Looking at BMW 1200

gearguywb

Explorer
Looking for some insight/advice. I have always been enamored with the idea of a bike that I could use for cross country trips as well as some back country/dirt road exploration. I have been looking at the R1200GS. I would need to be able to ride 2 up as well. I have been a life long Harley guy so this is a tough one. Pros/cons? Thanks in advance!
 

HMR

Rendezvous Conspiracy
Hard to find a better bike for 2 up, long haul, (mild) dirt, etc. I owned a VStrom 650 and KTM 950 Adventure, among others, before purchasing the 1200. IMHO- the 1200 is the best of the big dual-sports.

If you haven't already, checkout ADVRider and you'll find info on every possible topic for the GS.

Like Harley Davidson, many BMW shops are VERY cool about demo rides. Go take one for a spin.


(chaps and wallet chain not required). :p :D
 

Hltoppr

El Gringo Spectacular!
The 1200 is an excellent choice for what you describe. If you're gonna be doing less 2 up...then maybe even look at the new F800GS coming out in the fall of 2008.

Pros...does everything you want it to do...dead reliable and tough as nails...

Cons...price I guess? But the resale stays high.... Heavy? (I don't have much issue picking mine up, and it's 60lbs. heavier than the 1200.)





-H-
 

FROADER

Adventurer
If you can find issue 19 of Cycle News (Cover is Chad Reed winning the Vegas SX), there is a good 3 page feature of the 800 with mentions of the 1200 in there.

