2021 BMW R1250GS TE Review-The ULTIMATE Adventure Motorcycle
So we’re no strangers to BMW R1250GS motorcycles on this channel. We’ve had the R1250 RT recently. The R18, the R18 classic, the urban GS, the proper are 90, and the sporty one. So, I’ve had plenty of time in the saddle on beamers, but I’ve been saving myself for the proper big complete fat GS.
BMW lent me this one for a couple of weeks, but previous to that, you know the 11:50 or 1200 GS have never ridden them now. Part of the reason is that we used to live in London and I didn’t. I think I could. Do it just this on urban roads, and even the streets around London aren’t mainly.
Be adventurous, but now that we’ve moved to the Bristol area, we’re just over the bridge from South Wales. I think this is the. BMW R1250GS Previously, you know you expect them to be proper good all-rounders, so touring motorway work a bit of fun on the Twisties and also able to take on a bit.
Around here, you’ve got plenty of that stuff. Plenty of great be roads, and you even have to do a bit of motorway across the bridge to get out here and look. I wanted to give it a proper good test because this is by far and away from the UK’s best-selling motorcycle by a considerable stretch.
So the GS adventure last year and like plenty of years previous is that.
Top seller the GS in its standard form like this, the second most popular, and then in 3rd is the Royal Enfield Interceptor 6.
50 Now, that’s pretty mad that the top 2 sellers are essentially the same bike in a different spec, and so if you combine them, there’s over double the sales of the 3rd place bike. And I am keeping in mind as well that the Royal Enfield. Interceptor to a price, so you’d expect it.
So in higher volumes this bike and the GS adventure, by the time they’ve left the dealer and being with all manner of accessories, you know you’re looking at three or four times the value of the interceptor. This 1250 GS with the. Triple black and the spoke wheels and the options 719 stuff and all sorts of extras, and it’s just shy of 21 grand.
Per bike, so it’s either. Exceptionally good or BMW R1250GS or doing some magic in the marketing department and look after two weeks of riding it.Or maybe like 5 minutes after I got on it. Urban GS over to BMW R1250GS to pick this up. I swapped the bikes back to back for two or 2 to 1/2 hours on the urban GS on the motorway. You know it starts to take its toll.
I linked to that video in the description because it’s just serene in the cockpit even when you’re doing 70 or 80.
And then also had the Goldwing last year again beautiful bike to ride on the motorway, and when you look at this, it seems a lot more compact in the windscreen and the wind protection. So I wasn’t expecting it to be.
Be as quiet or comfortable, but honestly, I think it’s about 95% there in the contract that the RT delivers on the motorway. Sure, you don’t have the kind of like ample wind protection at the sides here, but the handguards do a decent job, and this screen has a little cut out here. It’s a V shape, so it does an excellent job directing the window over your head.
You still get a little bit of noise. It’s not as quiet as the. Party, but what’s great about that is you get good visibility even with the screen in its highest position. BMW R1250GS The tank and bodyworker are also pretty bulbous, so your legs don’t protrude particularly far.
And then on this TE, you’ve got the cruise control, heated grips, and on top of that, this one got the heated seat as well, so it’s a snug little cozy place to be even on those slightly chilly or damp days. This seat also feels nicely punted.
There’s a bit more cushioning and squished to it than other bikes that I’ve tried recently, and I also really like the handlebar position on this bike. The grips feel a little further back than a lot of the stuff that I’ve written recently, and that means.
That, I mean, look, my back is pretty much straight up right now.
It is the TE model you get BMW dynamic ESA which is their semi-active electronically adjustable suspension. Monoshock at the rear, but it’s pretty typical of a lot of bikes on the. Course there’s a. Big price difference.
It is one of the standout features, and this is not just me being like neuter semi-active suspension and getting all that excited about it. I’ve ridden it on other bikes. I’ve got that super adventuress from KTM at the moment. It’s good on that bike.
It’s pretty decent, but I noticed that sometimes the rear feels a bit bouncy on the motorway because it softened it up in the automatic mode. So then I’m going into the menus and trying to find a good setting that feels right to me, but this bike I’ve just left it in auto the whole time.
I’ve just never found a situation where it hasn’t performed as I’d want it. It’s just that magic combination of super comfortable but excellent handling, even for a big. You’ve got a wishbone-type thing and a mono-shock that’s responsible for the suspension.
Duties that leave what looks like the fork legs to deal with steering and the breaking forces separating the suspension and breaking and turning assignments transform how this bike feels at the front end.
BMW R1250GS And what I get from it is just like an immaculate and precise feel to the steering.
And there’s quite a lot less dive under heavy braking, which can be a massive asset if you ride in like two-up with luggage. So combined with the semi-active suspension, I think it makes for this like-winning combo that delivers a bike that handles far better. It would now, in terms of the.
