Test Riding Again

As planned I got a 2010 BMW R1200GS for an extended test ride over the weekend. Yesterday I was playing around a little bit after I picked it up, had to filter through quite some traffic on Highway 17 until I could leave the traffic behind and ride on some nicer roads. It was a lot of fun - more than expected actually. More on that later.

Today started with our "usual" weekend ride - a short one as we didn't want to get up too early. We rode up our usual way to Highway 9, went over Skyline Blvd. and came down Page Mill Road and headed home again. Going slow and relaxed, that was about 1.5 hours overall. We had some good views over the South Bay which was a bit misty this morning.

The photo above is from a small turnout on Page Mill Road and normally you can see quite a bit of the South Bay. The mist is not that usual, but it was kind of foggy and misty in the last days during the early hours.

Andrea still loves her "Baby Sue", the DR200SE - she's getting more and more comfortable riding it. We are really glad we got this fun little bike!

For me it was all about trying the R1200GS - this bike is quite a beast. It is definitely tall and also not very light (227kg road ready without all the goodies like ABS, ESA, and so on that are on the demo bike), but it is really easy to ride. The boxer is still quite agricultural, shaky, vibrates, but is not intrusive and very usable. It pulls from down low in the revs - even from slightly below 2k rpm is no problem at all as long as you are a bit careful with the throttle. A very nice difference compared to the Ducati Multistrada which is more or less useless in that range. The big BMW is a highly forgiving bike - it is very stable in tight corners, the engine has usable power pretty much everywhere and has lots of torque. But, again, you can certainly feel it working in the frame. Shuddering, slightly pushing the bike to the right when the engine revs which is a bit weird feeling but perfectly normal for the big boxer engine.

And, one of the best things: it didn't give me headaches after a highway ride. Even with the stock shield it is better than anything I had so far on the F800GS. Add to this a Givi Airflow and some winglets from the Adventure and the bike is set up for really long distance touring.

Tonight we rode two up to Alice's Restaurant for a lemonade (Andrea) and a hot chocolate (Guido). Here are some more pictures of the R1200GS: