July 6, 2025
Revving Up: First Impressions of my new 2025 BMW F900GS
In this episode of the Throttle and Roast podcast, host Niels Meersschaert shares his first impressions of his new 2025 BMW F900GS after trading in several old bikes. He discusses the bike's aesthetic appeal, highlighting its modern design with a single headlight and rugged look. Niels also emphasizes the improved handling, noting the lighter weight makes it more agile on the road. With various rider modes now available, he contrasts the new performance features with his previous models. Overall, Niels expresses excitement about his new addition to the garage and the enjoyable riding experience it offers.
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00:00 - Introduction
01:38 - Looks
04:42 - Performance
11:13 - Features
21:45 - Value
26:47 - Downsides
32:28 - Why not another boxer GS?
39:51 - Why not a lighter dual sport?
43:09 - Wrap up
WEBVTT
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A new GS joins the garage.
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Did I make the right choice?
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. If you listened to an earlier episode where I test rode the new R1300GS, the F900GS, and of course my R1200GS adventure, you know that I came away very impressed with the mid-sized GS.
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Well, I've now pulled the trigger on it and trimmed the fleet in the process. Gone are my old 2012 R1200GS adventure, my 2015 S1000R, and my 1972 R75/5. And in their place, I have a new 2025 F900GS with the Enduro and off-road packages. My garage now has two fewer bikes than before. And while I enjoyed each of my old bikes on its own merits, my initial impressions of the F900GS are that it hits many of the same marks, while simplifying my garage. Now with about two weeks of having the bike, I'll be sharing my first impressions of BMW's middleweight adventure bike from new, to basically the break-in service. I'm just hitting at 600 miles. So it'll be going into service tomorrow as I'm recording this.
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So let's start with the looks. So my bike comes in the trophy colors in the red, white and blue.
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Now the F900GS is, of course, is my fourth GS over 20 plus years, 25 years plus of owning for some reason, every single one of them has been white. So I couldn't really break the trend. And this one has a couple of splotches of some other colors of the red and the blue on it alongside some gold colored rims that match the forks. So it's a good idea. And this one has a couple of splotches of some other colors of the red and the blue on it alongside some gold colored rims that match the forks. So it's maybe a little bit of breaking out from that pure white that I've had in the past. Now with the F900 GS, it stands apart from some of the older F series GS bikes in that the asymmetric headlight is gone, but only with the F900 GS. There is an F900 GS adventure, which really kind of carries on the theme of the original 850 GS. So it still has the asymmetric headlight. But the F900 GS really stands alone in terms of its appearance and specifically that single headlight design. If you look at some of the more modern BMWs in the lineup today, things like the S1000R, a couple of the other bikes, you'll notice that they have this sort of new single type of a headlight as opposed to the asymmetric that they've had, what, since the 1998 R1150GS would have been probably the first one when they went to that asymmetric headlight design. And if you compare the one and if you compare the bike to let's say the previous gen 850, it does have a more rugged looking appearance. And it does look a little bit more like an off-road bike as opposed to the classic BMW adventure bikes, a little bit sleeker, a little bit more ready for its purpose in some ways. And it does diverge a little bit from the rest of the GS line in that there's no X headlight as you see in the new R1300 GS. It doesn't have the side panels that would mirror the boxer big brother. That sort of almost like a boomerang sort of shape that was right up in the front cowl. It's really standing on its own design wise.
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And to my eye, I think it is now the best looking GS that BMW has quite honestly ever made. So I'm really pleased with just the appearance of it. It looks really good. And to be honest, a lot the GS maybe, you know, a mother would have to be the one that loves them because they didn't appeal to a lot of people aesthetically. They were kind of odd. Now that has an appearance in a desire that some people actually really do enjoy, but it wasn't classically good looking.
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Whereas I think the F900 GS actually is classically good looking. So, I do think the looks of the new GS are really quite impressive. And it does kind of make me, when I do park it, I do take that sort of fond look back at it. So I'm enjoying that part of it.
