H
aving ridden and been pretty impressed with
BMW’s naked streetfighter-styled G310R some
weeks ago, I was looking forward to riding the
G310GS. I was keen to see if BMW had been
able to turn the same punchy little single into a
decent entry-level adventure machine capable of
traversing the city streets, open road highways and
back-country gravel roads of NZ, as many target-
buyers for the G310GS would probably want to do.
After a 150km jaunt one weekend morning,
covering a cross section of the aforementioned
roads, I can confirm the wee GS did itself proud.
The GS’ 313cc rear leaning single cylinder engine
86KIWI RIDER
SECOND OPINION
works well in the bike and, as in the 310R, provides
a decent amount of power to allow you to enjoy
both short and longer distance excursions. It’s
very quiet on start-up and at low revs, then quietly
‘barks’ once you nudge past 5000rpm. The engine
is smooth in typical use, only getting vibey later
in the rev range. At around 170kg wet it’s not
super light, but 34hp from the 310 is enough to
provide decent acceleration for a bike of it’s size.
While the 310R was well designed and set-up as a
flickable little sports bike, in the G310GS BMW has
created a very good small-bore version of their
larger GS ranges, the bike not only looking the part,