A GLORIOUS NEW CHAPTER

Since 1980, the GS has evolved from the niche Dakarinspired R 80 G/S to the global blockbuster that is the R 1250 GS, in all its many guises. The GS platform has become the most refined and evolved in two-wheel history, with each new iteration reconfigured into a marginally more capable, versatile, and desirable adventure machine. Except that now those Germans have gone and torn it all up-started again as if the last four decades meant nothing, because the R 1300 GS is, from top to bottom, a brand-new motorcycle

- Adam Child 'Chad'

YOU DO NOT NEED me to tell you how BMW’s R/GS has shaped the biking landscape over the last 43 or so years. Unless you have been living in a remote jungle in South America, it will be the familiar boxer rumble of the R 1250 GS (and R 1200 GS and R 1150 GS...) that soundtracks your and everyone else’s summer days. They are everywhere, these GS things, and everywhere because they are brilliant.

Where to start? The R 1300 GS (and it is exactly 1,300 cubic centimeters) is more powerful and has more torque than the R 1250 it replaces. It is lighter, has a new frame, slicker packaging, a rethought boxer engine, is more adjustable, and carries an armoury of electronic technology barely imaginable a few years ago. Perhaps, most shocking of all, there is a new flat-tank look too; one that echoes the HP2 Enduro of the early 21st century and hints at more performance too.

We flew to Malaga in Spain for two days and nearly 500-kilometer testing, both on and off-road, to put it through its paces, but with a hatful of model variants due, plus so much new technology and so many tweaks, upgrades, and general improvements—not to mention enough bundles, packs, and optional extras to send the BMW configurator into meltdown—we barely scratched the surface of this new-generation GS.