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Now, the other thing, and this is really what sort of jumped to my eye when I compared and test rode the bike along with the R1300GS and, of course, my old R1200GS-A, was really about the performance of the bike. And I want to start with a bit of the handling. So, on the street, one of the beautiful things about this bike is because it is about 80 pounds lighter than my old GS, it just has a more flickable feeling to the bike. So, if you want to transition through twisty roads and switch from a left to a right turn, it just does that much quicker than my old bike was capable of doing. more of a factor of just the fact that the bike is lighter. There may be some geometry changes that are also supporting that in some way, but I think just the weight alone really, really helps us on the street. Now, it also has some rider modes, which my old GSA did not have. It was well before all of those of it. The only extent of what I could do on that bike was I could turn ABS on and off. That was the extent of the riding modes and then how much you twisted the throttle. This does have many different riding modes. You can actually select from, I think, seven different riding modes, but only five of them can be, or four or five can be selected at any given moment just quickly on the bike. Otherwise, you have to go into the menus and disable and enable another one of your hot picks. Now, my S1000R, of course, did have some riding modes as well. So there is some similarity into here, but it has riding modes that the S1000, of course, did not have because it is more off-road oriented. And in particular on the street, because I want to focus on street handling it does have a dynamic riding mode, which does give a crisper, almost more than a one-to-one sort of ratio in terms of as you twist the throttle. It's just going to get back up onto the revs much quicker than you would with an in-road mode You have a rain mode, which is pretty common on a lot of bikes today, but it even has an eco mode. Actually, I haven't tried the eco mode yet, so I don't know what that feels like yet. It's just not on my pre-selects, but I imagine it's going to be similar to rain, just maybe with the normal amount of countermeasures, if you will, for traction control, etc. But the power that you get from the dynamic really does make this a fun bike on road.
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And if we compare it to my old GS, my old GS had 110 horsepower.
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And this new one is 105, and you say, oh, well, you're actually down on horsepower a bit. But you have to think of it from a power-to-weight ratio. So that 110 horsepower that I had in my old GS adventure had to push 560 pounds of bike. This 105 is only pushing 480 pounds of bike. So from a pure power perspective, they're at least equally matched.
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But when you think of power-to-weight ratio, this new GS is quicker. It's going to be a little bit more of a dynamic-feeling bike. Now, it's not quite as good as my S1000R was, of course. But the number of times when I was able to use full throttle on my S1000R in 10 years of owning that bike is probably a handful. And I mean like full throttle for more than a second. You know, you just really can't do that on a lot of public roads, typically. Now, on the track, different situation.
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But on public roads, you just can't do it. Whereas this bike, I think you have a little bit more usable power. And I think this is where some of the arms races of more and more power gets a little silly. Because realistically, there's limitations to what you can use on public roads. And really be taking full advantage of it. Now, that doesn't mean that you want to have where you're always sitting at wide open throttle.
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But I think this bike has a really nice balance for street And as I said, that weight is really the big thing, I think, that is adding into the flickability, And a bit of this is because my old GS Adventure had an 8.7-gallon tank. When it was fully fueled, it weighed 560 pounds. Now, this F900 GS has only a 3.8-gallon tank. And it's 482 pounds fully fueled. But that 80 pounds that's saved is really, really noticeable. Both in acceleration, in handling, in braking, in changing direction really quickly. Oh. this is something that just makes it a more dynamic and fun bike. Now, it may not be quite as stable, let's say, if you're just droning down the highway, but it is more fun, And this does translate into when you get off-road. Now, I have done, I'll say, some dirt roads. I haven't done, like, really heavy off-road. It's only the first couple weeks. I'm still doing break-in. But the dirt roads that I've hit, and I've hit a number of them, I'd say, of the 600 miles, I'd probably did, at least 100 of them were on dirt The thing that I really enjoyed with it is the bike is just much more confidence-inspiring than my old GSA. You really feel as though you are more on control of the bike. And, of course, you could throw it into one of the off-road riding modes. There's Enduro and Enduro Pro. I have Enduro Pro enabled on my bike because I do, my bike, as I said, it came with the off-road package, so I do have knobby tires on it to begin with, whereas the Enduro mode is a little bit more oriented towards if you're running street tires in and off-road. So it's going to have a little bit if you will, almost electronic interference of countering some of lack of traction that you'll get from a street tire. But you can still break the rear end loose, even with knobby tires, with the Enduro Pro, which makes it just kind of fun. You can be playful with it in some ways. But if you need to jump onto the brakes, your front ABS is still enabled in an off-road mode. Your rear ABS, you can fully lock up the rear wheel. So you've got a little bit of fun that you can have in the bike off-road. So I'm really pleased with how it has worked thus far. And these have really just been like, I'll call them dirt roads, or maybe even a couple of seasonally maintained roads. Not trails, by any means, but it's only two weeks into the bike. So it's pretty new on that. But I'm really, really pleased with the overall performance of the bike in these first couple weeks.
