BMW’s GS adventure bike has been an unadulterated success since the original R 80 G/S made an inauspicious debut in 1980.
Paris Dakar rallying success gave the original model credibility, but it would take over two decades before the GS phenomenon would make the big boxer powered machines a true global success.
Don’t get us wrong, the big GS (which stood for Gelände/Straße, or off-road/street) was critically acclaimed from the outset but was something of a cult bike in its formative years. Sports bikes, and sports tourers, ruled the roost, while BMWs were seen by many British buyers as somewhat frumpy and old-fashioned against the Japanese multi-cylinder machines. The dual purpose GS was an oddball which never really caught the mainstream imagination.
Some credit 2004’s Long Way Round, the TV series in which Hollywood star Ewan McGregor and his mate Charley Boorman travelled the world on a pair of R 1150 GSs, as the moment when the world woke up to the versatility of the adventure tourer in general, and the GS in particular, and while whether or not the model would have been such a success without that global promotion remains a matter for debate, there’s no doubt that bikers have been abandoning their sports bikes ever since. Now known as ‘adventure bikes’ the GS blazed a trail for a fad which shows no sign of declining two decades on, with models like the Ducati Multistrada and Triumph Tiger jumping on the bandwagon and proving massive successes themselves.
The current R 1250 GS and its predecessors have long featured at the top of UK sales charts for years now, and BMW has announced that over a million boxer twin powered GSs (that’s the R80GS, R100GS, R850GS, R1100GS, R1150GS, R1200GS and R1250GS) have now been built, as well as confirming that a much rumoured new 1300cc boxer is on its way.
BMW’s statement says that an R 1300 GS will be unveiled at the company’s BMW Motorrad Welt opening event, which is being held in Berlin on 28 September. The new visitor centre is being opened next to the motorcycle factory in Berlin-Spandau, and coincides with the brand’s centenary year. No other details have been released as yet, but we can safely assume the 1300 will supersede the current 1250 powerplant across the range over the next few years.
