GS Adventures, or Boys Just Like to Play in the Dirt
Greetings!
March 4, 2002
First of all, check out my photos at http://www.fototime.com/inv/87C17E0934D3CDF
Writin' to ya here from a nice 50's themed restaurant in Inverness, Floriduh. Feeling has returned to most of my body, especially my poor ol' arthritic back, so I think that I survived yesterday.
Several weeks ago I became aware that BMW was going to do a photo shoot in the Ocala Nat'l Forest. BMW motorcycles has had a policy of using real riders in their ads for the last several years; in fact a buddy of mine has been the poster boy for the K1200LT luxo heavyweight touring bike. (No accounting for taste, I guess ;) So I signed up. Hey, I figured this would be a hoot!
Well, this gig would celebrate the GS style BMW bikes, which is a bit of a cult within a cult. GS is short for Gelände Strasse, which is basically German for trails and street. Woods and highway. 'gator infested swamp and I-95 through Miami during rush-hour. You get the picture.
A bit of history here: BMW started making the first GS bikes something like 15-20 years ago. They started out with the R80G/S and the R100GS, and concluded that range with the Paris Dakar edition of the R100GS to commemorate BMW's participation in the legendary cross country race of the same name. In the early nineties the airhead GS got phased out in favour of the oilhead, high tech GS. This was the R1100GS, of which ol' John's faithful stead the Robomantis is an example thereof. The R1100 was much more electronic than the R100, and much bigger. Almost too big to take offroad, the cynics said.
A few years ago the R1100GS got morphed into the updated R1150GS. And along the lines BMW started to sell a completely different line of bikes to complement the existing lines, and partially to answer those pholks who thought that the oilheads were too big. The original F650 didn't actooly get the GS designation although it was clearly styled in the same manner and had on/offroad tyres. Now with the 2nd generation F650 (introduced last year) there's a gen-U-wine F650GS with extended suspension travel, and knobby tyres.
This event was the US introduction of the R1150GS Adventure, which is a R1150 with all sorts of neat stuff for adventure travelers: lower gearing (for slow climbing or plowing fields -- it's your call), modifications to allow it to be run on low octane fuel, a bulbous fuel tank, and a scad of other details. Nice bikes!
For more detail on the GS bikes I suggest that you check out http://www.micapeak.com/bmw/gs/
Well ... we came, we saw, and we generally got conquered by the sand and mud of the Ocala National Forest.
Here in Floriduh seeing a bahr or 'gator isn't necessarily a bad thing. It means the mosquitos didn't eat 'em alive. Never saw a bahr nor a 'gator, let's put it that-a-way, although I did see several signs warning about hitting a bahr crossing the road. (And Brother, if you think hitting a deer is nasty, just imagine what it's gonna be like running into a pissed off black bear late at night ;)
And it rained. Man alive, did it rain! The "fun" actooly got cut short because the rain was turning the sand and clay trails into the Floriduh equivalent of a skating rink.
I fell. Hit a pile of sand and augured in. Got up, signaled for a field goal, and the three guys who were behind me helped pick up the Robomantis. No damage done and I was on the way.
One gent fell early and broke an ankle. Ouch.
All in all I'd estimate that at least a third of the riders fell, although one guy wrote that he felt that he was the only one who didn't fall. Must have been some serious carnage going on in parts of the group that I missed!
But we did have fun! Honestly. We had a good time, and tested the limits of our abilities and our bikes.
There were some celebrities in attendance. Helge Peterson, who has a very popular book about his around the World motorcycle travels called 10 Years on Two Wheels, was amongst us. So was Jimmy Lewis, offroad motorcyclist extraordinaire and a strong contender in the legendary Paris Dakar race.
At Sunday night's dinner Helge came over and sat next to me and we had a chance to shoot the breeze. I found Helge to be an extremely cordial gent and, or course, he's seen just about everything there is to see around the World. We were given autographed copies of his book and I must say that it's a fascinating read. Drop him a line at http://www.globeriders.com/ and tell him that ol' John said "Howdy!" Helge does a slide show at Bike Week and other venues and even organizes trips for customers (I think that he's putting together one bound for China right now) so if you get a chance to see him definitely go to his show. Or book a trip.
What can I say about Jimmy Lewis? He made us all look slack! Jimmy rode into
the worst part of the worst sandtrap, stopped, shot the breeze, and powered
on up the hill, taking the time to shower a photographer with sand to give him
a good shot. And me? I played spectator on that bit of real estate, along with
most of the R11 and R11.5 riders. Everyone that tried to ride that particular
hill blasted up it with mixed success; most fell. Very impressive! Jimmy runs
a school for offroad riders and is the offroad editor for Cycle World Magazine.
Quite a talented guy. Catch him at
http://www.jimmylewisracing.com/
Like I mentioned earlier, Saturday's ride got cut a bit short by one of those torrential rains that Florida is notorious for. And in addition to being damp, the next day dropped down to a very un-Florida-like 32 degrees. Brrrrrrr ... Made those Canadians feel right at home! At least it slowed down the mosquitos and 'gators enuf that we could escape the Ocala Forest.
I think that everyone who attended came away with an appreciation for what the GS bikes can do, in the right hands. Most of us also realized that we had a lot to learn about sand and offroad riding ;)
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