more about the bike...
If you've got to this page you're either lost, obsessively interested in motorcycles or just short of things to do. The really good thing about editing a website is that you can be as self-indulgent as you like-so I'll take this opportunity to tell you more about my bike, whether you like it or not.
It's a BMW 1150 GS, built in 1999. 'GS' is an acronym of Gelande Strasse, or 'Land Street', reflecting the bike's giant trailbike heritage. The original GS was produced in 1980 with an 800cc air-cooled version of the engine, and there's also an Adventure version which is even taller, with longer-travel suspension and slightly different gearing. A 30 litre tank is fitted as standard to the Adventure with a 40 litre tank available as an option (the larger tank would give a range of more than 500 miles). This bike is designed to do serious off-road travelling, and several have gone round the world. This is the model that Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman took across Europe and Russia to the USA in "the Long Way Round". On the other hand it can do nearly everything else you want to do too-the photos above were taken at a trackday at Snetterton racetrack, where virtually every other bike there was a sportsbike. We got thrashed on the straights but caught (and passed) nearly everything in the corners, much to my surprise and their embarrassment!
The model continues as the R1200GS with a more powerful engine and considerably less weight than the 1150. All of them look...distinctive. Slightly akin to Patrick Moore perhaps. There's an extract from the CD-Rom Road Test Database (given free with May 2006 issue of Bike) here and a link to the magazine's site here. There's also a buyer's guide to the beastie here which those splendid people at RiDE magazine put together, and also a link to their site here.
The heart of the GS is the engine, an air/oil-cooled boxer twin, which is essentially unchanged since it was first produced by BMW in 1923. As the name implies, the cylinders are flat across the frame (unlike a Ducati or a Harley Davidson, which are in-line twins). This means that it's very easy to repair crash damage, as it just slides down the road on the cylinder head cover, which are easy to replace. I know this! The engine is fuel-injected, so self-corrects for running at high altitude, and will run on almost any kind of fuel short of chip fat. The 5.5 gallon tank (22.5 l) gives a tank range of something like 200 miles when cruising at 90 mph (about 43 mpg). By modern standards it's relatively low-powered at 85 bhp, but instead is tuned for low-down torque. It's enough to accelerate it to 60 mph in just over 4 seconds and a top speed of about 120 mph. The low-revving engine sounds wonderful with a race exhaust on, especially with the silencer taken out-like a low-flying bi-plane. Loud though-you do need to turn the ipod up.
It vibrates (it vibrates a lot to be truthful), but what the engine does have is a lot of soul, for want of a better word. It makes the bike feel alive, and after all, how fast do you really need to go? Really quite fast if you're competing in the Paris-Dakar Rally, which modified versions of the GS have won several times in the 1980's (as the R100) and and a version of the 1150 came third in 2000. This size of bike has now been banned from the Dakar as it's just too fast-it would easily hit 120 mph on sand dunes. The 1150 also holds the world endurance speed records for circumnavigating the world and across the Americas.
Like all off-road bikes, it has spoked wheels instead of the more usual cast aluminium that road bikes are fitted with. Spoked wheels have a lot more 'give' in them, where cast wheels would just crack under the impact of dirt riding. The frame is also 'old tech'-in fact it doesn't have a frame at all really. Everything is bolted to the engine, with an enormous piece of cast aluminium holding the steering assembly in place. The rest of the bike is a tubular steel subframe that attaches to the seat unit and front "beak", which also contains a radiator to cool the engine oil. This steams spectacularly when riding in the rain in slow traffic.
