REVIEW: Farewell to the BMW R 1250 GS

The boxer engine is as much part of BMW Motorrad’s culture as sauerkraut is of Germany’s.

Riders have been experiencing the low-revving muscle of the horizontally opposed twin-cylinder motor — and bashing their shins on it — ever since the 1920s. The power unit is most readily associated with the R 1250 GS adventure bike, that Toyota Fortuner of motorcycles (with apologies to BMW for using another brand to make the point). It has grown in size over the years to today’s 1,254cc unit and become more high tech.

In September, on the 100th anniversary of BMW motorcycles, the GS will undergo its next evolution with an increase to 1,300cc, raising outputs from the present 100kW and 143Nm to an expected 107kW and 148Nm.

Along with giving it extra ponies with each incarnation I do wish they would make the bike lighter, or at least give it a reverse gear, as manhandling this heavy in a parking lot can be a struggle when you have to push it backwards. Let’s not even talk about picking it up after you’ve dropped it in the sand (the Afrikaans joke about GS standing for “geen sand” is funny because it’s true).

So yes, there are challenges to GS ownership, but there’s a reason it’s one of the world’s best-selling motorcycles. Back to our Fortuner analogy, the GS isn’t necessarily the best machine in any particular department but it’s just such a darn good all-rounder that you can forgive its foibles.

I’ve spent a lot of time riding the GS in the past but it had been a few years since I last swung my leg over the big Beemer’s saddle. Last week I had a farewell ride on the R 1250 GS before it is replaced by the new 1,300 — and felt instantly at home behind the bars (after I’d bashed my shins against the engine’s protruding cylinder heads a couple of times).

All the bike’s winning points came flooding back: the effortless surge of cruising power, the magic carpet ride, the high seating position which lets you lord over your surroundings, and the whole industrial-strength look and feel of the thing. And for all the hassle of trying to push it backwards in a parking lot, it’s also a bike that lightens up completely once you’re riding.

For such a behemoth it’s remarkably manoeuvrable and I have a fond memory of chasing a 600cc sports bike through Long Tom Pass on a GS some years ago and staying glued to his tail.

A few gadgets have been added since I’d last ridden the big Beemer, and on the bitingly cold morning of my breakfast run in the Magaliesburg area last weekend, the ones I appreciated most were the heated seat and hand grips. Ah, bliss. Both are adjustable in five stages — from lukewarm to super toasty — using the multi-controller ring on the left handlebar.

The controller is also used to adjust various settings and on-board computer functions in the bike’s hi-tech helm, presented on a glare-resistant TFT colour screen. I don’t really like fiddling with buttons when I could rather be concentrating on avoiding potholes and kamikaze car drivers, but if you want to play with gizmos the glove-friendly controller isn’t the worst system around. It can be operated without having to take your eyes off the road for too long.

There’s a separate button to stiffen the electronic suspension to Dynamic mode should a 600cc sports bike need chasing through a twisty road, but the opportunity never arose during my breakfast run so I mostly left the bike in its standard Road setting and enjoyed its comfortable waftability. Some of the Magaliesburg roads were badly potholed, and the big BMW hustled through them with minimal fuss. 

A dual-purpose bike like the BMW GS makes ever more sense on SA’s deteriorating roads, which are becoming ever less friendly to superbikes.

There will be even more hi-tech in the new R 1300 GS including adaptive cruise control, collision detection, cornering headlights and blind spot detection, which will no doubt bump up the price from the current R343,000.