Test ride: 2014 BMW R1200GS

A few days ago, I arranged for a test ride of a 2014 BMW R1200GS through Riller & Schnauk, my local BMW dealer.  The weather was a cool 8 Celcius (46 F) and quite damp/humid -- a pretty typical morning for late October in Berlin.

They gave me the key to a model from their rental fleet. It had about 9,000 Kms on the odometer, and it was in excellent condition. I went straight to the highway and headed out of town. Within 20 minutes, I had reached a stretch of the autobahn where there are no speed limits. I set the electronic cruise control at 175 Km/h and kept it there for about 10 minutes. Rock solid ride for gobbling up highway miles. Very comfortable, too, although I would make small adjustments to the handlebar position and levers. The stock seat is very comfy, although I suspect the wider ass rest found on the Adventure model is even more plush. I also thought the footpegs were a little close to the seat, with my knees bent a little more than I would like. This would be solved either by raising the seat, or lowering the pegs. I had no trouble to reach both feet flat on the ground, so raising the seat my be the better option.

The new liquid cooled engine is superb: no shortage of power, and the delivery of all 125 ponies is extremely smooth and linear. I didn't fiddle around with the fuel injection mappings. In "normal" mode it was excellent. The brakes: also excellent. Suspension: excellent again.

Overall, this is one exquisite machine. Everything about it was top notch: handling, performance, comfort, build quality. 

Minor annoyances were the heated grips, and also the hand guards.  The heat from the grips was fine, but the diameter of the grips felt small. I would probably consider finding fatter grips. Yes, it's a minor complaint. The hand guards is another minor complaint: they certainly wouldn't provide any protection for the expensive hydraulic clutch/brake control and electronic switch gear in the event of a tip-over, and they don't provide much in the way of wind protection since their surface area is quite small. I'd install a beefy set of aluminum-framed hand guards (à la HighwayDirtBikes). The windscreen is quite functional, and sufficiently adjustable via a large knob on the right side -- although, it would make more sense to have the knob on the left so you don't have to remove your throttle hand while riding. The German mentality when they designed it was probably such that you should not be adjusting it while you are moving anyway.

All in all, this bike is a very sophisticated piece of engineering with an outstandingly refined and precise feel. All of these qualities are reflected in the price tag.

I was gone for a total of 2 1/2 hours, and I returned the bike with 195 Kms added to the odometer. I rode in city traffic, and some 40 minutes or so of modest commuter highway riding, about 30 minutes of missle-cruising autobahn stretches, and probably 45 minutes of twisty rural roads. A very well rounded mix of various riding scenarios.

Over the last few months, I've been thinking a lot about a new GS (among other bikes). The GS has been at the top of my short list, and today's test ride has pretty much sealed it. The likelihood of me putting down a deposit on the new 2015 model is very high, but I'll wait a few weeks before taking the plunge. I may arrange a ride on the KTM 1190 while I'm thinking about it.

A short video from the test ride

  

Fuel consumption

For the last few weeks, I've been keeping track of my fuel consumption, just for curiosity's sake. Very pleased to report that he 2014 KTM 690 gets terrific fuel economy.

An afternoon of spirited riding on rural paved roads (mostly 5th & 6th gear) with a few occasional Kilometres of two-track forest roads yields very impressive results.

235 kms (146 miles)
8.8 Litres (2.35 US gallons)

= 3.74 L/100 Kms (62.89 mpg)


Now let's compare with fuel consumption in the city. I live in downtown Berlin, and I like to accelerate hard and frequently loft the front tire with a good whack of the throttle. I routinely see results like this:

195 Kms (121 miles)
8.6 Litres (2.27 US gallons)

=  4.4 Litres/100Kms (53.46 mpg)

Those are pretty respectable numbers in my opinion, especially considering I often use a very heavy throttle hand.

The engine is bone stock, and the only modification that has been done which could possibly impact performance and/or fuel consumption is a Wings slip-on muffler. Everything else is original: stock airbox, stock air filter, stock ECU mapping.

Fall riding

When the weather cooperates --especially on the weekend-- you need to take advantage of it and ride.  23 Celcius and not a cloud in sight today: a great day for a ride. Too bad I don't know any places to ride, and too bad I don't know anyone to ride with. No worries -- a few minutes scouring  BestBikingRoads and I was able to find a route that looked interesting.

The route I chose appeared to be ~250 Kms and looked like it would take me far enough outside the city to feel like I was getting away from it. From downtown where I live, about 40 Kms riding South-East of Berlin to reach the start point of a 175 Km loop made up of rural roads passing through several small towns, villages and farmland.

