Do You Need A Large Adventure Motorcycle For Traveling?
The new BMW R 1300 GS has hit the showrooms. You may want it, but do you need it?
It’s like saying you need a Porsche Cayenne Turbo to go grocery shopping. It’s nonsense. Lovely nonsense if you can afford it, to be sure, but nonsense nonetheless.
Let’s be clear about something. The idea that you need a large adventure bike with 150 horsepower to travel is nonsense. It’s just a marketing scheme and manufacturers being caught in a race for numbers that make absolutely no sense anymore whatsoever.
The truth is that you can travel the world if you need to on just about any motorcycle, from enduro-style bikes to scooters.
Yes, some are better for the job than others, but it will depend mostly on your preferences and the type of traveling you’ll be doing.
You’ll be much better off with a lighter bike for solo riding, especially when embarking on unknown terrain, and your journey will include off-road sections.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, if your trip will consist mainly of fast, smooth tarmac and you’ll be traveling two-up, then having a heavier, more travel-oriented bike (weather protection, power, carrying capacity) will suit you better.
But here’s the thing. Most of us only get to travel from time to time. The rest of our riding is done around our county. Yes, including BMW GS owners. Any one of the big adventure or travel-oriented motorcycles is blatant overkill in just about anything. Weight, capacity, power, and mainly price. Nobody needs such a bike. It’s like saying you need a Porsche Cayenne Turbo to go grocery shopping. It’s nonsense. Lovely nonsense if you can afford it, to be sure, but nonsense nonetheless.
I’m a big boy, so small bikes suffer under my size. I also travel primarily with my girlfriend, two-up in the saddle, so I need more capability than most. And even I see no point in having over 100 hundred horsepower and equivalent torque. It’s all just overkill. In fact, I’ve noticed that unless I’m putting some heavy miles behind me, fully laden with baggage, and a passenger, having one of the big bikes is more of a problem than a benefit.
As motorcyclists, we tend to be too fast on the road as it is. Having a monster with unlimited power on command under your ass makes any kind of civilized riding boring as hell.
These motorcycles reach 100 km/h in about three seconds, and when you open them up, first, second, and third, you’re always way beyond all speed limits anywhere in the world, apart from certain sections on the German Autobahn. There’s three more gear, by the way.
Every straight between corners, you wind her open, craving the seductive pull of power and tickling of your earlobes with the sound of explosions, and before you know it, you’re closer to 200 than 100 km/h. That’s just not healthy, friends. As most seductive things, I suppose. Riding a motorcycle should be fun, as it sure as hell ain’t sensible or comfortable in most cases. But where’s the fun in constantly obsessing over the speedometer, tempering your desires, and exploiting about 20% of your steed’s capabilities?
The truth is that sometimes less is more.
Less weight and power can equal more fun. You experience less stress and limitations where you are willing to venture, as you know you can fully handle your bike. Even parking and making tight U-turns can be stressful with a heavy bike, and it’s where most people drop their bikes. Standing still or at low speeds.
When my motorcycle, a 1200 cc adventure bike, was fully loaded and with a passenger, I was effectively moving around half a ton! That’s 500 kilograms or 1100 pounds!
I’m about as big and strong as men come on this planet, and even I got into trouble occasionally. It’s infinitely embarrassing when you park face-first into a parking spot with the tiniest of inclines, and you can’t move your bike a freaking inch in reverse, having to rely on your girlfriend or random passerby to help out. You learn to predict potentially problematic scenarios ahead of time with experience, but until then, you can live through a lot of hard-stopping moments that are entirely unnecessary.
Talking about heart-stopping moments, have you seen the prices of these new adventure bikes? No motorcycle is worth 30,000 USD. It’s just not. That’s insane money for a motorcycle. I’m sorry!
Consequently, people with the money to buy them often don’t have the time to ride them, so these magnificent beasts spend their time riding to coffee shops instead of adventuring around the world.
