Wheels Guru

Training, Travels, Racing – Motorcycles and Cars

Ridden BMW R1200 GS Enduro

A couple of weeks back we rode the BMW R1200 GS Enduro. This particular motorcycle is the top of the line motorcycle from the German motorcycle manufacturer’s Adventure series with all bells and whistles.

BMW has brought out two versions – one exclusive which is a touring more luxury road focused version. And then its the enduro rally version which is their more extreme off-road bike both bikes met a bunch of changes. So you’ve got new suspension new settings in the ABS new electronics couple of tweaks to the gearbox, so you have lots and lots of small things of change that make the bike that still feels like a GS but a bit more refined.

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You’d go over potholes gravel the road tarmac changes it’s bumpy and it really is roads like this that make this year come alive when all these effective like with this new dynamic suspension on it on the GS it’s amazing because it used to switch between the modes a lot to get the soft on a rough road and harder now you just put it in ceramic off-road and ride the damn thing and you just get on with it in it yeah it really is a bike for all situations now.

The GS now come with a what they call a pro plug is this little red doo-dah here that’s on the bottom of the seat and it just gives you a bit more customization in the modes you can have dynamic flow and enduro Pro Mode means if you turn the abs and traction control off when you switch the bike off and on they say however you wanted them and also give us a little bit more adjustment to change the engine response from whatever default maybe a little bit more response maybe a little bit less let’s give it a go

The rally ready with an extra ‘E’ for more rallyness. The rally itself looks pretty different the exclusive is more of a road based GM so the big changes. First and foremost you’ll notice the bodywork changes the beak on the front of the bike has been shortened tweaked the fuel tanks narrower. They’ve touched a few the side panels in a bit as well I think that their big point with that is trying to make the GS more over so if you have a little softball or you go through a bush then end up pinging and propping side panels off all over the place. You now have what they call dynamic ESA so the old bikes had electronic suspension which you could adjust the settings on the dash electronically. Now it’s a dynamic system so now the suspension adjusts itself you have a semi active so if you hit a bump it looks at how fast the wheels moving to changes for damping accordingly same with the preload if you put a weighty pillion on the back there’s a few too many cakes the bike just levels itself out and stays as it is so you can select whether you want the bike to ride low normal or high and then whatever weight you put on that bike it straightens itself out in and evens  the ride height itself. With leveling really abs and traction control you could eat it as an option before but now ABS pro cam comes on the bike so if you hit the brake and turn when you lean over the ABS still active.

It’s a cornering ABS function from Bosch I get a little bit more security when you’re when you’re barreling around unfamiliar roads a standard the bikes come with the safety base traction control system you know it’s quite a safe simple system. But most of them will expect with an option that’s the dynamic traction control where you know the bike really responds well it knows how far it’s then over it knows how hard you’re riding you know sort of your braking leaning first gear third gear and it can react to any spinoff slides much much faster.

Another cool feature they’ve put on the bike is hill-start control exactly what it sounds like let’s just start on a hill so you stop on the hill put the bike in neutral give the leaver a good squeeze for three seconds and it locks the brakes on a bike won’t go anywhere. The exclusive model is a more road touring based GS so it has the dynamic suspension it’s an active suspension it has the quick shifter which you can shift up and down the gearbox without the clutch and it just flips the gears in and as you have the road based features. It rides a lot tighter the quick shifter a few people have spoken to us about them over the years and said we like them we don’t like them you know I like it but it definitely isn’t the slickest quick shifter system it shifts up and down the box nicely.

I am excited about it they’ve taken the GS and they’ve just turned it up to 11 they really really gone for in all obviously they’ve gone for the jugular of the KTM adventurer having a more extreme bike this model as if it’s here won’t be every man’s bike it’s not designed for taking the first steps offroad or taking your adventure across the Morocco.

This is designed for people who really want to buy a big bike and ride a big bike hard off-road so if you can see high-end size of the thing so they have a rally seat now one peace rally seat she’s a bit more room to move around that’s 15 mils higher than standard and it works best in the high position again another 10 minutes the other thing is taller and taller and taller all aimed at making this thing ultimate riding fast off-road that doesn’t make it easier to ride not bad a long way. It is really unstoppable now you can go so much harder and faster than the old model jumps it sucks up big rocks boulders pass routes out trails the old bike would eventually get to a point where you know you realize you were on a big bike and it was going to bite you pushed any harder visiting hips coming and going.

In short the GS now is the kind of split range but they’ve made an extreme version and a better touring version and you can spec options everywhere in between the exclusive your luxury.

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