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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
So were no strangers to bmw motorcycles on this channel we've had the r 1250 rt recently the r18 the r18 classic the urban gs the proper r9t as well the sporty one so needless to say I've had plenty of time in the saddle on beamers but I've been saving myself for the proper big full fat gs bmw lent me this one for a couple of weeks but previous to that you know the 1150 or 1200 gs's have never ridden them now part of the reason is that we used to.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
Live in london and i didn't think i could really do it justice on like urban roads and even the roads around london aren't particularly adventurous but now that we've moved to like the bristol area we're just over the bridge from south wales and i think this is the perfect testing ground for a big adventure bike like this as i've said previously you know you expect them to be proper good all-rounders so touring motorway work a bit of fun on the twisties and also able to take on a bit of gravel or rougher surfaces around here you've got plenty of that stuff plenty of great b roads and you even have to do a bit of motorway across the bridge to get out here and look i really wanted to give it a proper good test because this is by far and away the best-selling motorcycle in the uk by a huge stretch so the gsr venture last year and like plenty of years previous is the top seller the gs in its standard form like this the second most popular and then after that in third it's the royal enfield interceptor 650.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
Now that's pretty mad that the top two sellers are essentially the same bike in a different spec and so if you combine them there's over double the sales of the third-place bike and keeping in mind as well that the royal Enfield interceptor is built to a price so you'd expect it to sell in higher volumes this bike and the gs adventure by the time they've left the dealer and being specked up with all manner of accessories you know you're looking at three or four times the value of the interceptor this 1250 gs with the triple black and the spoke wheels and the option 719 stuff and all sorts of extras and it's just shy of 21 grand that's a heck of a lot of money for a bike so it's either exceptionally good or bmw are doing some magic in the marketing department and look after two weeks of riding it or maybe like five minutes after I got on it you know I was pretty much decided it is that good so in this article.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
I'm gonna go through a few of the features that i just think make this an incredible all-rounder of a bike now number one has to be the comfort levels i rode the urban gs over to bmw to pick this up i swapped the bikes back to back two or two and a half hours on the urban gs on the motorway you know it starts to take its toll i was so happy to get on this and um yeah i made it back in one leg with no stops no problems absolutely no discomfort just hammering out the miles on the motorway on this bike now the gold standards for me of like motorway riding would be the rt i tried that recently i'll link to that article in the description because it's just serene in the cockpit even when you're doing 70 or 80 and then also i had the gold wing last year again beautiful bike to ride on the motorway and when you look at this it looks a lot more compact in the windscreen.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
And the wind protection so to be honest i wasn't expecting it to be as quiet or comfortable but honestly i think it's about 95 there in terms of the comfort that the rt delivers on the motorway sure you don't have the kind of like big wind protection at the sides here but the hand guards do a decent job and this screen has a little cut out here it's a v-shape so it does a good job of directing the wind over your head you still get a little bit of noise it's not as quiet as the rt but what's great about that is you get good visibility even with the screen in its highest position the tank and bodywork are pretty bulbous as well.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
So your legs don't protrude particularly far and then on this te you've got the cruise control heated grips and on top of that this one's got the heated seat as well so it's a snug little cozy place to be even on those slightly chilly or damp days this seat also feels like really nicely padded there's a bit more cushioning and squish to it than other bikes that i've tried recently and i also really like the handlebar position on this bike the grips feel a little further back than a lot of the stuff that i've ridden recently and that means that i mean look my back is pretty much straight upright now this being the te model you get bmw's.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