An unusually nice weather day in mid-October brings everyone outside. There was plenty of traffic, but not excessive. Lots of bikes: cruisers, sportbikes, sport tourers, baggers, and scooters. This loop seems to be very popular among all sorts of bikers. I played with a dude on a Tiger 800 for about 100 Kms: we kept a brisk pace and took turns passing each other, as well as slowpokes. We did get passed by several supersports.

a Garmin GPX track is available here if you're interested.

About 7 or 8 times, I ventured off the road and into the woods. 

Not deep into the woods, just a few hundred yards at a time. Exploring.

Stopped for a few minutes at a wind farm.

OK, well this photo was from a ride last weekend. This was about 

an hour West and a little North of the city.

And here's a boring video I put together, showing the highlights in 2 minutes.

Shoei GT Air - time for a new helmet

Over the years, I have found that only Shoei helmets seem to fit my head properly. I've tried all the brands, all the styles, all the price ranges. This time, I did make a point of trying lots of the European brands that are not popular on the other side of the Atlantic, where I come from. None of them seem to fit my funny shaped head like a Shoei.  I've owned a few other brands over the years but was never very happy with them.

I've been using two helmets lately. Both are a few years old, and both are due for replacement. My Shoei TZ-R was a very bargain, and it has lasted very well. In fact, it still looks awesome from the outside, and the original face shield is still in near perfect shape. The interior liner padding and cheek pads, however, well they're pretty worn and they smell pretty funky.  I wash them regularly, but they are well past the "best before" date. And my Shoei Hornet DS? Same thing. The cost of refurbishing the inside of the helmet is rather pricey, and even after you spend the cash to do that, you've still got an old helmet.

So, I've been looking around, and I found a very good bargain on select models of the Shoei GT Air. It seems that a handful of the solid colour models are being phased out, and prices knocked down. Funny, because the GT Air line has only been around for 2 years.

Everywhere I looked, this helmet was €529. For the same helmet with flashy graphics, €579. That's a lot of coin. How much did I pay?  Well, the giant Louis store just north of Tegel airport had solid colours on for €399 (red, yellow, or silver). To compare with Canadian/American prices, Revzilla has the identical plain silver GT Air for $549 USD right now.

This is a premium helmet with a clear face shield and an integrated Pinlock insert to prevent fogging. This fancy helmet also has built-in, spring-loaded, drop-down sun shades like a fighter pilot's helmet. Way cool.

OK, enough with the keyboard diarrhea, let's get to the point:


Pros: 

• By far, this is the quietest helmet I have ever worn. It's seriously quiet. Really. Can't emphasize this enough. Well done, Shoei. 

• The fit is excellent. But this is subjective. It fits my head, and that is key.

• Ventilation is very good. Not awesome, but very good. There are two intake vents: chin and forehead. There is one exhaust vent at the top, rear of the helmet.

• The Pinlock visor is awesome. No fogging at all.  I did notice that when I wear my glasses (I don't always wear them as my vision isn't that bad) my glasses fogged up a little one particularly cool morning this week. Note that it was my glasses fogging, not the visor. I removed the chin skirt though, and no more foggy glasses! I may try the chin skirt again as the weather gets colder.

• The Euro-version of this helmet uses Shoei's quick-release mini-ratchet locking clip mechanism to fasten the chin strap. It's pretty cool in that it's easy to fasten and unfasten. There's a con, though. See next section.

Cons:

• The mini-ratchet locking clip mechanism seems to be positioned too far back -- what I mean is that it digs into my throat rather than hugging under my jaw/chin. It's like they mounted the anchor points too far back on the sides of the helmet, so that the buckle is sitting against my Adam's apple. I find I am leaving it adjusted rather loose just so that I can slide it forward to keep from choking me. I think I prefer the old fashioned, tried-and-true long strap with double D-rings. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually.

• Aside from the comfort issue with the chin strap buckle, I really can't find any real fault with this new helmet. 

• If I wanted to really nitpick, I might say that the lip for raising the visor is a little small. Pretty minor annoyance. However, the visor itself is very, very good with excellent feel through the movement during opening and closing. Top quality visor all around.

Kouba lowering link, Rally Raid shock collar, and other farkles

Some parcels arrived in the mail this week. A box from KTMTwins.com, and a box from Rally-Raid-Products-UK:

• Kouba 1" Lowering Link
• Radiator fan sensor switch 88 Celsius
• Heavy Duty stainless steel shock collar
• Fuel injector hex bolts and spacers upgrade kit

While there were a couple more items in the packages, I only had time today to install the items listed above. The rest will have to wait until next weekend.

