Commute to London - Bike vs Train

I don't know the CF brand, but only £4999 including panniers. Looks ok too.

Are Chinese tyres are any good? Is it like when you bought a Japanese bike back in the 70s/80s and you junked the Yokohamas/Bridgestones for Dunlops?

One thing I didn't expect through riding my bike in was that I'd become a hermit. Doesn't have to happen and it might be more an age thing, but when I started riding in I obviously didn't participate in the after work pint ritual. I was always looking forward to being on the bike on the way home so I saved loads of money, stopped getting fat but nobody asks me to go for a quick pint anymore. Win!

It does make logistics around leaving drinks, Christmas dos etc more painful but the benefits far outweigh the cons.

Another big benefit was not having a £500 quid a month commitment on my salary when I applied for the mortgage.

Oh and get used to people saying you'll end up dead every time they find out that you ride in. Non bike people won't get it and give you the usual my dad's, aunts dog died in 1963 on a bike lecture.

How did you find the GS as a commuter in central London? I'm going to test ride one in a couple of weeks and I've always thought that they looked much to big to work well as commuters.

When I was an instructor one of the other lads ran a CF Moto - the one that looks like a Pan European that's shrunk in the wash. It came with Continentals as the OEM tyre, so not some no name tyre you've never heard of. It was used daily in Central London, as an instructor you tend to ride slowly due to the students and the clutch gets a lot of use. It did fine. As a cheap bike you'd need to douse it in ACF50 but that's no different to a cheap Japanese bike.

It was smooth (if not the most powerful) and the weather protection was ace. Plus it had two built in hard panniers for all your stuff. If I was looking for a big miles commuter I'd seriously consider one - as the poster says, anything over 30K is often worthless anyway.

I find it spot on. When you test ride one you'll find that it has a tight turning circle, and with quite low down weight it is very stable and easy to manoeuvre. Slow riding on the GS is so easy. There is the size of it though! My commute (M25, A20, A2 then London Bridge in to The City) is generally on wide roads and I almost never find a situation that I can't get through that a smaller bike could. But, I imagine on some other routes, on smaller/narrower roads that may not be the case. Of course it isn't as agile as a scooter or a small bike but I think that's countered by comfort, road presence and better at anything over 20mph. Also, it's hard to miss a GS so it feels quite safe (relatively).

Horses for courses and all that, smaller bikes will deliver better mpg and maybe, very occasionally, get through a gap I can't but for me it's the perfect commuter bike

I commuted for almost 8 years from rural Suffolk to the South Bank near Waterloo, 75 miles each way. I rode from mid March to late October each year.

The journey times on the bike were only a little less than the journey times by train (door to door), especially if you included the time to put riding kit on and take riding kit off. Where the bike won, hands down, was two fold. Firstly, it was the best way to unwind at the end of the work day. Even in poor weather it still allowed me to quickly and easily remove work from my head.

The second thing was the ability to leave (or stay) whenever I wanted. My day was not dictated by someone else's timetable and leaving 5 minutes later (to finish a job) got me home 5 minutes later, not 35 minutes later because I'd missed one train and had to wait for another.

I was however, very glad I'd chosen a decent bike (56k miles on one K1300S, 50k miles on another K1300S and 15k miles on an H2 SX SE) for the job as riding home was a pleasure, not a commuting chore. I could have chosen a cheaper bike but that would have reduced the enjoyment thus reduced the benefit. For me, the extra money was well spent.

If I'm honest, with tyres, servicing, depreciation, kit etc. the bike was only a little cheaper than the train, but what cost sanity?

Out of interest what route do you take home? Embankment, Tower Bridge, Limehouse?

I always go back the way I came in but is it quicker to Blackwall tunnel it? I've just had a look and Google is trying to take me that way.

Depending on my mood/traffic I either go down Canon St & along Highway/Limehouse to the Blackwall tunnel (sometimes down the A13, come back over the bridge and then pick up the M20 but only if its a nice day, not too much traffic) or via London Wall, Commercial Road - going home via Old Kent Road just too much traffic & bottle necks but for me its the quickest route in, I can do Maidstone to Blackfriars in around an hour.

Thank you - the 1250 always looked too big to me but the 1300 looks a bit slimmer. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks when I test ride it.

It's just a commuting tool. You want cheap, reliable, luggage capacity, slim, motorway fast, weather protection and something you won't get too precious about.
That sounds like a big, used maxiscooter, preferably a Honda. You might need to get it tested for the emissions thing but there are places do that.
£3k will do it and you'll get most of that back if you sell it.

Alternatively if image is terribly, terribly important to you one of the new BMW GS1300's with full tin box set, engine guards, spotlights and knobblies (in case you get diverted via Patagonia)