The suspension, like many other things BMW, is unusual but effective. The front forks on a normal bike would contain springs and shock absorbers, but on the GS they're simply sliding tubes. As the front wheel hits a bump the movement is transmitted through a yoke attached to the forks to a separate single spring/shock absorber just in front of the engine. This is essentially a McPherson strut, and means that even under heavy braking the forks don't dive, which maintains their geometry (a normal bike's forks compress to a greater or lesser extent-this means the effective length of the forks reduces, and tends to make the bike run wide in corners). The rear suspension is also slightly odd: the rear wheel is shaft-driven from the 6-speed gearbox, and the rear spring/shock is mounted off the shaft drive itself. As a trailbike the GS has a lot of suspension travel, which is ideal for bumpy back roads and theoretically at least for off-roading. Quite a lot of people do, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Handling is astonishing to anyone who's not ridden a trailbike. The combination of a large front wheel, skinny tyres, a tall frame, huge weight and a sat-up riding style isn't an obvious recipe for nirvana, but it all means that there's an enormous amount of countersteering you can put through the bars-a GS will be quicker down a twisty road than virtually anything, especially if it's bumpy as well. Cornering is glorious fun on one of these. And of course they're so tall you can easily see what's coming, even over that Range Rover you're following, so overtaking is really easy. Filtering is a bit of an art though, because the handlebars are so wide and the mirrors are exactly the same height as a transit van's. The pannier lids stick out a few cm beyond the ends of the bars, making it even more exciting.
The design of the engine means the bike's centre of gravity is very low, which means it's also very easy to ride slowly, and possible (if unwise) to pick it up again when you drop it. It is colossally heavy. A GS fully loaded with luggage, two people on board and a full tank of fuel weighs more than a third of a tonne. On the plus side, all that weight gives it a lot of stability, especially with the leverage of those wide handlebars. Cross-winds don't knock it about much at all. The downside is the brakes-or more accurately the tyres, especially when using relatively hard trail-style patterns. The lack of fork dive and the narrow tread width means that when you do brake the front tends to get pushed, and locking up on a wet road is a very easy thing to do. Far better to rely on the engine braking of the big twin, which usually means you don't have to brake for much after all. Some versions came with a rather crude version of ABS, this one doesn't. It's a plus in a way, because the ABS and braking servo system only works when the engine's on.
It had 9,000 miles on it when I bought it 5 1/2 years ago, and we've travelled about 120,000 miles together since then. Most of that has been up and down the A50 between home and Nottingham, to see clients and go to Court, as well as the occasional trip to France, Spain, Scotland and around England. Apart from a gearbox problem at 43,000 miles and a broken alternator recently, everything else has been wear and tear and not much of that really. The good people at Pidcocks in Long Eaton know this bike well-they see it every 4 months for a service and new tyres.
It came with a fair amount of equipment as standard, including a full set of panniers and a top box, heated handlebar grips, brush guards, and a power socket. Over the 5 years I've had it, its been modified a fair bit. Starting from the front:
- stainless-steel brake hoses
- crash bars (used)
- upgraded horn
- upgraded headlamp bulbs (each 100W equivalent)
- mudguard extender
- GPS unit
- flip screen and tobinators (anti-turbulence devices which improve the aerodynamics around and over the screen enormously)
- bar muffs (mounted permanently unless it gets really hot, I hate getting wet hands)
- throttle lock (a primitive kind of cruise control)
- ipod remote control unit
- upgraded battery
- tank bag
- autocom unit (which connects the ipod and mobile phone to speakers and a mic in the helmet)
- Remus race exhaust
- stainless-steel replacements for all fixing bolts, nuts and so on
- custom seat
- LED rear lights
All of which means this bike is going to be very hard to replace! It has suffered a fair bit with corrosion, particularly on the wheels and spokes, the silver-painted parts like the engine, and the steel tube frame. Nothing that can't be put right, and not so bad for a bike that lives outside all year round and gets used every day even during the winter. But the engine's still going well, and it's definitely run in now-there's a few more miles in it yet.
The best thing about this bike is the way it makes you feel. There are, of course, many faster, more powerful and prettier bikes around. I started with a Kawasaki ZX6-R sports bike after I passed my test in 1998, and followed it with an Honda Africa Twin giant trail a couple of years later. The Kawasaki and the Honda were great bikes, but they didn't have what Mr Clarkson calls "soul", for want of a better word. Every time I ride it I get the urge to head for the nearest ferry port and ride South-does your car give you that feeling? If not, get yourself a bike!