Over a beer last evening, I started to think and plan the work required to install these pieces. Since I would need to remove the rear shock to swap out the flimsy aluminium collar for the very beefy stainless steel piece from Rally Raid, and since I was also planning to switch out the suspension lower link for the Kouba unit, I first thought it would be good to remove all of it at once... to gut the entire rear suspension. Then after thinking about it for a while, I figured it might be smarter to do the jobs separately. Probably didn't matter much, but I decided to do the shock collar first, and not remove the lower link until the shock was all done and re-installed.  Once that was done, I then proceeded to remove and swap out the lower linkage. My plan worked out well enough and everything went together nicely. The end result is that the bike sits about 1" lower than before. For my 32" inseam, I'm still on my tippy toes, but not as much as before. I notice the seat is more level now. Previously, the rear of the seat was significantly higher than the middle part of the seat, causing me to slide forward all the time because of the sloped geometry of the seat position. Now the seat feels flat and level, and my feet are touching the ground a little easier. The side stand is noticeably lower, but does not need to be shortened.

The seriously rugged Rally Raid shock collar on the left,

the flimsy OEM collar on the right.

I used these super heavy-duty zip ties to keep the spring 

compressed a little (put them in place before removing the 

original shock collar, while the spring is still compressed). 

This helps to get the spring seat off without too much swearing 

or cuts on your knuckles.

The shock with the new collar and lock ring in place

Now the shock is back together, and the spring is 

compressed a little so I can now cut the zip ties.

OEM linkage and Kouba side-by-side

The 1" lower Kouba link is actually a little longer than 

the OEM linkage but the end result is that the bike sits 1" lower to the ground.

Linkage removed - left side

Linkage removed - right side

I hung the bike from the ceiling using a pair of tie-down straps.

Kouba link installed.

With the suspension mods finished, it was time to swap out the 

temperature sensor switch for the radiator fan. The OEM sensor 

activates the fan at 105 degrees Celsius. This unit from KTMTwins 

causes the fan to kick in at 88 Celcius. Yes, the fan will be on more

 frequently but the engine will run cooler.

The new sensor switch installed.

I used my ninja skills to swap the fan sensor switch in just a 

couple of seconds, but somehow I still managed to lose about 

1/2 cup of engine coolant. No sweat, I had some of this 

$900 a bottle stuff from Motorex.

Rally Raid UK sells a bolt upgrade kit for securing the fuel injector. 

£11.34 (nearly $20 USD) is pretty steep for two little metric bolts and 

two aluminium spacers but I definitely have more confidence in this hardware 

that the OEM crap. Fortunately my bike is practically new and I didn't have 

any real trouble removing the Philips head bolts. If the bike was old and dirty, 

you'd easily muck up the heads of those cheap bolts and you'd have a nice time 

trying to get them out.  I could feel them getting hacked  up even using my good 

quality screwdriver. Soft metal Philips-head junk.  The Rally Raid pieces are nice 

quality. Piece of mind if I ever need to remove the injector.

The injector held in place with the cheap OEM Philips-head bolts

Injector removed

New sturdy hex bolts holding the injector in place now. 

The aluminium sleeves just slide down inside for a perfect fit.

***** OBSERVATIONS:  I'm no mechanic but I have wrenched on bikes for ~35 years. While I do love this bike and I really admire all of the technology that makes it what it is, I can't help but say nasty things about the fucking engineers who designed this bike. What I'm saying is that it's not the easiest bike to work on.  In order to remove the shock, you need to practically strip the whole bike down to the bear frame. First the rear luggage rack, then the rear fender, the seat, side panels, voltage regulator, the airbox (yes, the fucking airbox on the 2014 model must be removed before you can pivot the fuel tank upward and out of the way), lower fuel tank mount, muffler.  And that's just to get the damn shock removed. For fuck's sakes...  It's times like this that I really miss having my trusty old Suzuki DR650. That bike truly was an easy machine to work on. It's a good thing that I actually enjoy working on motorcycles -- almost as much as I enjoy riding them. I like hanging out in the garage with a cold beer and tinkering late into the evening hours. Relaxes me after a long week in the office. 

Profill fuel filter sock

Cheap insurance to protect against dirt in the fuel injection system is to make sure you've got good filtration. I've always thought having one of those sock filters would be a good way to catch any debris or other shit that might come from the underground storage tanks at the gas station, or other ways crap can find its way into your tank.  As I was filling my DR650 one day a few years ago, a clump of mud fell from the visor of my helmet into the fuel tank. Nice.

Anyway, for $30 plus a couple more bucks for shipping, I ordered one from from Profill-Australia: Specifically, I bought part # MK3 KTM0002 which states that it fits "under" the billet aluminum filler neck that they sell. I have a similar aftermarket filler neck (mine is made by CJ Designs) but it basically mounts the same so I figured it should work. This would not work if you are still using the junk OEM fuel cap. Throw that shit away.