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All right, let's switch into a couple of the features that are new, at least to me, in a lot of ways. So my newest BMW, of course, is my R18. it's a very simple instrument cluster.
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It's actually a classic old gauge in terms of showing your speed that you'll have on the bike. You can have a little bit of an LCD display below it, which you can select if you want to have some other indications, like RPM or trip meter, et cetera, like that. But it's fairly limited onto this. this F900 comes with BMW's TFT display. Now, this started back with the R1200 water-cooled bike.
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So the generation after my GSA.
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it has a couple of nice things that when you see it, you know, in the dealership, you're like, oh, that's cool, but whatever.
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And then when you actually start to use it now, you're like, oh, OK, now I can start to see a little bit of the nice aspects.
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And of course, this is managed with that wonder wheel, which is on the left-hand side of the handlebar, and it allows you to rotate to select various options.
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And then there's sort of a, click in and a click out, if you will, that you can motion by rotating the wheel kind of against its normal axis of rotation. And this just gives a couple of other menu options that you can do. a couple of things that I've really enjoyed with this is, and I'm, I'm really love stats on a lot of bikes. I've been tracking every fuel tank on all of my vehicles for 11, 12 years at this point, maybe even longer. So what's cool is you have two trip meters, which is pretty standard on a lot of bikes. in addition to just giving you the distance, it also shows things like how long you've been riding, how long you had it on break, meaning where the ignition was turned off, uh, what your fuel economy has been on that specific trip meter, all sorts of different aspects that just give you more insights into the bike. And what's really cool with this is that the trip B, and there's a little bit of a weird naming I'll say for the TFT. So they call the first one is like the journey or onboard computer. And then the second one is the trip computer.
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They're basically trip a and trip B is the real way to think of it. Now Trip B can be automatically set to reset like the Trip B on my R18. And what this means is that when you start a new day of riding, this Trip B will automatically reset so you can kind of get a sense of, well, what has today's ride been like? And this is really helpful in a lot of ways, rather than having to manually remember to flip it. If you've had a pause, at least this is the way it works on my R18, I haven't looked enough in the manual to verify that it's the same way.
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But if you've been off the bike for six hours or more, that will then reset the Trip Meter. So it's great to be able to say, well, what did I do today? And keep track of things like how long you've been riding, how long you've taken on a break and almost really have that reinforcement mechanism to say, hey, you know what? I've been riding for two hours. Time to take a little bit of a break.
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Get off the bike for a little while. Get re-rejuvenated, if you will. And then I can get back on the bike. And you can also then see, well, how many miles did I do? What's been my fuel economy for today? Now the other thing that you have on this bike, which at first I was sort of like, yeah, who cares? I mean, I typically use a Beeline, or I have a Zumo, and I did install my Zumo onto this GS.
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One of the things that the TFT can do is it can give you navigation, and this is coming from your phone. So almost like how the Beeline acts as a remote display for an app running on your phone, the BMW TFT works in exactly the same way. So you can have this navigation that's running directly on the TFT, unlike the Beeline. And this is where that Wonder wheel really becomes really interesting is you can select a destination right from the Wonder wheel in a couple of different scenarios.
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So there are some limitations that the first one is if you want to set your destination and it's maybe a destination that you want to go to. That's not point of interest kind of thing, like a gas station or something like that. you're gonna really be having something that you've almost saved as a favorite, typically, or it was a recent destination in the app. But you can select those when you're riding on the bike. So you could set your home, you could set work, you could set, you know, your dealership, you know, other places that you frequent. And you can have each of those, and you could select it at any time when you're riding and say, "I want to go there." The other cool thing is that if you're riding, you can edit the navigation and then add in a new... destination in the middle.
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So, for example, you could say,"I want to find a fuel stop." And this is where I think BMW, with their software, did something I really, really like.
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So many GPSs only will let you look for a point of interest that's around your current location. And that's gonna...
