Suburban adventure motorcycling

[Steve in Golden]

Am I a poser for owning an R1200GS? I've had it on dirt roads, some of them a bit rough. But nothing resembling any real dirt biking, who but a crazy person would take a $20,000, 500 pound motorcycle on something like that? If you were out by yourself and you dropped it, how the hell would you pick it up? You'd have to carry a winch with you I guess.

A Bike to Take You to the Far Ends of the Earth, or the Supermarket

I do find it to be a very comfortable bike for long rides. Wife loves it too. That's what I got it for, plus it's ability to do dirt / fire roads more capably than your average street bike. ME109 would probably say the R100RS is just as good as the GS for those though. That's probably true - a lot of it depends on the rider, and I ain't no expert in the dirt. Or the street for that matter.

[enigmaT120]

Am I a poser for owning an R1200GS?

No! And I'm not one for not (yet?) riding my Salsa Fargo to Patagonia or Central Asia. Hey, at least I took the front racks off after confirming that they worked and played well with the other stuff that attaches there. Riding it around like that made me feel like a person driving a Hummer on the highway, if that person had any sense of perspective.

[Major Softie]

Am I a poser for owning an R1200GS?

YES!

But, you are a poser with a fine motocycle.



It is the Swiss Army Knife of motorcycles. If you rebuild a carb on the road with your Swiss Army Knife, it gives you bragging rights, but even if you are a poser who never does anything more than file your fingernails with it and open an occasional beer, it's still a fine tool to carry in your pocket.

[Deleted User 287]

I love it!

The motorcycle industry, like the pornography and military industries, owes its existence to the proposition that nobody ever went broke overestimating Americans’ ability to value fantasy over reality.

[ME 109]

Alas, I have been responsible for many worlds that have come crashing down.

[The Veg]

Am I a poser for owning an R1200GS?

HELL NO!!!

You'd be a poser if you had a more hardcore-enduro machine and only rode to the grocery store on it. The R1200GS is designed to do most things pretty darn well, if not doing any single one excellently (and this is a highly subjective matter of perspective which will vary from rider to rider), and it does most of them well enough to be an overall rather amazing machine. They call it the GS -originally G/S, for Gelaende/Strasse, or 'land/road'- for a reason. Note that they didn't just call it the G.

Not to pick on The Major, but taking up his Swiss army knife analogy, I daresay that either of my Leatherman (TM) tools are better instruments than any Victorinox I've ever seen, for more than one reason. Honestly, I've never needed tweezers or a toothpick in any setting in which I was down to a pocketknife to get by. In one of my jobs doing on-site service for hospitals, my boss made a Leatherman part of the uniform. You'd be surprised how much medical equipment you can take apart with a Leatherman. Anyway, to get back to where I was going with that, the GS is the Leatherman of motorbikes: you can do a lot of jobs with it, and do a lot of them pretty well. So what if you're at the coffee-shop on a bike that could handle twenty thousand miles of Siberia. It's designed to do both, not just Siberia.

My dearly-departed R1200GS rarely went off-pavement and of the times that it did, only maybe two times were really much more technical than run-of-the-mill dirt-road. It surely was capable of much than I was! Was such a bike wasted on me? Far from it. It was also the very best machine for long and hard touring that I ever rode, and its ergonomics were far and away the best fit for me that I ever found. I grocery-shopped with that bike, and I got lost in the meth-country hills on that bike. I rode it through axle-deep mud, desert dust, and a whole lotta blacktop. I rode it in TexSux (just about every part of it), Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Arkansas, M'Zippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, both Carolinas, Virginia, and Florida. I was standing right next to it when I saw a space-shuttle launch. I've had a cutting-board strapped to the back seat for 200 miles of Interstate. I hauled a five-gallon carboy of water on it a few times. I rode it from 17F to over 100F, and through some positively apocalyptic weather. I rode it up TWO 14000-foot peaks (two of the three highest public-accessible motor-roads in USA), on consecutive days no less. I saw it get snowed on in July on one of those peaks. Pictures of that bike have been published in the BMW ON, as my first long trip on it was the subject of an article I wrote. I rode it to Ken's place at least three times and to two BMWMOA International rallies. That's just the stuff I can think of right now, from a mere three years that I had that fine machine. DAMN but I miss it!

