Hi all, this is something that is now driving me bonkers.

I understand that every bike is suited to a different purpose, and that many bikes perform well in some areas, but sacrifice performance in other areas.
However, after spending hours and hours reading posts on BMWs, I can't decide on which type of bike to go for.
I am looking for something that will eat up gravel and dirt like there is no tommorrow.. long term.
So many people tell me no to go for the paralever bikes, as there is rideability and reliability issues with them. Others tell me that the monolever set up is inferior to paralever.
Some people say that the airheads are the way to go. Keeping the cooling system simple is important to me, but the oilheads do not seem to suffer reliability.

If anyone can sway my opinion more in favour of one setup, I will be very gratefull. I'm heading over to Germany in early October to buy a bike (for a Euro-road trip), and if it meets my expectations, I will ship it to Canada to outfit for a North to South America expedition, and hopefully a RTW trip in the near future.

Thank you for your time. If I have failed to find these arguments in other posts, please don't hesitate to redirect my attention there.

-Tommy

My choice would be an early 1150 (thru '02) or late 1100.

"Eating gravel road like there's no tomorrow?" Those words are like from a poet's mouth

Here in Estonia we have alot of gravel roads, almost half of the roads and the tarmac is often worse than you can find in the third world. You can brake your own teeth riding a sportsbike on our main roads...

Typical hot estonian summer dirt road with the speed:

What i like about the GS is the stability, i haven't yet tried any other big trailie that feels so planted on the road on the high speeds. I don't know if it's the boxer engine or the telelever causing that keeps it so balanced on the very high dirt speeds, or it's the symbiosis of both.

I do about half of my ridings on gravel and dirt. Using the bike every day as communiting, long weekend rides and travels. Can't say the paralevel is unreliable at all since i got in these bad conditions 50Ks on current and 60Ks on previous bike with no problems with it and acctually no probles at all with the bikes. Indeed, on travels i carry spare final drive bearing, seal and shims with me, they take very little room and don't cost much in case of a FD failure. But that hasn't happened yet.

I think why BMW went over to paralever was the ellimination of the lift-effect and weight issue of the shaft drive. With 2 connections (typical swingarm) you need 2 additional torque arms to elliminate the forces symmetrically from the lift-effect the shaft drive creates, and that means more weight, more details. So the paralever was chosen to make bike lighter and better handling by doing it from one side only, 2-times less details and the same strenght just using a larger diameter "pipe". Some argue that the 1-connection to wheel puts too much stress on the bearing and referring to failures, but others say physically it's on the same way balanced as with a 2 connections and you see HP2 do 20 metres off jumps and R900RR have raced in in the Dakar successfully, also the famous HPN-racing prefers this system altough they only tune the older airheads. And now finally Moto Guzzi has copied the idea of paralever to their new generation bikes. So looks like there really is a serious reason why this system was chosen altough some say it's a solution to a problem that never existed.



I'm the owner of 2nd '98 GS 1100, first one written off in Poland, but since it was so good i got another one.

But i imagine any of them will do, airhead or oilhead. If you're aiming for 1100, get the '97-'99 models, not earlier that have some known issues if planning over 100K mileages. Some even argue those late 1100 models are the most ironed out GSes ever made, don't know if it's true or not.

R11xxGSes are pretty simple bikes accually despite lot of people think they're complicated. They're not! Any bike you get, buy the Clymer or Haynes manual to start working on the bike your own, it's the best way to start learning your bike's technical side, lot of additional know-how and tricks go around the internet (forums) too.

Hope this helps!

Well, which do you want, a dirt bike or a RTW bike?

The only BMW twin that come close to covering both ends of that spectrum would be a Airhead Monolever, a G/S.

Really, it seems to me you would be better off with a Japanese 350cc to 650cc, which you can buy in Canada and save a whole lot of money.

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Motomech
Playas del Coco
Costa Rica

"..an attaching bike on which one rolls serenly along."
(Google translation of a French R100GS review)

I am used to old brit bikes, my bmw r80rt is absolutely appalling off road compared to any of them. ( and in those days i used avon touring fairings on all my road bikes, except an 350 enfield which was off road only. ( triumph cub, speed twin t100 and trophy). If you want rtw all on tarmac, need lots of motorway the bmw is in its element, anywhere else it is not. For instance, my bmw will try very hard not to mount the grass verge in our lane, and in a grass field is all but unrideable. However on road if I were to undertake a long journey outside of western Europe, (ie out of breakdown recovery range) my 1985 800 rt would be the ideal choice. more field repairable than later bikes but detuned to work with lower grade fuel than earlier ones. It is worth noting that the 'long way round' crew had to abandon one of their bikes until a tech rep could be flown out to fix it, as a brake problem was beyond the resources of their support vans/technicians to repair. A little local two stroke for the camera man ran rings around teh survivng two 1150's until he got his bmw back.

I'm with Margus on this one - I ride a 1999 r1100GS and it's a blast of the dirt . You need some guts to do it the first few times because it's a big brute of a bike and if you are thinking about some serious single trail forest track off orad riding I'd skip it . If you get to a dead end and you need to man handle it to turn it around it isn't a lot of fun. Likewise if you are dropping it a lot - it's heavy to pick up , some people simply can't pick it up because of their physical strength ......but when it's on the gravel it's a joy. even with luggage it feels planted and has loads of low down grunt on tap to enjoy. The late 1100's have good reliability records and are still relatively simple to work on if you need to. having said that I know a couple of folks who just finished 32000 km round the middle east on their R1200GS's so it's a question of personal choice. I love the 1100GS and would dare to take it just about anywhere....but I am 1m94cm and weigh 100KG so someone half my size might rethink their choice

Having done my share of bad dirt and gravel roads on both an 88 R100GS and a 2003 R1150GS Adventure...I have to say I like the 1150 if I have to have one bike to do it all. The suspension, braking and power of the 1150 are more sophisticated and easily "eat up" gravel tracks.

However, the 1150 is tougher to push around loaded with fuel and gear!

-H-

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With a little love and luck, we will get by.
2003 BMW R1150GS Adventure
1983 FJ45 Land Cruiser Troop Carrier