GS

We have covered a little of the history of BMW Motorad and how to tell what bike is what by the name. This time I would like to start getting into the individual models. BMW makes many wonderful bikes. The shear variety is incredible. From touring bikes to track burning super sport and everything in between. So many bikes in fact that they had to come with a system to name them all. (See last post). But of all the bikes that BMW makes the type that seems to intrigue people the most is the GS line of bikes. There is something wondrous about a machine that will carry you safely down the road. And when it is time, allow you to turn off the road and forge your own path. The GS bikes give you the confidence to be adventurous. Customers will come in and look over our large selection of BMW bikes and inevitably they will stop at a GS and just stare. You can tell that they have been captured by the design and their imagination is running wild.

The R1200GSA gets the largest reaction. First of all it is a BIG bike. The seat sits 35” off of the ground behind a fuel tank that holds 7.9 gallons of gas. Secondly there are things sticking out all over the bike. One customer said that it looked like a Swiss Army Knife of motorcycles. Of course, as with a Swiss Army Knife, everything on the bike has a purpose. It helps to understand that when BMW designs a bike they do so with purpose in mind. For example, a person might think that the gas tank was built and then tested to see how far it would take you. But in reality the BMW engineers started with the purpose. How far you should be able to go (450 miles) and then they determined how big the tank needed to be in order to achieve a 450 mile range. Function over form. The entire bike was designed this way. All of the things sticking out (lights, crash bars, bag mounts, etc, etc, etc) are there for a reason. That is the essence of the BMW GS bikes, all of the non-essential elements have been removed. What you ultimately end up with is a motorcycle that will absolutely get you wherever you want to go and turn heads along the way.