BMW R 1300 GS
You don’t need me to tell you how BMW’s R/GS has shaped the biking landscape over the last 43 or so years. Unless you happen to live on the infield at Oulton Park or next door to the local chopper club, it will be the familiar Boxer rumble of the R 1250 GS (and R1200 GS and R 1150 GS...) that soundtracks your and everyone else’s summer days. They are everywhere, these GS things, and everywhere because they are brilliant.
Since 1980, the GS has evolved from the niche Dakar-inspired R 80 GS to the global blockbuster that is the R 1250 GS, in all its many guises. The GS platform has become the most refined and evolved in twowheel history, with each new iteration reconfigured into a marginally more capable, versatile and desirable adventure machine. Except that now those Germans have only gone and torn it all up – started again – like the last four decades meant nothing, because the R 1300 GS is, from top to bottom, a brand-new motorcycle.
Where to start? The R 1300 GS (and it is exactly 1300cc) is more powerful and has more torque than the R 1250 it replaces. It is lighter, has a new frame, slicker packaging, a rethought Boxer engine, is more adjustable and carries an armoury of electronic technology barely imaginable a few years ago.
