Si Pavey spends our £7000
2006 BMW R1200GS Adventure
Si Pavey has been running the BMW Off Road Skills school in Wales for over 20 years. An extremely experienced off-road rider himself with eight Dakar Rally finishes under his belt, Si has explored every inch of the 4000-acre Walters Arena on various BMWs. So, what would he buy in the used bike market?
“Well, given my history it would have to be a GS, wouldn’t it?” he says, “however that’s the easy bit, deciding which model to buy is the hard part. Over the years we have used so many versions, from the R850GS through the R1100GS, R1150GS, R1200GS and finally the new R1250GS but we have also run the smaller capacity bikes such as the F750GS, F850GS and even the G310GS. I’d be torn between the R1150GS and the first-gen R1200GS but I think I’d go 1200.
“At the moment the R1150GS is in a bit of a strange place as it is seen as iconic and therefore commands stronger money than I’d be prepared to pay for it. So, I’d go for an early R1200GS Adventure with full luggage.
“The first 1200 was a great bike, such a step up in terms of engine and agility as it had shed 30kg in mass as well as gaining a new motor. In that era the Adventure was quite a step up from the stock bike in terms of its suspension, more so than now, and I’d need that because it’d certainly be going off-road.
“People are intimidated by a big GS when it comes to off-road but they are brilliant as their soft power and low centre of gravity make them so easy and they crash well! Where the Fs flop over, the boxer rolls onto its cylinder heads and that means they hit the ground more gently to the point the bodywork is seldom damaged. You don’t even need crash bars, the rocker covers are really hard on that model and we never ran them on our school’s bikes, which were always going down.”