Anonymous adventurer
IF YOU’RE NOT interested in causing a stir, you may be pleased to hear that the F800GS will guarantee you minimal unwanted interaction with strangers. The F800GS is a real conversation-stopper, a blank, a neutral zone. Nobody comes over at the petrol pumps to ask what it’s like or what it’ll do. Nobody gives you the thumbs-up as you overtake their van. Not that there’s any apparent hostility or failure to nod – it’s just that it somehow fails to spark any curiosity or strong opinions.
At the BMW GS Challenge in Wales, where the 800 was in a tiny minority, nobody came over to question me about the bike. If they had, they’d have been on the receiving end of a big fat serving of smugness, because in that environment the 800 struck me as infinitely preferable
to the ubiquitous R1200GS. The 800’s lighter, narrower, cheaper to buy, more economical and often just as much fun.
Our one came with the Comfort and Dynamic packages, which include heated grips, a centrestand and electronic adjustment of the shock preload. Those packages add more than £1200 to the price. See page 68 for our preview of BMW’S 2017 line-up, which includes different standard spec for the 800.
My 6800 miles on the GS were made up of a mix of work and pleasure. I rode to work and back dozens of times. To Wales and back three times. To the Suffolk coast. To the Essex coast. To Norwich a couple of times. Birmingham. Leicester. To Bristol, usually two-up. The fuel consumption varied from 50mpg to 60mpg. The type of road and journey didn’t make much difference to the fuel consumption. The big factor was how hard I was pushing it – true of many bikes, especially sub-1000cc engines that have to work hard when you’re in a hurry.
Aside from a service and a couple of sets of tyres, there were no other running costs. They seem to hold their value well, too: even five-year-old examples with 20,000 miles on the clock are being advertised at more than £5000. Which suggests that although the bunting stays in its box and the balloons in their net when an F800GS rolls into town, there are enough of us who appreciate its quiet, low-key excellence.