Traveling with a 50 horsepower, 200-kilogram motorcycle in a group of riders with twice the power and weight was much less problematic than you would think. In reality, we ride at the same speed and do the same type of riding. In my case, I paid 2,000 USD for my motorbike, instead of 20,000 USD back then, and had equal fun on the same trips! Almost 20,000 USD of difference is a lot of money, and it’s better spent on traveling. You can get far for that money. Well, at least you could even a few years ago.
Fun fact: it’s a lot more challenging and annoying riding with a more powerful and capable bike in the company of slower riders. All you do is wait and wait; you can’t have any fun as you’ll just lose them, and you had better not overtake motorhomes or trucks, as they won’t be able to follow. Sometimes, I wish I had half the bike riding in a group. It would make things interesting again.
I’m craving a much lighter and weaker bike these days.
Having a family, I ride primarily alone and more locally, and my big adventure bike (Moto Guzzi Stelvio 1200 NTX) is overkill in most cases. The beast is hardly allowed to breathe and flex its muscles. Plus, there’s just no way in hell I’m taking that big boy onto any kind of real off-road adventures unless I have a few people with me to help me get out of trouble and pick the damn thing up. Most of my friends have Hernias, so there’s that.
Riding a 30-70 horsepower, 150-200 kilogram light to middleweight bike is an interesting option. I really want one! Naturally, as a second bike, as I do hope I’ll get my girlfriend to ride with me again. I miss our two-up adventures dearly.
The new trend among riders would suggest that plenty of others are coming to the same conclusion. The big bikes are just an overkill.
Yes, they’re insanely fun with all that power and stability, but only at breakneck speeds.
Yes, you can load them up today and wake up on the other side of the continent tomorrow.
Yes, we would all have them in our garage if money was unlimited, just because we could.
But the fact is that almost nobody needs them.
As for the mighty GS 1300, I haven’t ridden the ugly duckling yet, but I have plenty of experience with previous models.
GS is what I like to call “Mr. Perfect.” It’s smooth, capable, fast, flickable, and comfortable. The bike feels like “home” after just a few kilometers unless you’re on the short side. These bikes aren’t for the vertically challenged. It does everything well, and it does it with ease.
For me, that is also its downside. It may be perfect, but it is boring as hell! Not to mention overpriced. The last couple of times I rode one, I was convinced it was the perfect bike for me, but I had zero desire to ride one again. Ever.
I couldn’t have cared less. No soul. No emotions. No personality. It’s just a tool. It is the best tool for the job, but a motorcycle is something more for me. If your heart doesn’t sing when you start it up, and you don’t stare at it as you walk away, what’s the point?
A middle-weight bike for half the price will do everything a big GS can do, and it’s much less likely to be stolen on your travels.
Riding on a 30,000 USD bike through less-reputable places could be stressful. I worry about parking my Guzzi outside closed walls, and it’s in no danger of being stolen. Besides, I don’t know who can still fix these hi-tech bikes on the go somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
You’re also less likely to count your speeding tickets when you return home, as speed is deceivable on these mighty beasts. Nothing much is happening until you hit 150 km/h, let’s be honest. And that’s just a tad bit too much for the road.
Adventure travel is not about getting to your destination fast but enjoying the journey.
You can have immense fun on just about any bike you ride. These days, we are spoiled for choice in the segment. The new middle-weights, costing slightly above 10,000 USD, are so capable and fast that there is no wonder more and more buyers are opting for them instead of the big bikes.
For example, my old Honda Transalp had 50 HP, squishy suspension, and prey-you-stop brakes. It was cheap, immensely comfortable, and dead-reliable, though. The new one has over 90 HP and all the safety features you’ll ever need. My old BMW R1150GS had 80 HP, and there was never a situation where I would need more power, for example. It’s plenty enough, even for two up. You might have to ring it harder, but that’s part of the fun.
Most of us who travel with our bikes ride about the speed limit, plus a little something. Those who continuously break speed records are writing their own obituaries and are irrelevant in this conversation. Good breaks, strong suspension, and a few creature comforts for long, wet, or cold stretches are much more important. As is quality gear, but that’s a topic for another time.
I do not doubt that the new BMW R1300 GS will sell like it’s free.