Engine, of course. We’ve got the famous boxer twin here, and I’ve got to say it’s starting to look a little underpowered on the spec sheets versus stuff like the multi Strat. V4 the KTM 1290 Super Adventuress, and also, you know the Tiger 1200 is probably going to be updated soon, and look at the speed triple.
They’ve pushed that up to 180 horses, so I’d imagine we’ll see a bit of a bump in part on the Tiger 1200 as well. 136 horsepower from this engine, but honestly, I think that’s enough for this kind of bike.
Even with 250 kilograms ish wait, it will get you up to 100 briskly without you even.
Realizing it now, the strength of the boxer twin for me is the smoothness.
As I said, I’ve got the Super Adventure S in the garage at the moment, and it does have that extra bit of part at the top. But being a large capacity V twin, of course, it’s got a bit of a rumble to it, and this engine feels super creamy and smooth in comparison. I think you have to ask yourself if you buy a big adventure.
Right like this? What sort of engine do you want? Do you want something with around to it, and you know that character that V twins have? Or do you want something like this where it’s purring along? Smoothly and when you’re on the motorway at 70 with the cruise control on, you can barely feel that it’s going, and look, it does have the shifting context, so that’s their variable.
So at a moderate throttle, you’ve got plenty of talks and plenty of efficiencies. But as you open it up, it will start to give you that top-end power. Again, it’s totally smooth, totally seamless. There’s no step as you wind the throttle on.
But it does. Give you like plenty of power to it. I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever been bored riding this bike needing more power. But check this out and keep that smoothness in mind. As for the exhaust note, we’ve got the titanium, a crop of each accessory on this press bike.
If we didn’t talk about the tech and accessories, a GS review, and this press bike, we’ve got the TFT dash with multimedia connectivity.
BMWs dashes are some of the best in the business in terms.
Of the quality.The display, but also the design and layout of the interface. I think it’s super easy to read and quite stylish. BMW R1250GS I think they inherit some of the kind of styling and branding from their cars through that you can manage all the riding modes, and this being the T addition, it gets like dynamic riding mode and all that stuff so you can customize. From the rear end, so hopefully kind of like rear-end impacts when you’re breaking.
We are coming up to a junction. In a lesson on this bike, I have no data to prove that, but it just seems to make sense to me to have that vast difference when the brake light comes on cruise control, which is an absolute must for me on a bike like this. It works nicely.
It’s the standard kind of BMW setup, so you’ve got a toggle that slides across to switch it on set or resume and nudge it up and down by one mile per hour. That’s another feature, along with the ESA, that makes the TE a very tempting proposition for me. There’s keyless ignition where the steering lock and the fuel filler cap A few videos recently.
BMW R1250GS That I used to kind of hate keyless, just found it unnecessary but actually.
The more I’m riding now that I’m full-time YouTube in, I have started to quite like it, especially when you’ve got everything integrated properly. Tire pressure monitoring system. You’ve got the emergency SOS button here as well, so you can get help if you have a spill. One does for those of you who like a splash of color; you’ve got that more like rally job or the 40 years edition.
I think on the front of the engine, on the cylinder heads, the footpegs, and foot controls. There you’ve got that cover. As well, spoked wheels are standard. The GS adventure, but they’re an accessory on this standard GS model.
My point for this video is that the accessories catalog is massive for the GS, so if there are little bits of tech you’ve seen from other manufacturers. Does it feel at the cutting edge of motorcycling when you ride in it? Apart from that, I always like to mention a few shortcomings at the end of my videos to make sure you know that I’m critical in some capacity.
It doesn’t have adaptive cruise control; they’ve got it on the RT. I tested it out. I thought it was pretty good, and it comes as standard on the Super adventuress from KTM. It works well on that bike as well.
For me, it just transforms the experience of motorway riding, and I know that some people think that it means you’re going to take your eyes off the road or concentrate less,
To me, it leaves you to focus on what’s happening around you. I take it on a bike like this where you’re going to put in those big miles. It feels like it’s only a matter of time. They probably have to redesign the front end to accommodate the radar, but it has to be coming to this bike scene, and I think it’s going to be a huge benefit to it. I hope more people get a chance to try. Out soon, let me know what you think of it if you have.
And it’s not that nicely finished from an aesthetic perspective. Look at the Super Adventure S, for example.
It’s just and a little bit more pleasing to look at, And that’s a part of the bike. I suppose if you want to make some running repairs. Lastly, the price, I mean is it worth 21 grand. I don’t know if I could say that the price is necessarily high because you get so much bike and tech for your money. The problem is more that I don’t have 21 grand to buy one.
Thank for watching
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