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you could think of it as it's basically a circle. And that's not always the most helpful because sometimes it might be behind you. And what this allows you to do is select along the route. So now I can say, "Hey, as I'm riding along with the route I already have planned, find me a filling station, or find me a restaurant, or whatever it is, along the route." And then it will give you a selection of some options, and you can pick from those. So we'll say, like, you know, it's a shell station, or it's a mobile station, or whatever it ends up being. And it's this many, you know, miles away from where you're currently at. So it's very helpful to be able to add those in and manipulate which ones you're selecting as you're riding. So that navigation is really quite, quite nice. Now the other thing that you get with this TFT is other features that connect into your phone. So first off is media. So I'm used to this on my Zumo. I was able to select music that I wanted to listen to, for example, and choose it and pick it and play it. Well, I can do the exact same thing right from the TFT on there, and controlled from the Wonder Wheel. So my hands don't have to leave the handlebar. And until you've experienced it, you don't really realize how beneficial that is.
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Because for so long, you take your hand off of a handlebar, you're touching this touch screen while you're riding. And it's, to be honest, not the safest way to ride. So having where you're adjusting while you still have both hands on the handlebar is really a wonderful capability to be able to do.
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This works both for listening to media as well as for making calls on your cell phone. your cell phone. And this ties into, I think, the other thing that's a little unique with it is you pair your headset, let's say you have a Bluetooth headset in your helmet, it is paired to the bike specifically. And your phone is paired to the bike specifically.
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Now you can also have a passenger's headset paired to the bike. And the bike sort of becomes the manager of this. So all audio and everything is routed through bike and then controlled through the bike for managing everything remotely. So it's a little different than you might have done for some other situations. So for example with my Beeline, I typically have, because all the directions are coming from my phone, I have my bound to my phone as well. And this way I can still get the directions from the Beeline app.
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In my headset. And what's cool, this is the thing that I'm really pleased with, is I can do both at the same time. So I have actually tested this where I'm running my Beeline and the BMW navigation simultaneously. And I can get audio directions from both of them still coming into my headset. So one's coming directly from my phone, the other one's going through the BMW TFT and then to the headset.
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Both can work. So, I'm very pleased with, just from a feature perspective of the TFT and what that makes possible.
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Now another thing that is probably worth mentioning is a feature on this specific bike is the suspension. Mine has the enduro and off-road package, and this means it has a little bit higher grade of suspension than you get on the F900GS. And it's really more off-road oriented, and so what I have is fully adjustable fork, fully rear shock. And this allows me to set preload, it lets me set compression dampening, rebound dampening. All of them can be adjusted as you need. And this is really wonderful in a lot of ways, especially when you want to fine tune the bike to you as you're riding. Now my old GSA had what is called ESA or electronic suspension or shock adjustment. And you see this in a lot of the Boxer-based GSs and it's good. It's nice in a lot of ways because you can say, "Hey, I'm riding one rider, or I'm riding two riders, or I'm riding a rider with luggage," et cetera.
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The problem with that is, unless you're the standard weight that the BMW manual has sort of ascertained as a typical rider, it's never gonna be set for you.
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And that's a little bit of a problem because if you are heavier or lighter, the preload won't match what you actually need. So having the ability to directly adjust the suspension for yourself is really, really helpful. the fact that I can fine tune both the compression and the rebound dampening on both the fork and on the rear shock really allows you to dial this bike into what you want it to feel like. Now, I'm only a couple weeks in, so I'm still playing with it, but it's nice to have that capability because on a lot of bikes today where they do the electronic suspension, it's great. And it's, I think for a lot of people, it maybe feels simpler, but it doesn't allow you to have the control and almost minute adjustments that you can get with that fine tuning to be able to adjust the clickers to yourself.
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there's one other major facet to the F-900 GS that I do want to focus on, and this is really about its value. For a long time, the F-Series GS was referred to in almost a negative manner as the poor man's GS And perhaps that was true because the older 800 and 850 Series and even preceding that really were kind of missing a lot of the capabilities and really were just a lower cost option. They didn't have a lot of the capabilities, there was no better off-road let's say than the, Uh, you know, Boxer-based GS was, so there really wasn't a big benefit to it, but it was cheaper, and, and I do have to focus on that as being a realistic situation to compare, especially with the new R1300GS, where the price has gone up a lot. So, a base R1300GS is basically $20, 000, it's, like, whatever, $19, 700 or $800, whatever it is, but it, it's basically $20, 000, while a base F900GS is $13, 500. So, it's over $6, 000 cheaper for the base model comparison bike, so substantially cheaper to buy the bike versus Boxer-owned engine.