People want the best, and the odds are that a big GS will be the most well-rounded choice for most people and situations. Everyone also has too much money these days for some weird reason I can’t phantom or relate to, so price won’t be an issue. It’s also an ego and status thing. I mean, what would your friends think if you showed up on a Suzuki V-Strom 1,000 for half of some middleweight for a third of the price? You’d never hear the end of it! You might even have to sit at a separate table.
Dear readers and riders, what I’m saying is don’t feel bad if you can’t afford a new GS or if you choose to ride something with half the capability of the big beast. You don’t need it or anything with similar specks. That’s all just journalists reading numbers of the speck sheets and influencing us constantly to want more, more and more. It’s nonsense!
In fact, the big GS hasn’t needed more power since forever, but even the last air-cooled R1200GS with 110 horsepower was an absolute beast. Everything since is a spectacular overkill. I cringe whenever I hear that the R1250GS doesn’t have enough power, as it’s down some 30 stallions compared to the KTM 1290 SA and the Ducati Multistrada V4. I hear it’s slow. It’s a comfortable adventure bike made for mulching up endless miles, not breaking the speed record on your local race track. Yet, it’s about as fast as a BMW M5 with 600 horsepower in real-world conditions! How the hell is that not fast enough?
If you’re in the market for buying a new big GS, I would suggest buying the outgoing model instead of the new one.
New bikes are best avoided for the first year or two, as there will inevitably be problems they’ll need to work out. BMWs are no exception. The last versions of the outgoing models are always top buys. Everything has been sorted out. All possible additional equipment is widely available. And with some luck, you can find a good deal when the new bike takes over the spotlight, and everyone jumps on board the hype train.
There are, of course, a lot of reasons why BMW sells so many GS’s.
They’re comfortable, fast, safe, and infinitely capable. The paralever suspension is fantastic, and riding a GS is about as effortless as you can possibly imagine. They have all the tech you could want, and BMW has the best dealerships worldwide. It’s the safe choice for most people who want to cover large distances in all sorts of terrain, one or two up. Reliability is not on the Japanese level but is still above the rest of the competition.
But they are also overpriced and overhyped. They may be the best as all-rounders, but they don’t excel in anything. Almost none of us will be able to exploit their capabilities thoroughly.
A GS, especially the Adventure version, was the bike I always wanted to have. It was tailor-made for my size, and it just screamed World Traveler. Something I aspired to be. I rode almost exclusively two-up and long distances. I value comfort and reliability over speed and agility. If I could have afforded one, I would have ridden it.
A GS is the logical choice for me and my needs, but not my wallet.
The heart wants something with more soul, sound, and excitement, though. Something special, even though that choice comes with its challenges. If I had to choose a bike for a long trip tomorrow, and money was no issue, it’s a no-brainer. The safe choice. I know it’ll get me there comfortably, reliably, and safely. In a dream garage full of bikes, it would take the place of the long-distance king for two-up riding. The rest of the time, it would gather dust.
Since I’m not that fortunate, I can only ride one bike and have to pay for it the hard way. In that equation, a big GS isn’t even part of the conversation. I can get a new bike for half the price or even less, that would give me 90% of what the GS can, and would even excel in some situations. Less weight, frugality, and better looks, to name just three.
Whatever motorcycle you choose, just go out and ride, friends.
I hear bikes are miserable when kept in a garage, with no purpose, goal, or adventure to pursue. In some circles, whispers of sin echo when people see large adventure bikes parked in front of coffee shops, immaculately clean and perpetually maintaining low mileage. Motorbikes are made to be ridden, and adventure bikes crave to explore the unknown, testing the rider and the machine to its limits.
Let’s put things into perspective. If you save 20,000 USD by buying a cheaper bike, you can then theoretically spend that money on riding. An average traveling day for one person on a motorcycle in the Western world is about 100 USD per day, depending on your preferences and destinations. That’s 200 days in the saddle, friends! In other words, a trip around the world (ish).
Do yourself a favor. Save some money and spend it on fuel, food, and accommodation while exploring the world instead.
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I rode my BMW f650 GS back and forth across the US fully loaded with camping gear twice. It was such a delight I’m going again this summer.