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BMW R 1200 GSA Print E-mail
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Split Decision
BMW’s R 1200 GSAdventure opens up the eastern Sierra Nevada for gritty exploration. 

By Grant Davis
bmw1.jpg
Photo by Peter Dawson
While riding the winding dirt road through the Flintstones-scape of the Alabama Hills between Lone Pine, California, and Mount Whitney, I suddenly realized that the BMW R 1200 GS Adventure (GSA) had achieved its raison d’être. I’d just motored 150 miles through the triple-digit heat of the Mojave Desert on blacktop that felt like the world’s largest hot plate. Then I detoured a few miles down a dirt track and ended up in a cathedral of curving sandstone boul- ders with no one in sight except two F-18 fighter jets practicing dogfights 20,000 feet above me. There’s no way I could have reached this spot on a Harley cruiser, and there’s no way I would’ve ridden across the Mojave on a Honda dirt bike. BMW, however, created its GSA bike expressly for all-surface expeditions like this.

“This” was a four-day round-trip from Los Angeles, up along the eastern ramparts of the Sierra Nevada to the east gate of Yosemite, with days of romping and whooping over the paved and unpaved roads of the Owens River Valley. It’s the land where snowcapped peaks meet one of the most brutal deserts in the world—in other words, the ultimate testing ground for the GSA. Sandy dry lake beds? Check. Boulder-strewn jeep tracks up granite mountains? Yup. Empty paved straightaways for 100-plus-mile-per-hour speed runs? Oh my God, yes. Think of the GSA as a Range Rover on two wheels, except the bike moves a hell of a lot quicker on pavement.

bmw_moto_factbox.gifBMW rigged this 564-pound, seemingly indestructible machine to rip through dirt, rock, mud, and water crossings, with nine and a half inches of ground clear- ance on the front shocks, dual- purpose Metzler tires, and an upright cockpit that makes it easy to stand on the foot pegs and zip over terra infirma. Those specs, coupled with a supersize 8.7-gallon gas tank, make for a bike I could confidently ride 150 miles into nowhere, knowing full well I had enough fuel to get myself back out. No wonder people choose it on rides through Mongolia, Tibet, and Patagonia.

But that’s just one half of the GSA. The bike is also built for Germany’s autobahn, with a massive 1170cc, 100-horsepower engine. That’s overkill for most U.S. highways but entertaining on deserted stretches of road. Through wide- open desert expanses, the two- cylinder Boxer powerplant purred along at 80 miles per hour, jumping to 100 in a snap to whip past slow-moving RVs and well over 110 before I realized I was going that fast.
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