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And both share that same TFT with similar capabilities on screen, so everything that I just talked about at that cool feature that I have on the F900, that's the same thing that you would get on the R1300GS. So, really, the most noticeable difference is that extra $6, 000,$7, 000 that you're spending on that Boxer GS, you're really getting an extra 400 cc's of engine capacity and the extra 40 horsepower that that delivers.
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You also have the, at least, opportunity to get that electronic suspension adjustment that we just discussed. But you give up that sort of manual adjustment that you can get out on the F900, so this is where, yes, you get more automation, but you also lose some customization and control that you have onto it. The other thing that I'll talk about from a value perspective is the fuel economy. Now, I've only had the bike for a couple weeks. I've done basically 600 miles for the break-in service. So, these figures are preliminary, but they're very encouraging. And I've tracked every tank on every one of my bikes and cars, capturing the gallons added along the miles ridden for, what, 13, 14 years at this point. So, I've got a lot of back history to kind of know exactly how much fuel economy I get across all of my different bikes. Now, I owned my R1200 GSA for over 13 years, I averaged, over those 13 years, 39 miles per gallon. I'm getting roughly 47 to 48 miles a gallon average over the tanks that I've thus far recorded from a slightly smaller parallel twin So, that's already about a 20% improvement in economy. Now, I did do a ride early this morning on the bike just to wrap up the last little miles that I need for the 600-mile service. And I was averaging 49 miles per gallon on at least what's indicated on the TFT. And when I've tested this and actually recorded the miles at the pump, it's actually been underestimating it. So, whereas it might see 49 on a tank, I've actually gotten like 50 to 51 in some tanks. So, the fuel economy is a lot better. The irony to me is I basically have the same power that I had in my old R1200 GSA. It's 110 versus 105 horsepower. But I'm getting 7, 8, 9, 10 miles a gallon more than I was getting on my old Boxer GS.
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So, from a value perspective, this bike is really, really good.
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The other one, and this is where you have to think of value for your intent, is this bike is better off-road. This bike has more tunability and adjustability with the suspension out of the box than you can get on the big Boxer GS.
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So, if you want a GS that you really want to take off-road more often, the F900 is actually the better bike. It just is a benefit that it's cheaper to run because you don't have to deal worse fuel economy. It's cheaper to buy. So, there's a lot of pros to it that if you don't want awesome... Highway Touring bike, and the Boxer GSs are still great bikes in a lot of ways, but you do give up some of that value, I think, that you'd get with the F900.
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Now, before you think everything is all, you know, roses and unicorns with the F900, I do want to at least recognize some of the downsides that I've observed with this mid-sized GS versus my older Boxer GS Adventure. Now, the GS Adventure, of course, does have a significantly larger windshield and a couple of winglets that protect the rider from oncoming wind. Also, the larger tank covers more of your knee area.
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So, really, the biggest thing is wind protection. There's far less wind protection on the F900 GS than there was on my old GS Adventure. And you can think of this as both a con but also a positive. For me, when you're riding in the summer months, I like getting that airflow. It's actually why I didn't ride my GS Adventure as often in the summer months, because there was no airflow. It actually just got really, really hot. So, this less wind protection, if you're doing a lot of highway droning, might be a concern. If you're riding in really cold winter months, this might be a concern.
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Of course, this bike, I'm looking at it in the middle of hot summer. I've actually had some days where it was 90, 95 degrees Fahrenheit. And so, I was not keen on wanting to ride any bike on that day. It's just way too hot to be riding. But if I was riding on the old Adventure, where it had zero airflow, that would be not as advantageous. And then, the other one, and this is probably the biggest one coming from a GS Adventure, not a regular GS, but a GS Adventure to this bike, is it is a significantly smaller tank. but I went from 8.7 gallons to 3.8. That's really significant. I mean, that's almost five gallons. That's a regular bike, regular GS's entire tank. That's the Delta that I have. Now, while the old tank on my GSA was really, really big, and I could get more than 300 miles per tank, the reality is that I want a break more often than every 300 miles.
