Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127585
eTEST BMW RIOOGS ~ By Kit Palmer Photos by Kinney Jones he BMW R100GS isn't your ave rage d ual sport b ike. In fact, mo st dual sport en thu siasts do n't consider the big and heavy GS to be a d ual sport bike at all. For the most pa rt, they regard it as a street bike tha t can take to the d irt if the situation arises. O kay, we're the first to ad m it th a t th ose p eople h av e a goo d argume n t, but there are two schools of thought wh en it comes to the term "dual spo rt." To most, it mean s bein g able to rid e your s tree t-legal dirt b ike fro m you r garage to nea rby forests or mountains or cany ons where you ca n th en pretend you 're National Enduro Champion Rand y Hawkins for a day - either riding at a fast clip or at a leisurely pace. Dual sport to these peop le means wa n ting lightweight, good handling and pe rformance-mi nded motorcycles, and, for the most part, they are more interested in the tra il itself than where the trail can actually take them . .To others, the term dual spo rt means so methi ng en tirely differ ent. It mea ns explo ring far-off places; checking ou t the scenery; going away on week- or perhaps month-long adventures. It means req uiring a d ifferen t kind of mo torcycle - a motorcycle that is capable of goi ng all day on a. tank of gas, that is ext re me ly reliable, can carry a heavy load and, of course, can be legally rid den on the street as well as on the dirt, as long as those dirt roads aren't too gna rly. And those people are not in a hurry. They wan t to go pla ces and see th e sig h ts a nd are less likely to be conce rne d ab ou t the actual trail itself. Enter the BMW R100GS. Here's a motorcycle that is cho mping at the bit to go somewhere - somewhere far away. Perhaps to Eskimo country, by way of th e Alaska n Hi ghway, or way down south to the tip of Mexico, via the Pan-American Highway with a sid etrip through Copper Canyon, or across the good 01' US.A. on "back" roads. If this is your interpretation of dual sport, then BMW just might have the bike(s) for you. The German ma nu factu rer offers not one, but two, models of what we would call ideal "adventure spo rt," or "off-road tou rin g" mot orcycles - the RlOOGS and th e R100 GS Pa ri s -D akar, co m mon ly referred to as "P -D." Both bik es are of si m ila r d esign, po were d by th e sa me four-strok e, horizontally op posed , twocylinder, four-valve, air -cooled Boxer motor and carried in the sa me tubu lar steel, d ouble front d owntube frames. The firs t BMW off-road model appea red in 1980 as the 800cc RBOGS. The RBOGS has since evolved in to th e 980cc R100GS, whi ch made its debut in 1987. Basically, the "standard " GS an d the p oD a re the sa me motorcycl es, ex ce p t that the poD has a few extra ind emnities for more extreme adventures, such as a much larger gas tank, a solo seat, a bigger lu ggage rack, heated grips, s torage compartments, bag mounts and plastic hand and engine-ca se p rotectors . O f course, those extras also mean a bigger ove rall price tag fo r th e p oD m od e l, which carries a $8790 suggested retail p rice tag, while in comparison the GS sells for $7790. One other big d ifference, a t leas t for T ... ;;. . 14 . .' • The SOo-plus pound BMW RIOOGS might not be the n umber-one choice for challenging dual sport rid es like the Blackwater 200, but if your plans ca ll for lei su rely on/off-road adventu res to far off places, then it just might be the ideal moto rcycle.