Just under 2 weeks to arrive in the mail. Not bad considering it traveled 1/2 way around the world.

Installation was pretty simple: I removed my aftermarket fuel filler neck, dropped the sock down into the tank, and re-installed the filler neck. The plastic collar around the sock wiggles around a small amount but it can't fall inside the tank, so there's no danger of going anywhere. Total installation time: 5 minutes. 

Thoughts:

The next day, I learned that I had grossly underestimated the annoyance factor in the extra time required to fill the fuel tank. Holy fuck! Ten minutes to get 10 litres into the tank. If I try to squeeze the gas pump nozzle to flow any more than a small dribble, not even a trickle, the result is gasoline spilling everywhere. I expected it to be slow -- but it's beyond ridiculous. Filling up using an eye dropper would be faster. That being said, I do realize I'm whining about first world problems. I'll have to accept extra time at the gas station to keep the fuel system clean.

This arrived in a small bubble-wrap envelope. 

Fabric looks and feels like sating or silk.

Here's my aftermarket filler neck, made by CJ Designs, 

with Acerbis screw cap.

Here I removed the filler neck, and dropped the sock inside the tank. 

The plastic collar on the sock prevents it from falling inside the tank.

Now the filler neck has been re-installed. The sock is sandwiched 

between the top flange of the fuel tank and the billet filler neck. 

Wings slip-on muffler

I wasn't after big sound -- in fact, I've grown to like the quiet stealthiness of the OEM exhaust system. But I don't like the thermo-nuclear temperatures that radiate from the OEM muffler.

I ordered a Wings slip-on directly from the manufacturer's website after a brief exchange of emails with the owner, Gorazd Marovic. He's a very nice guy to deal with. Shipped from his factory in Slovenia, it arrived in Berlin just two days later.  €345 was the total price including shipping. The box contained:

• the muffler
• a short mid-pipe for attaching the muffler to the OEM header pipe
• two pipe clamps
• the muffler hanger clamp with rubber insert
• a small bottle of lube (for the rubber that sits between the hanger and the muffler body)
• a sticker sheet
• a T-shirt 

In my emails back and forth with Gorazd, I asked him to not apply the logo decal plate. Instead, he included it in the box so that I can stick it on myself if I want.

The install was pretty straightforward. I didn't keep track of time, but definitely not more than 30 minutes, and I wasn't rushing.

The OEM nuclear reactor core throws a lot of heat. 

It's also quite heavy... like an anvil. 

This is the baffle insert I decided to use. Sound volume isn't much different 

compared to the stock sound, but the pitch is noticeably deeper.

This is what the pipe clamps look like. I decided to swap out the bolts 

for some stainless steel ones. I had a bunch in my tickle trunk of nuts and bolts.

Installed. 

Here you can see the quiet baffle insert 

inside the sexy carbon end cap.

Here's the before and after sound test recorded with my 
Nikon D3200 DSLR at a distance of 8 feet.

Moto vagabonding

Faced with a long weekend and no plan (and the wife and kids still away for 3 more weeks), I loaded up the Giant Loop Coyote luggage and set out with no destination in mind. Just see where I end up. I hopped on a main highway for about 15 minutes just to get out of Berlin, then it was onto secondary roads through the countryside heading southwest of the city. I did find some nice sandy/grassy double-track roads and managed to ride some 40 Kms or so of exquisite trails in the late morning and early afternoon.

Since the move last year, it seems my new tent has gone missing. Having reluctantly accepted the fact that it's not to be found and I'm out ~ 200 smackers, I went online in search of a bargain. I ended up with this: Mountain Warehouse Backpacker 2 tent

For the €59 price tag, it's not a bad deal. Aluminium poles (much lighter than fiberglass) and quite weatherproof, and packs up small and light. However, I failed to notice the reviews that mentioned how this tent is really made for short people. Not that I'm particularly tall, but if you're taller than the average 10 year old, then it's probably going to be a tight squeeze. Looks like my kids will get a new tent, and I'm shopping again for something more suitable. One other comment I would make about this tent is that it's not well ventilated: specifically, the mosquito netting material doesn't really pass much air. It's a very tight mesh polyester, and I felt like I was suffocating, even with the rain fly zippers and flaps opened up all the way. Bottom line, this tent is hardly practical. Lesson learned.

The Giant Loop Coyote is sitting a little higher and further back than 

normal. That's because I have it strapped to Wolfman side racks.

Lovely 2-track roads -- probably not allowed to be on them. With the stealthy 

exhaust system, I rode quietly and slowly so as not to attract any attention.

Picked up a couple of ice cold wobbly pops at the gas station.