Jim Freeman
MOTORCYCLE adventurer Charley Boorman once asked me the rhetorical question: why is it that every great ride is ruined (or words to that effect) by the last 20 minutes?
I asked myself the same question at the end of the recent 2017 BMW R1200GS launch in Gauteng that took a score of pretty experienced biking hacks from Zwartkops to Pilanesberg and back – both on and off-road.
The launch got off to an inauspicious start.
I tried to switch off my cellphone when new BMW Motorrad South Africa head Edgar Kleinbergen began his product presentation but accidentally activated LM Radio instead.
The song playing at the time was Queen’s Another one bites the dust!
It would have been embarrassing had it not been so funny.
According to Kleinbergen, BMW Motorrad South Africa has a 43.4% market share of all motorcycles 500cc and above sold in South Africa, with about 120 of the R 1200GS sold in the year to date before the launch.
Last year, total BMW Motorrad South Africa sales (across all models) amounted to 3 088 bikes, with the R 1200GS being the top performer and confirming its status as the most popular travel enduro-motorcycle in the world.
Clearly, the German manufacturer has a lot for which to thank intrepid exploring buddies Boorman and Ewan McGregor for their Long Way television series that showcased the GS’s go-anywhere and indestructibility qualities.
BMW has been making motorcycles for nine decades and introduced the GS series 39 years ago with an 800cc motor that initially drew ridicule but went a long way to turn around the marque’s waning fortunes in the face of an onslaught by Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki.
As BMW phrases it: “The R80GS was the first volume-production machine to offer respectable offroad capability without asking customers to compromise when it came to road riding, touring and everyday practicality.”
Up to that point, motorcycles on which two people could travel in reasonable comfort were restricted to the established road network.
“At the other end of the scale, if you wanted a motorcycle that could handle Alpine gravel paths, Tunisian desert tracks and the sandy roads of the Finnish tundra, you would have to make do with a stripped-down off-road machine lacking touring ability, on-road performance, range and ride comfort.”
The G/S in the designation refers to the Gelände/Straße (offroad/road) crossover skill set.
One of the Afrikaans-speaking journalists insists the revised appellation – GS – is an injunction Geen Sand! (No Sand!) because of the R1200GS’s power-to-weight ratio that makes traversing the soft, slippery stuff something of a nightmare for even the experienced rider.
For the first time, BMW is giving buyers a range of variants from which to choose: standard, Exclusive and Rallye to suit their preferred area of riding focus.
It’s to the menacing grey and black Exclusive that I headed when we got ready for the first leg of the test run – a run all the way on tar from BMW’s riding academy at Zwartkops racetrack through Hartbeespoort and Rustenburg to