EDIT: I'm a graphic artist for the mag, and I found the text file... :D

RIDING IMPRESSION
2008 BMW F800GS

The Off-Road Twin

Riding around South Africa on BMW's latest on/off roader

By Alan Cathcart
Photos by Alberto Martinez
Fresh from producing 102,000 bikes in 2007 and selling every one, an increase of 2.49 percent over the previous record year, BMW is still filling in the gaps in its expanding and increasingly extensive product lineup. So if the best-selling, but undeniably tall and heavy, R1200GS Boxer is just too much motorcycle for you to think about taking off-road (and the new G-series singles are simply too little), BMW now offers you a rational alternative in the shape of the dual-purpose F800GS.
And that's not all: BMW's engineering team has replaced the existing F650GS enduro single, now seven years in the marketplace, with an F650GS enduro twin. While not (yet?) sold in some markets (like North America), this is more of an on-road model than an off-roader, even if it's powered - somewhat improbably, going by the model number - by the same 798cc parallel-twin engine as the new F800GS, only in detuned form.
Confused? So was I, before spending a couple of days riding both bikes at the BMW press launch in South Africa's KwaZulu Natal province, including a 230-mile ride aboard the F650GS (exactly one tankful!) inland to Pietermaritzburg from Durban's Indian Ocean coast - mainly on pavement, but including a few gravel highways that represent just about the sum total of this model's off-road capability. But that came after a more-testing 220-mile day spent riding its F800GS partner along every kind of road, from a four-lane freeway to dirt trails bordered by sheer precipices cut into the picturesquely-named Valley of a Thousand Hills, between traditional Zulu villages consisting of thatched rondavaal circular huts interspersed with sugar cane plantations.
I couldn't have asked for a better mount for exploring the African outback, because, while certainly less powerful than its Boxer brother, the F800GS is also around 65 pounds lighter and much narrower - a little wider than an F650 single. This makes it a lightweight, more practical and certainly more accessible go-anywhere ride than the R1200GS - a true off-roader for all riders, whatever their level of experience and expertise.
To this extent, the F800GS fulfils rather well the objective that BMW management identified in creating these twin off-road twins not like the others, namely to exploit a gap in the marketplace worthy of creating a fourth family of Berlin-built bikes.
"Our aim is to provide some different motorcycles which are fun to ride and have a good level of performance, but aren't as challenging for less experienced riders as our more powerful Boxer twin or four-cylinder models," former BMW Motorrad president Dr.Herbert Diess said two years ago at the F800S/ST launch, the man who oversaw the German marque's remarkable flow of 17 new models in four years. "We want to provide a range of bikes one step beyond the entry level, which newly qualified riders can enlarge their horizons on. And we also want to provide something that returnee riders who've been away from motorcycling for a while, and are now coming back to it again, as many of them are, can enjoy and feel comfortable with."
In off-road terms, that's me - and, I suspect, quite a few others...
For the F800GS is one of those bikes that's all things to all men - a bike that suits every kind of rider, from the serious enduro expert to the ordinary weekend trailbiker. It's a capable and confidence-inspiring twin-cylinder all-rounder - what the Italians call <I>una moto totale<I>, with polished capability off-road and on, for it makes a very good easy-to-ride real world road bike, too. As a commuter in town, it handles traffic easily, the 35.2-inch height of the comfortable seat (which is slightly challenging for shorter riders to mount a leg over), providing a good view over traffic, with the refined fueling of the Bosch EFI delivering clean pickup and easy response at part throttle.
Stop/go traveling is practically a pleasure with the light-action clutch and clean, easy pickup from low throttle openings, and a smooth operator of an engine, whose vibration is minimal in F800GS guise - thanks to BMW's ingenious counterbalancing system.
Acceleration is spirited rather than vivid, however, and it's best to short shift at around 6000 rpm to surf the quite meaty torque curve of the middleweight motor with the aid of a close-ratio six-speed gearbox (which is so slick you don't really need to use the clutch changing gear in either direction). That's a big help when you're fishtailing the BMW along a gravel road and suddenly realize you're heading too fast into a tight downhill turn, so to get some help from the engine braking to slow you down, you must notch it back a gear - now! Nice and confidence inspiring, again - and the engine is so flexible that I could open the throttle wide open in sixth gear at just 1500 rpm, and feel the parallel-twin motor pick up revs smoothly, with zero transmission snatch - just a totally linear pull of power up to the 9000 rev-limiter.
Together with the tight turns permitted by the 42-degree steering lock, this not only makes the F800GS an improbably good city bike, but also makes easy work of slow going out in the sticks, picking your way around hefty boulders lying in tight off-road turns, or working the taper-section aluminium handlebar to avoid a junior crevass in the dirt road. The well-mapped ECU's gentle, forgiving throttle response at low speeds makes riding quite challenging dirt roads very satisfying on this bike.
For while it's a more than capable real world streetbike, the F800GS truly excels off-road, and while seemingly much narrower than the 650 single it essentially replaces, it's so compact and well balanced to ride it makes you feel you can handle anything it or the road surface can throw at you. Yet the new BMW is a mileater, too - comfortable even when cruising the highway at 125 mph with the needle of the oval tach on the comprehensive dash parked at the 8000-rpm mark, with 1000 revs to go before the limiter cuts in quite harshly. But the riding position is so well thought out, you're rather surprisingly not holding on too tightly at such speeds, though 100 mph with the engine turning over at 6500 rpm is a more relaxed <I>autobahn<I>-friendly pace. For at that speed, there's no trace of a shimmy or any steering weave, as you sometimes get riding dual-purpose off-roaders with 21-inch front wheels at those sorts of speeds, nor any shake, rattle and roll, either. The articulated counterbalancer BMW has fitted to the engine does its job well on the F800GS, leaving in just enough residual vibration to remind you you're riding a twin-cylinder motorcycle and not an electric scooter.
