Class-Leading Performance
Aah … sunny, balmy Palm Springs, California. We’re here for a couple of days to ride the 2019 BMW R1250GS and the R1250RT, in a combined media introduction. The climate here is normally hot, dry and mostly desert-like. However, Mother Nature seems to be in a bit of a fit lately, and the Golden State has recently experienced unseasonal cold in the north, drought and fires through the middle, and heavy rain in the south. Some of that weather has been altering the landscape, quite drastically in a few cases.
A week before we arrived here for the launch, a record rainfall dropped 94 mm of water on Palm Springs within a 24-hour period. Typically the area receives an average of 100 mm of rain a year. Almost a year’s worth of rain in a day washed out and closed many local roads, so organizers had to scramble to change the original ride routes, which produces some unforeseen consequences during our ride, especially when we venture off-road. But we’ll get to that after you first read about the changes made to BMW’s class-leading R1250GS adventure bike, and its highly functional R1250RT long-distance tourer.
An All-New Boxer
Aside from a couple of added tech items, the chassis on both bikes are unchanged. The biggest change is a new engine, and it’s now in all of BMW’s liquid-cooled Boxer twins, and not just
