RIDE REVIEW I 2024 BMW R 1300 GS
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SEVEN LONG YEARS
That's how long the new GS has been in
development. Seven years! In that time,
BMW released a new line of cruisers,
a new electric scooter line, debuted M-
spec superbikes and naked bikes, and
even gave the 1250 a facelift in 2018.
There are only two part numbers
carried over from the R 1250 GS,
not including the throttle bodies.
Everything else is new and can't be
swapped over. But rather than pursue
the narrative of maxi-ADVs getting
bigger with every passing generation,
BMW's brief to its designers was to make it
(Above) The gearbox
is now mounted under
the engine—a first for
the GS—and has given
designers an enormous
amount of space with
which to route the new
exhaust. (Below) The new
LED headlight has high
and low beams in one unit
but also has a cornering
function. The turn signals
are now located in the
hand guards.
smaller in every aspect while still get-
ting the most performance possible.
"We were thinking, what could we
really change in the general techni-
cal concept?" says Christian Hahn-
Woernle of BMW Motorrad's Design
team. "And we finally came up with a
combination of two concepts which
are normally rivals and don't really
work with each other—integration
and modularity. In terms of integra
-
tion, first of all, we take all the critical,
essential parts and try to arrange and
package them in the most efficient
way possible to create this small bike.
But we also designed each of these
parts, especially for this very bike and
for this very purpose.
"In terms of modularity, we had to
design the bike so that each part works
all together. So that means if you take
any part of this parcel away, the whole
thing will fall to pieces. Or the other way
around, if you would take any of these
pieces, you couldn't fit it onto another
bike. This was a different approach
compared to the 1250 GS, which was
more a conglomerate of devices."
A look at the R 1250 GS and new
R 1300 GS side-by-side confirms this
approach. The 1300 is dramatically
slimmer in almost every area—from
the front beak housing a new all-in-one
X-shaped headlight to the skinnier tank
and eye-catching cast aluminum tail
section, nothing has been untouched
by the designer's pen.
