I won’t let the cat out of
the bag quite yet, but the
fuel economy of this big
adventure machine quite
opened our eyes
MW’s R1250GS Adventure, or GSA for
short, is big. Real big. A behemoth among
its adventure motorcycling brethren. Take a
moment to cast your gaze forwards over the seat
from the back of the bike… it’s simply gigantic. To
be honest, I wasn’t particularly looking forward
to riding it – there’s just so much of it. A couple
of weeks before I’d had a blast riding down to
Napier to watch Nitro Circus aboard the standard
GS, which is no small motorcycle in itself. Down
the SH5 through Tarawera it was fast and
confident. I’d had so much fun on the ‘small’ bike
that I expected the 19kg heavier GSA to be, quite
frankly, a bit of a bus.
Despite my misgivings, tester Jock reckoned
the big GS was a real hoot after he’d been for a
quick spin on it. A couple of mates were planning
a weekend lap of Mt Taranaki, heading down
through the Forgotten World Highway, overnight
at Opunake, breakfast in New Plymouth and then
a spin back up along the curving greatness that is
SH3 and SH39. I figured a decent trip with some
motorway, twisty-uppy-downy seal and some
gravel would be an excellent test of the new GSA,
so tagged along for the ride.
ENGINE
I’ll throw some numbers at you. 268Kg fuelled-
up. 30-litres of 95RON fuel (auto-sensing from
91-98RON). 890mm seat height in the ‘low’
setting. 100kW or 136hp of stump pulling
power courtesy of 143Nm of torque. It’s a tall,
heavy and rather powerful portion of Bavarian
bratwurst.
Before we get into the riding nitty-gritty, let’s
take a look at what’s new for ‘19. The heart
of the GSA is the same new Shift-Cam engine
that’s in the 1250GS. It features variable valve-
timing for good torque and power at all revs and
asynchoronous valve stroke on the intake side
of things. According to BMW having one intake
valve open further than the other promotes
cylinder filling, which improves efficiency. I won’t
let the cat out of the bag quite yet, but the fuel
economy of this big adventure machine quite
opened our eyes.
KIWI RIDER 55