Motohansa R1200GS

This entry is part 31 of 24 in the series Adventure Rider Issue #3

Battlestar fantastica

Building a serious long-distance tourer will drive most people to look at BMW first up. Rob Dunston at Sydney’s specialist BMW service centre Motohansa looked at the new R1200GS, looked at the gear on his shelves, got all excited and started building like a madman. The bolt-on Bavarian might sound like a big handful, but that’s because it is. A big handful of luxury and protection.

Before everyone starts e-mailling and going crazy on forums, we know this bike isn’t for everyone. No bike is. But even more than a straightup, long-distance tourer, the Motohansa R1200GS as you see it here would be a very specialist item. That’s not to say the individual protection and comfort features won’t have a place for the majority of R1200GS owners – or BMW owners in general in a lot of cases – but to have the whole lot set up on one bike is a big commitment.

And that’s what this GS is all about. If you’re making the commitment to ride across a dozen European countries or around This Great Country Of Ours on an extended trip, living off the bike and heading to places where you don’t know who or what you’ll find, this is probably exactly what you’re looking for.

Lockdown

The bike itself is the R1200GS that Motohansa top banana Rob Dunston rode in both the GS Safari and GS Safari Enduro in 2013. It’s a hell of a bike with a superb, unbelievable motor, good suspension, and a bewildering array of electronic functions and readings. Watching all the menu pages and their variations flick over is like an extended scene from The Matrix 12: Morpheus eats Moss. There are rider aids with varied settings up the wazoo and gauges, readings, and warning lights for everything including tyre pressure.

The stock, naked bike is a fabulous longdistance runner and a huge pleasure to ride, so it’s a great platform to build into a pukka tourer.

With a massive inventory of accessories and service options at Motohansa, we wondered how Rob knew where to start when he decided to build the bike. And when to stop.

“We looked at what we see as the functional items that improve the overall ‘usability’ of the bike,” chugged Rob. “Obviously the panniers are a no-brainer. This is a great, locking pannier system with top-loading boxes and a good quick-connect system.

For long-distance, hard-core adventure, this is the rig you want.

“Luggage is prerequisite if you want to go touring, and protection is probably the next priority. Radiator guards are paramount, and along with the crash bars and a headlight protector are probably the three big protection items. A headlight for this bike is something like $2000. Are you going to run around without a headlight protector? Probably not.

“After that you go down to things like your sidestand enlarger.”

Not only is the protective gear functional, it looks good. We said so.

“SW Motech doesn’t tend to do much bling at all,” said Rob. “They tend to do only functional stuff. Probably the only thing Motohansa put on the bike that maybe could be put in the ‘bling’ box was the Arrow exhaust. I don’t think it provides a big improvement in performance, but it probably looks a bit better, it’s lighter than the stocker, and it gives the bike a bit of a growling note, and a lot of riders like that,” muffled Rob.

Lots of luggage and lots of protection. Not much bling.

“It’s a serious touring bike. If you want to cover serious distance around Australia, you clip the hard luggage on and off you go. If you want to go off-road for something like the GS Safari or Enduro, you clip the panniers off and you’re ready. The bike has all the protection gear it needs.”

Adventure Rider Magazine is always up for a challenge, and that sounded like a challenge to us. Would that protection gear be worthy of its name?

Packing it

Mounting up on the Beemer is a serious proposition in itself. It’s a big hua. The panniers and top box give the impression of a large chunk of bike behind the rider, and the screen and tank don’t do anything to alter the overall impression of bigness.

Alongside that goes the wide, comfy seat, lots of leg room, an upright seating position and very nice spread of ’bars that has a rider feeling as though 500km between stops would be fine. Grip heaters were included, of course, but with the temperature nudging 30 degrees as the R1200GS nosed out on to the bitumen, we really didn’t give the grips too much thought.

The crash protection was excellent. We know. We put it to the test.

It’s worth pointing out that the bike itself doesn’t feel wide or large on the road. The cylinders feel as though they might be a whisker higher and tighter to the bike than the air-cooled boxer-twin, but we’re not certain if that’s the case. It was just a feeling.

On the tarmac the bike just works. It sits solid and steady, the cruise control and screen leave the rider free of distraction and able to enjoy the scenery and the smooth running. The bitumen world is a very, very pleasant place. SWM auxiliary lights meant sunset at the other end of the day didn’t matter a damn, and thanks to the huge storage capacity there was no comfort stone left unturned when it came to jammies, clean socks and jocks, reading material and all the comforts of home.

It wasn’t long before the big girl was on the dirt, and with a motor as good as this one, every turn was a delight. Cracking the throttle open let the rear come around a little – we were on the ‘Enduro’ setting with the ‘hard’ option – and blast the whole shooting match straight down the next section.