I have a friend in NYC who has a very nice 2010 GS, and he's been making noises about maybe getting one of the new Wasser-Boxer GSes. I've been saying that I'd like to get back onto motorbikes with a 2010-12 GS. Maybe the planets will line up the right way on that. Keep fingers crossed.

So anyway Steve, no, you are most certainly NOT a poser, and anybody who says otherwise is a chowderhead. So there.

[Major Softie]

Not to pick on The Major, but taking up his Swiss army knife analogy, I daresay that either of my Leatherman (TM) tools are better instruments than any Victorinox I've ever seen, for more than one reason. Honestly, I've never needed tweezers or a toothpick in any setting in which I was down to a pocketknife to get by. In one of my jobs doing on-site service for hospitals, my boss made a Leatherman part of the uniform. You'd be surprised how much medical equipment you can take apart with a Leatherman. Anyway, to get back to where I was going with that, the GS is the Leatherman of motorbikes: you can do a lot of jobs with it, and do a lot of them pretty well.

Well, now that you bring it up, the Leatherman is the Swiss Army knife of multitools, which, by your analogy, makes my Gerber the Leatherman of multitools.

I once heard or read someone comment on this conundrum this way: "You know, it's always confused me that everyone pretty much considers Rolls Royce to be the Cadillac of automobiles."

[Zombie Master]

That article seems to imply that BMW won the first PD race. That is not the case.

My Leatherman is out of warranty now (25 years). The original is a tool that you have to be careful handling. I wonder if the newer models are safer to use. I may never know, as mine still works well and is always in use.

I don't think you are a poser Steve. A poser wouldn't ride a bike that had a homely proboscis like that. The great thing about dropping a GS is that it never falls that far down, because of the wierdo cylinders sticking out hold the bike up, even better when they have crash bars. A good touring tool. Now with water pump and rad!

[Steve in Golden]

So anyway Steve, no, you are most certainly NOT a poser, and anybody who says otherwise is a chowderhead. So there.

Thanks Veg!!!! I do like the GS, it's an awesome bike. I hope you get another one soon, a camhead of course.

A poser wouldn't ride a bike that had a homely proboscis like that. The great thing about dropping a GS is that it never falls that far down, because of the wierdo cylinders sticking out hold the bike up, even better when they have crash bars. A good touring tool. Now with water pump and rad!

The "proboscis" grows on you, as does the appearance of the bike in general. I used to think the GS was a bit on the homely side but after owning and riding it for 13,000+ miles I have grown to like the way it looks. Including the "proboscis". Haven't put crash bars on yet because they are expensive and add more weight when I already long for more power. And hell yeah it's a great touring bike.

I rode one of the new GS's a few months ago, it was lots o fun with tons more power than my '12 GS. But too much high-tech and they need to work out the kinks. I'll probably hold off on the WasserBoxer for a while yet.

[CVA-42]

Poser? Hell, no. The 1200GS is a great all-rounder so ride it the way you want. I sold my 1150GS earlier this year to make way for a (hardly) used 1200GS. I didn't get it to ride off-road. I got it because it's fantastic on the mountain two-lanes and in the twisties and because I just wanted a 1200 before I'm drinking potroast through a straw. My riding buddy and I trailered our two 1200's to Pueblo, CO this spring and then did a 5,500 mile loop (long way round) to the coast and back to Pueblo. We had planned on a few dirt/gravel roads but they were closed due to snow and I was just as glad when I heard the locals describe the rutty, uphill, rocky switchbacks. Didn't fancy that kind of stuff on a 1200GS loaded with Jesse bags, topbox, tankbag, and drybag. Give me a beat-up KLR or DRZ for those conditions.