Dynamic esa which is their semi-active electronically adjustable suspension now there is quite a price difference between the standard model and the te but i think the dynamic esa alone is absolutely worth it this has to be one of the most comfortable bikes in terms of the ride plushness that i've ever ridden and not in that super soft wallowy way because it's constantly measuring the stroke of the suspension and making adjustments to the damping appropriately it was one of the things that i noticed just immediately as soon as i hopped off the urban gs and then got on this for my ride home it was just night and day and the urban gs has a very simple suspension setup so right way up forks no adjustability monoshock at the rear but it's quite typical of a lot of bikes on the market now of course there's a big price difference but if you're thinking of trading up from a more standard bike like that to something like the gs i've got to say this is one of the standout features and this is not just me being like new to semi-active suspension and getting all excited about it i've ridden it on other bikes i've got the super adventure s from ktm at the moment it's good on that bike it's pretty decent.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
But I did notice that sometimes the rear feels a bit bouncy on the motorway because it softened it up in the automatic mode and so then I'm going into the menus and trying to find a good setting that feels right to me but this bike I've just left it in auto the whole time it's never even occurred to me to go into the menus and tweak it because I've just never found a situation where it hasn't performed as I'd want it to it's just that magic combination of super comfortable but great handling even for a big adventure bike now another big factor on the handling here is this Tele lever front end for anyone who's not familiar you know a traditional motorcycle fork has all the springs and stuff inside the fork legs on a lot of BMWs like this and the rt and it goes back for years.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
You've actually got a wishbone type thing and a mono-shock that's responsible for the suspension duties that leaves what looks like the fork legs to just deal with steering and the braking forces separating the suspension and braking and turning duties really does transform how this bike feels at the front end what i get from it is just like a really clean and precise feel to the steering and there's quite a lot less dive under heavy braking which can be a massive asset if you're riding like two up with luggage so combined with the semi-active suspension i just think it makes for this like winning combo that delivers a bike that handles far far better than it looks like it would now in terms of the engine of course we've got the famous boxer twin here.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
And i've got to say it's starting to look on the spec sheets a little bit underpowered versus stuff like the multistrada v4 the ktm 1290 super adventure s and also you know the tiger 1200 is probably going to be updated soon and look at the speed triple they've pushed that up to 180 horses so i'd imagine we'll see a bit of a bump in power on the tiger 1200 as well 136 horsepower from this engine but honestly i think that's enough for this kind of bike even with a 250 kilograms-ish weight it will get you up to 100 briskly without you even realizing it now.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
The strength of the boxer twin for me is the smoothness like I said I've got the super adventure s in the garage at the moment and it does have that extra bit of power at the top but being a large capacity v-twin, of course, it's got a bit of a rumble to it and this engine just feels like super creamy and smooth in comparison I think you have to ask yourself if you're buying a big adventure bike like this what sort of engine do you want something with a growl to it and you know that character that v-twins have or do you want something like this where it's purring along smoothly and when you're on the motorway at 70 with the cruise control on you can barely feel that it's going and look it does have the shift cam tech so that's their variable valve timing and lift system based on the throttle position.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
So at a moderate throttle, you've got plenty of torque and plenty of efficiencies but as you open it up it will really start to give you that top-end power again it's totally smooth totally seamless there's no step as you wind the throttle on but it does give you like plenty of power to it I wouldn't say that I've ever been bored riding this bike needing more power I can see why some people might choose those other more powerful bikes but definitely check this out and keep that smoothness in mind as for the exhaust note we've got the titanium Akrapovic accessory on this press bike it does give it a bit more volume and bass so whether that sounds good to you will depend on whether you fundamentally like the exhaust note of the boxer twin-like i say it's a bit of a purring sound.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
I think it sounds great especially with the quick-shifter on this bike because you bang through the gears and look it wouldn't be a gs review if we didn't talk about the tech and accessories and this press bike is absolutely kitted up you're gonna have to excuse me as I delve into the full list because I can't remember it off the top of my head so we've got the TFT dash with multimedia connectivity BMW's dash is some of the best in the business in terms of the quality of the display but also the design and layout of the interface I think it's super easy to read and actually quite stylish I think they inherit some of the kind of styling and branding from their cars through that you can manage all the riding modes and this being the t edition it gets like dynamic riding mode and all that stuff so you can customize it is good to know that it's there and if you are intending to off-road it then some of those customizable variables will definitely be an asset there's hill-start control on this bike as well so it'll hold the brakes for you as you move off on an incline.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
