room, in conjunction with well-placed and grippy footpegs. And although short riders will struggle slightly with a standard bike whose seat height is adjustable between 850 and 870mm, the accessory lower seat and suspension combine to reduce this to a much more manageable 820mm. Can’t ask more than that, you shorties.
USEFUL PROTECTION
One adjustment option that I was very glad of was the red bike’s Enduro ESA (Electronic Suspension Adjustment), the GS’s version of the push-button wizardry. Unlike the R1200RT’s new ESA II system, the GS’s can’t change spring rate. But the ability to substantially alter damping rates without even slowing down is arguably even more valuable on a dual-purpose bike, with its extra suspension travel.
AUTOPISTA
If buying a GS I’d certainly pay the extra for ESA, which allowed me to select a Comfort setting that effortlessly soaked up road surface imperfections in town and on the autopista at the start of the ride. Then, when we reached Adra and swung north into the hills, a quick press of the ESA button firmed up both the front Telelever set-up and the Paralever rear end, making the bike tauter and more stable in the bends.
We’d had to take a diversion to miss some of the best roads, due to landslides that made some of the Alpujarras mountain roads impassable even for the GS (let alone the RTs that we had in tow). But there are so many twisty, generally well-surfaced and almost traffic-free roads in this part of Spain that it was easy to be reminded of just what a sound-handling bike the GS is.
Six years after the bike’s launch I can still vividly recall my first few hundred metres on one, riding down the twisty hotel driveway on the launch in South Africa – and being amazed by how agile the 1200 felt, after BMW had shed 30kg from its R1100GS predecessor. There’s no weight loss this time, but that’s because at 203kg the GS is light enough to be very manoeuvrable, at least on the road. That wide handlebar gives enough leverage to allow easy direction changes despite the bike’s dual-purpose geometry and 19-inch diameter front wheel.
Bridgestone’s road-biased Battlewing tyres gripped well enough to make good use of the GS’s ample ground clearance (and later seemed OK off-road too). The BMW also stopped hard, helped by an optional ABS system that links front and rear wheels. Our test bikes were also fitted with ASC traction control. I can’t say I noticed it on the road, but it’s not a bad thing to have in reserve. Like the ABS system, it’s very simply disconnected for off-road riding (or for wheelies, which it prevents), by pressing a button on the bars.
I’d need more time to experiment with the traction control but at least, at £275, it’s one of the less expensive accessories our bikes were carrying. The ABS adds £945 and the ESA suspension adjustment a further £610, the handy heated grips £210 and the sweet little LED indicators a further £90. That little lot pushes the GS’s basic price of £9925 over the 12-grand mark. At least its used values are famously high.
Given more time it would have been great to have pressed the ESA button again to select off-road suspension mode, and headed much further along some of the dusty tracks that criss-cross southern Spain. But it’s really the GS’s roadgoing performance that is boosted by the new motor, and we were short of time. So after a brief play in the dirt I was back onto the hard stuff, heading to the overnight stop at Mojacar.
We’d been riding pretty much all day on a wide variety of surfaces, but the GS had barely been stretched; its remarkable all-round appeal enhanced just a bit by its extra power and that bonus of a character-enhancing soundtrack. The R1200GS will be getting a new rival soon, of course, in Ducati’s comprehensively revamped Multistrada.
The Italian V-twin looks very promising, but it will have to be mighty good to match the old master.
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