Bmw R1100gs
BMW R1100GS
'94 PREVIEW
DUAL-PURPOSE DONE DIFFERENTLY
JUST HOW WEIRD IS BMW’S NEW R1100GS DUAL-PUR-pose bike? The official line, espoused in the company’s European press kit, is that the GS “creates a touch of power and control ease, making do entirely without short-lived features which would merely express fleeting fashion trends.”
Translation, please? “I think they wanted to make it look like a two-wheeled pack horse; which is how people use the bike. It’s an adventure tourer, it looks like it has a purpose,” says Rob Mitchell, BMW’s U.S. press spokesman.
The second bike to carry the Type R259 cam-in-head,
air-and-oil-cooled Boxer Twin and be equipped with BMW’s innovative Telelever front suspension, the GS makes the avant-garde RI 100RS sport-tourer look positively pokey by comparison. Chief among the new Beemer’s styling licks are tire-hugging inner mudguards front and rear, capped off by a proboscis of a front fender that protrudes from a headlight/windscreen/instrument cluster mounted about a foot ahead of the top triple clamp. Jimmy Durante would love it.
Some interesting technical features back up the GS’s curious looks. While the fuel-injected, four-valve-per-cylinder
engine displaces the same 1085cc as the RS model, 10 horsepower has been lopped off (now a claimed 80 versus the RS’s 90), courtesy of different camshafts, altered valve timing, lower compression ratio (10.3:1 against 10.7:1) and a remapped engine-management system. Torque increases from 70 foot-pounds at 5500 rpm to 72 at 5250.
A departure from the old-style R100GS (still available in ’94), which used a single-disc front brake, is the new GS’s dual-disc setup, identical to the RllOORS’s. For the first
time, anti-lock braking will be available on a dual-purpose bike, with BMW’s ABS II offered as an option. The GS system differs from the street-only version in that it can be deactivated by the rider for off-road riding, where ABS can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help.
Technical features aside, the big question surrounding the 1994 GS centers on its styling. BMW’s big on/off-road Twin has always been something of a cult bike, valued as much for its off-beat styling as for its versatility and lef sgo-around-the-world disposition. As Robert Heilman, editor of the BMW Riders’ Association newsletter On the Level, and a GS disciple, says, “It’s a safari-jacket kind of bike for people who like the idea of being able to ride down to Tierra
del Fuego. That’s definitely part of the appeal.”
Since the 1980 introduction of the R80G/S, 62,000 riders have bought into that concept, and it seems likely that with the RI 100GS the beat will go on.