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I'm still getting about 150 miles on the F900GS until the reserve warning comes on, which is fine. I typically want to do a break at about... My rule of thumb I've had for many years is I want to break every two hours or every 100 miles in general.
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And it doesn't matter what the bike is. I just find that that's a good rule of thumb just to keep you fresh because--and you've heard me talk about this in maybe some of the earlier episodes where we talk about how do you maintain a safe atmosphere while riding. So, if you're becoming fatigued because you've been riding too long, that's when you start to make mistakes. That's when you start to not pay attention as well. So, I like to take a break. It would be roughly two hours or 100 miles. And whichever one comes first is sort of the way. So, if I get 150 miles to the tank before I hit reserve, at 100 miles and just--yeah, well, fine.
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I can refuel now. Not a big deal.
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That's OK. Now, the reality is that I'm probably seeing 180 to 200 mile range from this tank because of the far better fuel economy. So, it's--yes, it's a smaller physical and I couldn't do 300 miles of range like I could with my GSA. But this isn't a real issue in most of the real world. Now, there are some remote parts of the world where this could be a concern and maybe where you have a range of more than 200 miles would be needed because, you know, some parts of, let's say, Alaska or some parts of Africa, you might have-- fuel stations way too far apart, let's say, or maybe even parts of out west in the Rockies.
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You may have some sections, maybe even in the southwest desert, where you're going to have larger space between fuel availability. But where I am in the northeast, that's just not really an issue. 200 miles of range, 150 miles, 100 miles of range, you're fine. Doesn't really matter. That doesn't really matter. And I'd imagine that's probably the case for most of Western Europe as well.
00:30:56.781 --> 00:31:55.530
You're not needing 300 miles of range. So, it is smaller. I do want to recognize that. But for my purposes, doesn't really matter. The other downside that I'll say is a chain versus a shaft drive. Now, some people might argue the opposite in that a chain is more efficient from a power distribution perspective, but a chain drive does require more maintenance than a shaft drive. they are cheaper to replace when they wear out with a chain, but my main frustration with the chain is when you're on an extended trip, you need to bring chain cleaner, you've got to bring lube, you've got to bring rags, you've got to store those in such a way that they don't leak onto your clothes or other gear that you may have in your bag. It's just more of an extra chore that you have to do, whereas with the shaft drive, you don't really worry about it.
00:31:55.621 --> 00:32:16.489
So there is an advantage. So if you're doing really, really, really long trips, slogging, you know, hundreds of miles every single day, shaft drive will be easier just to deal with day to day. Whereas if you're having to re-lube your chain every three to 500 miles, you might do that in a weekend, if not in a day.
00:32:17.308 --> 00:32:27.729
So it could be a little bit annoying to have to constantly do that every single day. So I do want to sort of recognize that there are some downsides to the midsize GS.
00:32:28.665 --> 00:32:38.054
So why not the big boxer GS for me? Well, as I said, this is my fourth GS that I've had.
00:32:32.554 --> 00:32:59.016
I've had two of the boxer GSs a 1998 R 1100 GS and my 2012 R 1200 GSA. But I actually started with my first motorcycle of any kind was a 1997 F 650 GS. So this is a little bit of a return to the start in some ways of my very first GS was an F series GS.
00:32:56.181 --> 00:33:47.101
And, you know, the boxer GSs are very good bikes. And if you're mostly street riding and you want to have a single bike, kind of like a Swiss Army knife that can do a lot of different things pretty well, the boxer GS is a phenomenal option. It's going to be, you know, more stable on highway riding. It's going to be a few more creature comforts that you're going to get with that bike. It's good in a lot of ways, but like I covered in my test ride episode where I compared my R 1200 GSA with the R 1300 GS and the F900 GS. I just found that the engine in the new boxer GS, it was just so smooth that it lacked character.
00:33:47.280 --> 00:33:59.326
And the exhaust note was so quiet. It almost felt more like an electric motorcycle. You would twist on the throttle and it accelerated insanely quickly.
00:33:55.256 --> 00:33:59.326
I mean, it's a it's a good bike.
00:33:59.405 --> 00:34:10.471
Don't get me wrong. But you didn't feel that you were accelerating. You didn't have that feedback of the engine note and the rumble of the exhaust.
00:34:07.711 --> 00:34:14.380
None of that was coming in. It was just like it was digital. It felt like an electric bike.
