Discussion
My 1250GS was written off by an unexpected deer in October, fortunately I wasn't, and after 3 months I was recovered enough to be able to think about replacing it.
I had actually got a surprisingly decent result from the insurance - for a 27,000 mile 4 year old bike, they paid out 76% of what I originally paid for it, without any quibbling. I wondered about just replacing it with a lightly used one, but decided that I might as well stick some more money in and move on to the latest model.
So I test rode a 1300GS and a GSA from North Oxford Motorrad. Both had the automatic gearbox, which was pretty hopeless in auto mode as it wants to be in 6th at 40mph, so would need to be shifted manually most of the time, and I didn't see much advantage over the standard bike's quickshifter for my usage. The GS, which I also tried a couple of years ago when it came out was clearly a more sportier bike, turned really quickly, and felt like it was egging you on all the time. The GSA felt more like my old bike to ride, a bit less focussed and more of an all-rounder than the GS.
The trouble for me is I'm 6'4" with some knee issues, and given they made the 1300GS physically smaller to appeal to shortarses, I just don't fit on it as well as I did on my old 1250. So I ended going with the GSA this time as it's just more comfortable.
BMW are doing a deal in Q1 with free luggage that's worth about £1600, and I managed to get another 10% off the RRP with some firm negotiation, that I'm normally totally crap at. So I'm fairly happy with the deal. Insurance was more of a problem given the bike's value and the fault accident, so just had to swallow last year's premium more than doubling.
The bike was delivered this morning, and my first job was to fit some pre-cut PPF I'd bought (from Invisible Patterns) to protect the tank, which I think otherwise will get scratched to buggery just by looking at it. I'd never fitted PPF before, but after watching a few YT videos, I managed to make a fairly decent fist of it. The key is just to take it really slowly and use a LOT of spray to keep the film mobile, and work from the inside outwards. The first side of the tank was a bit of a 'mare, but the second side was much easier once I knew where all the difficult bits were.
Then I took it out for a quick 50 miles just to get a bit of heat into the tyres, it felt really great to be out on my own bike again.
Minecraft-styled bike for your appreciation:
I had actually got a surprisingly decent result from the insurance - for a 27,000 mile 4 year old bike, they paid out 76% of what I originally paid for it, without any quibbling. I wondered about just replacing it with a lightly used one, but decided that I might as well stick some more money in and move on to the latest model.
So I test rode a 1300GS and a GSA from North Oxford Motorrad. Both had the automatic gearbox, which was pretty hopeless in auto mode as it wants to be in 6th at 40mph, so would need to be shifted manually most of the time, and I didn't see much advantage over the standard bike's quickshifter for my usage. The GS, which I also tried a couple of years ago when it came out was clearly a more sportier bike, turned really quickly, and felt like it was egging you on all the time. The GSA felt more like my old bike to ride, a bit less focussed and more of an all-rounder than the GS.
The trouble for me is I'm 6'4" with some knee issues, and given they made the 1300GS physically smaller to appeal to shortarses, I just don't fit on it as well as I did on my old 1250. So I ended going with the GSA this time as it's just more comfortable.
BMW are doing a deal in Q1 with free luggage that's worth about £1600, and I managed to get another 10% off the RRP with some firm negotiation, that I'm normally totally crap at. So I'm fairly happy with the deal. Insurance was more of a problem given the bike's value and the fault accident, so just had to swallow last year's premium more than doubling.
The bike was delivered this morning, and my first job was to fit some pre-cut PPF I'd bought (from Invisible Patterns) to protect the tank, which I think otherwise will get scratched to buggery just by looking at it. I'd never fitted PPF before, but after watching a few YT videos, I managed to make a fairly decent fist of it. The key is just to take it really slowly and use a LOT of spray to keep the film mobile, and work from the inside outwards. The first side of the tank was a bit of a 'mare, but the second side was much easier once I knew where all the difficult bits were.
Then I took it out for a quick 50 miles just to get a bit of heat into the tyres, it felt really great to be out on my own bike again.
Minecraft-styled bike for your appreciation:
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