Yet the engine feels quite different from its closely related counterpart in the F800S/ST - there's definitely more midrange torque, and rather surprisingly it sounds better, too. Rorty, even - more high-pitched than a comparable gruff-sounding best-of-British two-up 360-degree parallel-twin, and infinitely smoother and faster-revving than one of those, too.
The 798cc motor picks up engine speed very fast when you wind the throttle wide open, while proving torquey and tractable at low rpm, but not at the expense of a jerky response of brusque pickup. The Bosch EFI is well mapped.
The only real downside to my day spent exploring the Zulu Kingdom on the F800GS were the Bridgestone BW501/2 Battle Wing tires (that's some name!) fitted to the test bikes. These have minimal tread blocking and while acceptable on tarmac, need more tread for dirt roads and are hopeless in mud. BMW hadn't finished homologating something with more knobs, according to Franz Berkmann, but if the bike comes with these Bridgies as standard, they're the first thing that'll be changed by any serious adventure touring off-roader. They particularly seemed less than adequate on the very loose stuff, where the trick is to not let the front wheel get away from you and to let the rear do the fishtailing. I'd really like to ride this scenic part of the world again, but on proper knobblies.
But the good balance of the BMW gives plenty of confidence when riding it, even to the point of helping compensate for the tires' inadequacies on loose surfaces, aided greatly by those upright cylinders and the location of the 4.1-gallon gas tank beneath the seat. The relatively budget suspension was good, too, with the nonadjustable 45mm Marzocchi upside-down fork offering plentiful travel and compliance, and the Showa rear monoshock provided sufficient preload/compression adjustment to dial in an acceptable ride quality allied with adequate grip within the limitations of the tires. It did well ironing out the worst washboard surfaces you occasionally come upon out in the sun-bleached outback, and at the end of my long day in the saddle I was able to walk quite comfortably.
Another slight disappointment on the new BMW was the brake package - although off-road the F800GS's Brembo brake package worked just fine, with lots of control and modulation, delivering good braking on loose surfaces in a very controllable way, especially at the rear. But it was a surprise to find the twin 300mm front brakes not really up to scratch in tarmac use, however - they're especially wanting in initial bite, such as when you round a bend up in the Natal highlands, and find a cow standing in the road contentedly chewing the cud.
You must hang onto the lever really hard to bring the Beemer to rest in such situations, while stamping like crazy on the more effective rear stopper. Possibly the sintered rather than more usual organic pads in the low mileage bike's four-piston calipers needed more time to bed in - but given that I was riding solo, without any luggage, there's a question mark how good the brakes would be riding with a passenger and a couple of bags aboard. Still, that good engine braking helped a lot at the end of long downhill runs off-road, when I'd need to brake hard for a turn, and that not-too-knobbly front tire needed all the help it could get in stopping.
The cockpit is impressive - it's the same on both bikes - with the oval speedometer mounted above the slightly smaller rev-counter, both very readable in good old analog format with real written numbers plus a needle, although there's a digital readout on the right giving the usual fuel and temperature readings, as well as a large selector display showing which gear the bike is in. Full credit to BMW for this - it's uber-natural and all other manufacturers should do this, so that you can easily check what gear you're in at a quick glance, especially on a smooth-running motor like the BMW's.
Less so is BMW's idiosyncratic switchgear, which it's hard not to conclude only remains on their bikes - and only theirs: nobody else feels the urge to adopt it - simply due to stubbornness and a desire to be different. Still, by the end of my 215-mile first day I'd even more or less got re-adapted to it, though that still didn't stop me blowing the horn while trying to manually cancel the direction signal, after turning into the hotel driveway at journey's end.
You may have got the impression I liked the F800GS, and I did - a lot. It's a bike born well, which looks set to be a big sales hit for BMW in a way that neither of the street F800S/ST parallel-twin models have been- well, how many have <I>you<I> seen on the roads in the past two years?
Makes you wonder why BMW chose to release them ahead of this exact two-wheeled equivalent of its own X3 four-wheeled ATV, with the R1200GS as the X5, rather than the other way around as unaccountably happened. For this is a bike that's set to carve its own niche in the street enduro market, since no other dual-purpose twin really compares with this one. After all, the rest are mostly larger capacity bikes and this has been single-cylinder territory for the target customer the F800GS is aimed at, who will get the confidence to try doing stuff with the new BMW twin he or she never did before with anything more than one cylinder, and maybe not even with that.
The F800GS is a light, purist midrange enduro with excellent balance and good long distance abilities - yet while it's as agile and easy to ride with confidence on/off-road, it has a lot more power than the F650GS single it essentially replaces, as well as a higher level of all-round comfort, and equipment. Any rider of whatever off-road skill level is likely to enjoy riding this bike both on pavement and in all-terrain conditions - a dirt devil will revel in its easy, confident behavior on all types of surfaces, whereas a wheels-inline tarmac tyro will get a kick out of the way its relaxed, confident gait off-road allows him to imagine he's a master of the universe when it comes to the dirt. And on faster, paved highways the F800GS is a surprising mileater, capable of covering long distances at high speed with relative comfort. It's the best of both worlds, at reasonable cost. And whereas with a big twin like the R1200GS, an average off-road rider like yours truly starts to feel overawed; with the F800GS, I'm in charge - and I like it that way. You will, too.