You've got the led adaptive headlight led indicators integrated tail lights as well here i really like that feature because what it does is light switches off the main tail light and that means that when you press the brake levers and the brake light comes on because it's not always on in that kind of tail light mode because that's deferred to the indicators it means that there's a very noticeable difference when the brake light comes on and i think that should go some way to help being more visible from the rear end so hopefully kind of like rear end impacts when you're braking coming up to a junction are lessened on this bike i've no data to prove that but it just seems to make sense to me to have that really big difference when the brake light comes on cruise control which is an absolute must for me on a bike like this it works really nicely it's the standard kind of bmw setup so you've got a toggle that slides across to switch it on set or resume and nudge it up and down by one mile per hour that's another feature along with the esa that makes the te a very tempting proposition for me.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
There's keyless ignition where the steering lock and the fuel filler cap are nicely integrated i've said in a few article recently that i used to kind of hate keyless just found it unnecessary but actually the more i'm riding now that i'm full-time youtubing and i have actually started to really quite like it especially when you've got everything integrated properly heated grips on the te heated seat as an accessory on this bike tire pressure monitoring system you've got the emergency sos button here as well so you can get help if you have a spill we've got the triple black finish on this bike as well so a bit of gloss black here a matte sort of deep gray finish and then the frame is all finished to match it does look very stealthy i love kind of blacked out bikes i know that not everyone does for those of you who like a splash of color you've got that more like rally job or the 40 years edition go and choose one of those but if you do like stealthy looking things this looks fantastic in the flesh especially because they've added the option 719 pack so you've got the brake.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
And clutch reservoirs braking clutch levers the mirrors cover on the cylinder head the footpegs and foot controls and also I think on the front of the engine there you've got that cover as well spoked wheels are standard on the gs adventure but they're an accessory on this standard gs model and like I said we've got this titanium acrophonic exhaust which I think looks great on this bike but also sounds good with the quick-shifter that comes as standard on the te I think tomorrow I'm gonna make a article that's specifically about all the accessories and options and which ones I would pick and which ones I wouldn't but I think my point for this article is that the accessories catalog is massive for the gs so if there are little bits of tech you've seen from other manufacturers you can pretty much get anything on this bike and it really does feel at the cutting edge of motorcycling when you're riding it apart from i always like to mention a few shortcomings at the end of my article just to make sure you know that i'm actually being like critical in some capacity it doesn't have adaptive cruise control they've got it on the rt i tested it out and i thought it was pretty good and it comes as standard on the super adventure s from ktm.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
It works really well on that bike as well for me it just transforms the experience of motorway riding and I know that some people think that it means you're going to take your eyes off the road or concentrate less but for me, it really leaves you to focus on what's happening around you I'd definitely take it on a bike like this where you're going to put in those big miles you've got the option to use it then and bmw have it on the rt it's elsewhere in the market so it's just a shame that you can't get it on the gs yet especially like I say because it's such a good motorway bike it feels like it's only a matter of time they probably have to redesign the front end to accommodate the radar but it's got to be coming to this bike soon and I think it's going to be a huge benefit to it I hope more people get a chance to try out soon let me know what you think of it if you have tried it out in the comments down below other than that and I really am picking out the knits here.
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| www.bmw-motorrad.fr |
But the back of the lights in the cockpit and the indicators and stuff are all visible and it's not that nicely finished from an aesthetic perspective look at the super adventure s for example it's just being finished off and a little bit more pleasing to look at and that's a part of the bike that you spend most your time looking at when you're riding it but then again you know it is a utilitarian looking motorcycle and it does give you a bit of access i suppose if you want to make some running repairs lastly the price i mean is it worth 21 grand i don't know if i could say that the price is necessarily expensive because you get so much bike and tech for your money the problem is more that I don't have 21 grand to buy one.