2013 BMW R1200GS Review - Second Ride

Despite the obvious disparity of our two trips, we both returned home with consonant impressions of the new Adventure-Tourer: What a remarkable bike BMW has wrought.

VIEW: Read Duke's review of the BMW R1200GS (with video)

While on our respective rides we both enjoyed the upgraded conveniences of the Premium Plus package – raising the standard model’s relatively low MSRP of $15,800 to a lofty $18,870 – but even without the bells and whistles the new Boxer engine would have earned our accolades.

Duke covered all the technical changes to the new Twin in his article, so I’ll forego echoing that information here, but it should be obvious from the dyno graph below, comparing last year’s GS with the 2013 model, that the improved performance of the new engine could have alone continued the GS’s dominance in the Adventure-Touring category.

The new engine, however, demanded changes such as a longer swingarm and swapping the Paralever to the opposite side of its traditional placement. Then there’s the unstoppable progress of electronics that BMW would be obtuse to ignore, hence, upgrading to the Standard package for $800 gets a 2013 GS owner cruise control.

COMPARE: Read our Ducati Multistrada 1200 S Touring vs. Triumph Explorer Shootout

But, honestly, it’s the Premium Package and the dynamic ESA, ASC (traction control) and riding modes it includes that you really want. For starters, operation of all electronic adjustments is intuitive, and better yet, all, except for electronic preload tuning, are adjustable on the fly. ASC and ABS can be turned on or off, rider modes selected according to changing conditions and suspension damping selected all without halting forward motion.

Five riding modes are available and each changes the parameters of ABS, ASC, ESA and throttle response. However, you can adjust pre-selected ESA settings to your personal preference and turn ABS and ASC off. In all modes except for Enduro Pro your custom settings will be lost by turning the ignition key to off. To maintain your settings use the kill switch.

VIEW: Read about KTM's new 1190 Adventure R

I found the pre-selected settings for Rain, Road and Dynamic to be nicely configured other than occasionally preferring the Normal ESA damping setting over Hard when in Dynamic mode. In Enduro mode BMW severely reduces the traction-control intervention, but during hard acceleration up a steep fire road the ASC was constantly retarding wheel spin causing an uncomfortable herky-jerky motion, so I simply switched ASC off and was happy with the result. Duke reports TC intervention in Enduro Pro is much less intrusive. The ABS setting in Enduro mode was to my liking and so I left it on after turning it off and finding no real benefit to having it not functioning.

On the road the 525-lb (claimed curb weight) GS transitions and holds tight lines better than the bigger sport-tourers weighing 100 pounds or more than the GS. Some testers commented that the new GS exhibits a slower turn-in due to its slightly wider tire profiles (120/70 front and 170/60 rear vs 110/80 front and 150/70 rear), but this stopped no one from pushing the Beemer to the limits of its tire adhesion. The good things is, anyone lamenting the loss of the previous model GS can stop because for now all three GS models remain available for purchase and BMW is ensuring that an Adventure version of the 2013 model is forthcoming.

However good the new GS may be, it’s not perfect. Numbers on the analog speedo are small and hard to read. And, while the adjustable windscreen does modulate windblast, for some reason German engineers decided to locate the adjusting knob on the right side of the bike, forcing a rider to reach across with a left hand or set the cruise control to use a right hand. There’s also the fact that even when paying $18,870 for the Premium Plus package, a customer wanting BMW saddlebags must cough up another nearly $1,000, taking the GS right up to the $20k threshold.

VIEW: Read our 2012 Adventure-Touring Shootout

We give BMW props for not only implementing a slipper clutch to help control back-torque during spirited road riding, but also the clutch’s other, self-energizing feature, that reduces clutch pull to that of a 450 motocrosser. Introduced on the K1600s, the self-energizing clutch has been tweaked to reduce the pulsation at the lever reported on the initial design.

Having said all this it’s no secret we’re mostly enamored with the 2013 GS. But... we’re also salivating to get a KTM Adventure in our possession – a bike that promises to give the new Beemer some stiff competition. As far as we’re concerned that can’t happen soon enough!