The panniers and top box have great access and are surprisingly light. Just make sure your mates don’t all chuck their gear in there when you’re not looking.

That was all very well, but the panniers and top box had a big pendulum effect that took some getting used to. In fact, the effect was just a little stronger than we expected, so at the first stop we had a look to see what we were carrying.

It seems all the riders thought the large luggage capacity shouldn’t be wasted. There were a couple of tool kits, a few first aid kits, a complete camera rig (the editor was shooting the story and had his camera in his bumbag, so the publisher decided there was no need for him to carry his as well), and sundry other items to which riders sullenly confessed to having stowed because “there seemed to be so much room”.

So there was a reasonable load on, even though there was still plenty of space for more. And from then on the panniers remained locked, thus showing the value of hard-pannier security.

The thing about that is, the bike towed the load like it wasn’t there. It was only on change of direction it could be felt. Considering the clobber on board, we were impressed by that.

A headlight with a price like that one deserves a guard.

Testing. One. Two.

The comfort was exceptional.

This bike was really nice for the rider, right down to the Pivotpegz and SWM gear shifter. There were quite a few guards scattered around the bike, but nothing got in the way and everything about riding the BMW was easy.

But Rob had talked about protection, so in the interests of credibility we decided to put that to the test as well.

As it turned out, the crash bars over the cylinders were gold. We thought the bike would fit through a gap, but it didn’t. As the rock chips flew, the motor roared and a sickening crunch shattered the mountain silence. The whole show ground to a halt in a fairly embarrassing position, crash bars and panniers wedged. Now here’s the point: Of course we didn’t hit the gap hard, but even a fairly gentle nudge on a cylinder from a rock wall, boulder or tree stump can be a serious issue. In this case, the bars took the stress and the motor and vitals were completely untouched. After the AdvRider Mag crew sweated and strained to haul the bike over the boulder by main force, it was only a touch of the button – and a few harsh words to the editor who was riding the bike at the time – to have the bike back on the pace, charging hard and leaving the sweating, whinging princesses behind.

That’s what good crash protection can do for you. In fact the bars themselves still looked in good shape, we thought. We hoped Rob thought so too when he saw them.

We didn’t put any stress on the radiator guards or sump guard, but knowing SW Motech gear could cope with that kind of abuse let us relax and enjoy the challenges as they appeared.

We were only trying to reset the tripmeter.

Falling for it

One item on the list was a really good-looking enlarger for the foot of the sidestand. We’d like to rave about this feature, but to be honest we didn’t really put it to the test. The rocky terrain meant things were fairly stable most of the time. We did drop the bike off the stand several times during clumsy panic attacks to get photos of fallen riders – for the benefit of you readers, of course – and once again were impressed with the way we couldn’t find any evidence of damage when the bike was back on its wheels.

We feel as though we gave this BMW a very fair run and treated it as would most owners who set up a bike this way, and not once during our test did the bike look as though it was threatened with any real damage. Features like the heel protector and gear shifter weren’t immediately obvious, and that’s probably an indicator of just how well they worked.

So we reckon it’s a great set-up for serious touring.

Radiator guards are another must-have for long-distance travellers,especially the off-roaders.

Here’s a rundown of the fittings:

• SWM crash bars

• Trax pannier system

• Trax top case

• SWM gear lever

• Pivotpegz

• SWM Fenda Extenda

• Brake guard

• Heel guard

• SWM auxiliary lights

• SWM headlight protector

• SWM radiator guards

• SWM sump guard

• SWM slide protection

• Arrow slip-on sports muffler

• SWM sidestand foot enlarger

There you have it

If you’re going to buy a premium item – and let’s face it, no-one can argue a BMW isn’t a premium item – and you’re going to hit the road or trail, you’ll want to organise some good protective gear, and you’ll want to tune it for comfort. With the rides already on the board for this specific bike, clearly the guys at Motohansa know how to do both.

Just check the luggage each morning and make sure your mates aren’t chucking all their heavy gear in there while you’re not looking.

Last but not least, if you’re heading for serious adventure, think about packing the GS 911 diagnostic tool and the Motohansa Pro Series tool kit. With these in your panniers you can do all but an engine rebuild on the side of the road. The GSs are very high-tech electronically – there’s no fuses and no way to diagnose the red warning light on the dash without the GS 911 – and they also have virtually no tool kit supplied stock. There’s nothing to change a wheel or remove a plug.

Motohansa

Thanks to Rob and the guys at Motohansa for letting us loose on their pride’n’joy. The shop these guys have in Sydney is an Aladdin’s cave for BMW owners. Give them a call on (02) 9638 4488, or log on to www.motohansa.com.au for more info.

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