00:34:15.266 --> 00:35:26.467
maybe it's because of my R18 that I just really love having that character. I love having that rumble that just makes you feel alive with the bike beneath you. I wasn't keen on the motor in the R 1300 GS. Now, if you're slogging a lot of highway miles, you probably want a smoother motor. You don't want to have all of that rumble and noise and vibration because it can get exhausting if you're just running at highway speeds and the engine set a set RPM for a lot of hours on end. It can become a bit exhausting. So this is where, and I talked about this in an earlier episode as well. I think the R1300 RT is actually the perfect motorcycle for that new 1300 Boxer engine because it's the bike you want to take on those long highway rides. So I think in many ways, a lot of people who have been getting the GSs, and you see this just from the way that the GS has evolved over time, the Boxer GS has continued to get heavier with each iteration. It has become a better street bike.
00:35:26.556 --> 00:36:02.521
And the almost cliche, if you will, image of a Boxer GS parked outside of a Starbucks, sparkling clean with not an ounce of dirt on it whatsoever, exists for a reason. And that's all the GS has been a very popular bike for BMW, even though many of the riders who buy the GS never take it off-road. And this is where I think in many ways, the RT probably is the better bike for them because you do gain a couple of things with the RT that you lose. Maybe have on the GS that aren't really helpful.
00:35:59.460 --> 00:36:18.289
So the RT is a little bit of a lower seat height. So if you're shorter in stature, a GS is probably not the best bike for you. That's also gonna make the bike just be a little bit lower to the ground, a little bit better aerodynamics, if you will.
00:36:14.760 --> 00:36:28.559
And as a result, it's gonna be a little bit more fun and sporty on the street. So the RT is probably a better motor if you're focusing more on street.
00:36:28.695 --> 00:37:23.422
The thing is that my use case is more off-road. My GS is not my only bike. And I wanted something where I could take it into more challenging off-road situations. I had a situation a couple of years ago. I was riding up in Massachusetts and was going down one of these dirt roads. I was like, oh, I've never been down this road. Let me see where it goes. And ended up coming, it comes to close to a swamp. And I didn't notice it in time, but the road just got a little darker there and then sunk in. And it basically turned straight into mud and the front tire went in and it was a foot stuck into mud. And it took me eight hours to be able to extract the bike from that. And it's 560 pounds. It's heavy. So a lighter GS with it being 80 pounds lighter is a lot easier to manipulate. It's not going to be the same thing as a dirt bike, so let's not get crazy with it.
00:37:23.103 --> 00:38:36.231
But it's a lot easier for adventure riding when you're getting more off the beaten path than the big boxer would be. the other thing is, I had a GS Adventure. And I think it's a great bike because if you want that extra fuel capacity, you want to be able to just go and go and go. So if you compare the new R1300 GSA to the R1200 GSA, and let's take the looks. I think it's absolutely atrocious looking out of the equation. And there's many others who probably feel very similarly to me. But let's take the looks out of the equation. Just from stats perspective, the R1300 GSA with 7.9 gallons of fuel compared to the 8.7 of my old R1200 GSA, it's nearly a gallon less fuel, but it's still 33 pounds heavier than my old GSA. So if I compared the R1300 GSA to the F900 GS, you're now looking at more than 100 pounds lighter for an adventure bike. And I think this is where I don't like what BMW has done with the big boxer is I think in many ways they've gone in the wrong direction.
00:38:37.250 --> 00:39:02.483
They've been making the bikes bigger, more electronics, heavier, and it's great for street riding. That's why I think the RT is probably a better bike for more people than the GS because of just the way they use the bike. But I think they've been going in the wrong direction. if you're just doing some highway or maybe just some forest roads, you know, these are what I'll call, dirty roads.
00:38:58.893 --> 00:39:06.023
They're not even dirt roads, but they're dirty roads. They're like perfectly manicured.
00:39:06.023 --> 00:39:39.666
They're perfectly crowned, perfectly smooth roads. They just happen to be dirt. Yeah, I think a regular GS or boxer GS is perfect for that. But if you want to get onto, you know, some more seasonally maintained roads where there's going to be a lot more ruts and everything into them. For example, if you do the Transmass Trail or the Puppy Dog Route up in Vermont, many of the dirt roads that are involved in there are going to be more seasonally maintained. You can get a full GS through them. I've done it. But it's a lot more work because it's a heavier bike.