SPECIFICATIONS
BMW F800GS


DISPLACEMENT 798cc
ENGINE TYPE Water-cooled, four-stroke twin
BORE x STROKE 82 x 75.6mm
COMPRESSION RATIO 12.0:1
CARBURETION EFI
IGNITION CDI
TRANSMISSION Six-speed
STARTING SYSTEM Electric
FUEL CAPACITY 4.1 gal.
WHEELBASE 63.1 in.
RAKE/TRAIL 64/4.6 in.
SEAT HEIGHT 35.2 in.
FRONT TIRE 90/90-21
REAR TIRE 150/70-17
FRONT WHEEL TRAVEL 9.2 in.
REAR WHEEL TRAVEL 8.6 in.
FRONT BRAKE 300mm dual disc
REAR BRAKE 265mm single disc
FINAL DRIVE Chain
CLAIMED DRY WEIGHT 407 lbs.
 

gearguywb

Explorer
Thanks for all of the help and comments! I am going to check and see if the local dealer (about 75 miles away) has anything that I can check out this weekend.
 

Christian P.

Expedition Leader
Staff member
I had a R1200Gs for a weekend and I totally loved it.

In the end I opted for the KTM 950 Adventure but it was a tough choice between both models. After a couple weeks on the 950 (which I absolutely ADORE), I am starting to really see the differences...

The BMW is much more civilized. It is smoother and quieter. It handles better around corner and has tons of torque. It's a bit more comfy.

The KTM is louder, vibrates more and a bit more stubborn. It takes a bit more time to get used to. But it's also lighter, more offroad and race oriented. The suspension/handlebar/rims and other components are directly from after market racing companies. And it's around $3-$4K cheaper.
And so bad *** looking - I get attention all the time. And it sounds so much better...

I would say if you are going to ride with a passenger and mostly on the street go for the BMW but if you are looking for more offroad/action bike then go for the KTM.

Make sure to check out this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnAZGsXEA9A
 
Last edited:

nickatnite

Observer
I bought one back in June of 2006 and got just under 18k on it now. Sad thing is, I'm only home 2 weeks out of the month. My main thing was to ride 2 up a great bit of time, but I also wanted an offroad bike, so this is what I chose.

Don't read into the hype of it being expensive to buy and maintain. I mean, I bought mine for just under 15k out the door. When you buy it, you can prolly get the 600 mile service thrown in for free. The 6,000 mile service will run you about 300 bucks. That is for oil change, valve adjustment, final drive oil change. Haynes does make a service manual for the bike, so if you want to go the self service route, it's not that bad.

The cons: IF you buy the regular GS, the seat is ****ty! Also, if you plan to do much offroading, you will need to get a better set of rider foot pegs. Then, ride....

Here is some ideas:
300151286_qovnR-L.jpg


159273396_Zca3k-L.jpg


244560131_FYdFL-L.jpg


And my 2 favorite pics...
Rush hour traffic riding thru Atlanta (self pic of me and Jules)
197712843_jW4wH-L.jpg


Riding up in Suches, Ga to go see waterfalls...
244562673_cSqrx-L.jpg


Oh yeah, would I do it over?

Yup... I'm prepping her now for my next adventure coming up in July. Leaving here in Baton Rouge thru Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota and the 4 corners. We will be 2 up on the bike for almost 3 weeks.
 

gearguywb

Explorer
Very nice! Thanks for the pics and comments. We would certainly be riding 2 up the majority of the time and like you, want the ability to keep going when the road turns ugly. How have you outiftted your bike for travel?
 

gearguywb

Explorer
Thanks guys.....guess I should change the title to "Bought a BMW GSA".

Picked it up Saturday and have put 250 miles on it since then. Very well thought out travelling bike. Now I have another project...let's see the 100 isn't enough, still looking for the perfect Troopie, now the BMW. Sounds like I will have some serious garage time coming!
 

goodtimes

Expedition Poseur
gearguywb said:
Sounds like I will have some serious garage time coming!

No, no, no! :violent-smiley-031:

You should have some serious *seat* time coming! :roost:

Ride that thing! Save the work for later, once you get a few thousand miles on it so you have a better idea of what it needs for your riding style and your choice of terrain. You may find it needs very little....
 

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