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2016 BMW 1200 GS


fddriver2

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Over the weekend I got to ride a rented BMW 1200GS while my son rode the FJ. 

Some thoughts after 150-ish mostly in town but mixed riding. 

It was a 2016 with 14,000 miles, rental miles.

It's tall at 6' 1" with a 34" inseam I could flat foot it but my son at 5'10" could not.

While riding I found the seating position quite comfortable. The seat to foot pegs felt a bit short. I don't know if the seat is adjustable. The controls seemed to be where they should be. I found the whole setup pretty ergonomic.

The handling was light and very neutral for such a large bike. Turns were very stable with that  cantilever suspension thing in the front it also had a steering damper. 

It had a hydraulic clutch which I struggled with initially. And my old arthritic hands liked in the end. Not sure I'm a fan of it. There is no feel in it.

It was much quicker than I anticipated. Especially considering it's a "Dadventure" bike. YMMV 

There was something unhappy in the gearbox. Shifting was clunky and neutral was near impossible to find. I don't know anything about BMW's but I'm very sure it didn't come from BMW that way. I chalked it up to being an abused rental bike.

What I didn't like was the bike has a very numb feel to it. There is almost no feedback from it. Are you doing 70mph in 4th gear or 6th gear? You have to look at the gauges to find out. There's no vibration or noise telling you where it's at. Granted I didn't put all that many miles on it, but it didn't show me any personality. A good thing I guess if you are doing big miles day after day. But I guess I like my bikes a little rougher around the edges.

Those are my thoughts and YMMV. 

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"It doesn't matter who walks in, you know the joke is still the same"  Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. USA

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51 minutes ago, fddriver2 said:

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I have heard great things about the GS but it looks so, massive.  My completely uneducated guess from looking at the photo would be 550-600-ish pounds?  I think most of the visual weight is the bulk sticking 2' forward of the handlebars.

***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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i have owned a number of GSs over many years, the last being an LC (Liquid Cooled) 2016 R1200 GS.   They are great bikes in every sense of the word, being intimidatingly massive at first glance, yet easy enough to handle when moving.  I am and always have been a seven-stone weakling, but all my GSs except the last one were relatively easy to handle.   I never went off-road - except when road-works diversions compelled it - but found that as a long-distance super-comfortable tourer the GS was, IMHO and YMMV, unsurpassed.   One took me on a solo 14,700km circuit of Australia several years ago over about five weeks IIRC, without a single issue or problem. 

GS - and other R series boxer twin BMW models - traditionally had a fairly agricultural gearbox until the most recent iterations, a matter simply of getting used to it.   The weight, fully-fuelled, of the GS pictured would be about 238kg or 520 pounds. 

A GS would likely not be the first choice for any rider commuting regularly through traffic, one who was perhaps vertically-challenged, or didn't like the quirkiness of the boxer engine, Telever front suspension (unsurpassed IMHO) and the general looks of the thing - "ugliest thing on two wheels" I once said!

I parted company with BMW when I became disillusioned with the increasing cost and complexity of their bikes, but I enjoyed them all up to that point.  I won't claim that the GS was the best bike I ever owned, as that's too curly a topic for here, but I definitely enjoyed my GSs more than any other bikes I owned, before or after.

Pic below is me in the Outback, about to cross the NT/ WA border after 4600km, or about one-third of the overall distance during that round-Oz circumnavigation, October 2004.   That's fifteen (15) years ago - where did they all go???  😪 

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Riding a fully-farkled 2019 MT-09 Tracer 900 GT from my bayside home in South East Queensland, Australia.   

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The GS is a great bike, but i'm sure that GS had the living snot beat out of it for 14,000 miles. You know the saying ride it like you stole or rented it.😈

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He who dies with the most toys wins.

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