00:39:39.909 --> 00:39:51.110
So a lighter adventure bike, like a midsize adventure bike, like the F900, is better for that situation. And if you wanted to do some trails, a midsize adventure bike is also going to be better.
00:39:51.375 --> 00:41:16.777
Now, finally, you know, then you might even be wondering, well, why didn't I go to an even lighter dual sport? and the F900GS is not a dual sport. It is an adventure bike, but if you compare, let's say, a very high performing dual sport like the KTM 500 EXC, that's about 250 pounds, so more than 200 pounds lighter than my F900GS. Or even if you look at one that's maybe splitting the difference a bit, the KTM 690 Enduro, that's about 350 pounds, so still a little over 100 pounds lighter than my F900GS. The big thing, and this is where, to be honest, I struggled, because the F900GS does have more highway capability than a 500EXC or even the 690. I'm generally at least a hundred miles to get to any real trails, so I may have to slog on highway to do that. On a 500, that's crazy. 500 is perfect for if you're just riding a couple of miles to connect trails on pavement. But if you have to do a hundred miles of highway with that, no, it's gonna suck, and the maintenance is terrible on the bike. You've gotta, you've gotta basically change the oil like every few, like, what, is it 10 hours or 20 hours, if you're running it at like high performance. So it's, it's not really meant as a road bike.
00:41:16.956 --> 00:41:26.983
It's an awesome performing off-road bike that happens to have legal plates on it. The 690 is a little bit more where it's in that middle ground. And to be honest, I did struggle with this.
00:41:26.983 --> 00:41:31.423
I really was thinking of maybe I do a 690 or the Husky 701.
00:41:31.534 --> 00:42:23.855
They're basically the same bike, but I still kept coming back to that. Well, I've got to ride that hundred miles to get to there. I'm going to be carrying camping equipment. I'm going to be carrying whatever. If I want to do a backcountry discovery route, like, you can do that on a 690, but you give up a lot of And maybe that's the wrong decision. Maybe I, a 690 would have served me better, I think this is where that eternal struggle that looking for that unicorn ADV or dual sport bike is a hard thing. And these sort of this middle ground is where it gets very gray, you know, and you could say, hey, I'll go down to a dual sport or you go up to a midsize adventure bike. And there's an argument that can be made in both directions. Even if you look at the new Suzuki DRZ 4S, this bike doesn't have a ton of power into it, but it has some nicer capabilities onto it.
00:42:23.945 --> 00:42:56.036
Now you have some ride modes and it has fuel injection as opposed to the old carbed bike, but it's 44 horsepower. It's not going to be a ton of power that doesn't matter off road. But if you're doing highway riding, that that that's going to be a little bit more of a pain. It's going to be harder to go at highway speed. I mean, it's still only a five speed, so you've got to be realistic of what you're trading off and what you're predominantly going to be doing.
00:42:53.856 --> 00:43:05.672
And as I said, I'm 100 miles from the trails, so I've got to do 100 miles before I even get to the trails. If I was 10, 20 miles from the trails, I probably would have made a different decision.
00:43:09.438 --> 00:43:26.458
So let's call a spade a spade. I'm still in the honeymoon phase, but all the attributes that I enjoyed about the F 900 GS during my test ride are holding true in my first couple of weeks of ownership.
00:43:22.277 --> 00:43:29.577
It's quicker than my old GS. It handles better in the twisties.
00:43:26.458 --> 00:43:45.519
It's more confidence inspiring in the dirt. And it's cheaper to buy and run than a Boxer GS. I do give up some wind protection, which will probably be more of an issue in the winter. And the smaller tank does make you think of fuel earlier and chains are more work than a shaft drive.
00:43:46.588 --> 00:44:26.916
But ultimately, this is the bike that fits my needs the best. And a smaller dual is great if you're closer to the trails and a bigger ADV is great if you're mostly using it for pavement trips or fire roads. But the F 900 GS offers the best compromise for me. And it doesn't hurt that I think it's one of the nicest looking modern bikes from BMW. So my question for you is, do you ride your ADV bike off-road? And what are the compromises you're finding with your current bike? Share your thoughts through the text to show link in the show notes. Or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com/voicemail.
00:44:27.623 --> 00:44:29.322
Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next See you next week.
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