Old design maybe but the fact that HPN are continuing to develop the airhead GS says a lot about the basic soundness of the original design. Yes it's race winning days maybe behind it, but as a built for purpose adventure/travel bike it is still a very hard act to follow.

Everyone has their own preferences and we all try to justify our choices. Possibly the biggest advanatage of modern Japanese bikes is that when you've worn one out you can just buy another, it serves a purpose for a short time and suits our modern day view where everything is disposable, whereas with a modified bike if it doesn't do something well enough you look into ways of improving it.

In short, Mollydog, you're missing the point or don't have the same meaning for the word 'ultimate' as I do

Beating the mag wheel of a Vstrom into shape and we were not even off road yet!!

If you go back and read the thread properly you will see that after skidding off the tar the front wheel dug into the dirt and then the bike was thrown through the air for a distance of 10 yards. The impact of the fall was enough to flatten a pannier box filled with luggage and broke nearly 80% of the spokes on the back wheel. The holes in the ground where the bike landed was also a clear indication that the impact with the ground was quite severe and most other bikes in this case would have been a complete right off.

You are really touching on something sublime and underlying here. One of the big reasons why I love HPN's dedication is because they have found a way to recycle bikes that still keep them current and useful in our modern lifestyle.
Yes they are not fitted with catalytic converters and fuel injections systems making them more environmentally friendly but then most GS owners here in South Africa where environmental laws are non existent remove the cats in any case.
What better way of recycling a vehicle than to rebuild it.

The airhead boxer motor have been the pinnacle of technology, it is the simplest motor using the smallest number of parts needed in a 2 cylinder.
In a sound motor you need it to be balanced which it does automatically because the weight of one piston and con rod cancel the other, it needs one intake and one exhaust valve per cylinder, it needs one cam that will regulate the opening of intake and exhaust valves. All extra technologies added did not increase the engines reliability but rather contributed to its complication and all this only to add more performance to already very powerful machines.

The old boxers have no limits :D
Systems for fuelinjection are available (not from HPN):
http://www.silent-hektik.com/Boxer_7.jpg

I can tell someone better learn how to straighten a wheel! :rofl: Step One:
Take wheel off bike! Trust me, Vstrom cast wheels are very strong!
I can post dents in mine from Baja. I rocks I hit would have also dented any dirt bike wheel. I was just going too fast (70 mph plus).

http://patricksphotos.smugmug.com/ph...72_SN6eh-L.jpg
F800 Wheel. Nice to have a BMW mechanic on your ride! Hope he knows how to fix wheels better than the guy with the big hammer! :rofl:

http://patricksphotos.smugmug.com/ph...74_5fEp7-L.jpg
Bad day for a GS rider! :rofl:

So you have found a picture from Advrider, downloaded it to your smugmug-account and posted it here, clever! In my country that's against the law.
ADVrider - View Single Post - BMW GS Trophy in Tunisia

Ultimate off road....
 

I found a bit sad that one post start a pile of insult or war of the word ( mine is better than yours), the fact is HPN looks great and certainly fullfil the need of the ones who buy them, I can't say that I trust my GS but its still a very good bike, which bike will be for my next trip ?? no one knows yet. I always enjoyed the site but sometime "we" do get carry away, lets bring constructive comments to the post. HPN for arround the world trip ( if you can pay for the carnet why not ) I just whish that we had some other brand to compare it against, not too many people are doing prototype bike for off road travel.

It might differ how they calculate the vehicles value in the Carnet, I pay the deposit for a “R80GS 1996 model”, it doesn’t matter if it’s rebuild or not. It’s about 1/6-th price compared with a new 1200GSA.

Yes, and I’m one of them you can blame. I’m sorry but is p*sses me off when people without knowledge about the HPN pretends to know everything and mix it up with other bikes and faulty statements.
I have no problem understanding that people don’t like the bike because they think it’s ugly, expensive, or heavier then a DRZ400. But why all the other crap?

On the other hand I think there is a lot of good information in this thread, and it hasn’t gone as far off-topic as I thought it would.

Buying a carnet is another reason to own HPN. If you used an 80 something G/S as the donor bike you will only need to declare the estimated value of a 80 something G/S, about 1500 Euro will do I guess. Nobody in South Africa inspects the vehicle to see how many modifications have been done and what the real value of all this will be and I am sure it does not get done any where else.

Don't get so upset!! look at it this way that this thread started of a week ago and with all this bickering the thread have been kept on top of the list for almost the entire time racking up over 1700 views in that time.

It does not matter how much some members try to discredit BMW or HPN because the more they try the more they are focusing attention to the subject and for the guy out their looking for the ultimate, he will be able to see through all the BS and if HPN does make sense to him he might still be lucky to get in the long que of guys waiting their turn for HPN to create some real magic for them.

I heard this and actually bought a new K100 in 1988 partly to see what all the fuss was about. Proved to be a very reliable commuter and tourer covering 64000 miles in 2 years but the fact that I couldn't fault find it myself was one of the reasons I reverted to the boxer engined bike and also probably why there was a lot of encouragement from BMWs customers to keep the boxer format. I've also had an oilhead GS but it was so heavy, that to me misses the point (for a GS - fine for an RT). The airhead engine is still good and the low tech and easy access is ideal for what we're talking about here. The engineering is sound which is why there are many companies out there still making improved parts 12 years after the last one was made by BMW. PS. I've updated my profile and I'm only a newbie here!

Which is why it is so difficult to get the right spare part for most models because they change the design all the time.

Every step forward seems to be accompanied by a step backwards. BMW are as bad at this as the rest of them. HPNs approach is to modernise things that need to be modernised rather than changes for changes sake.


I agree regarding the F800GS, feels a bit odd on the road but that is probably just me. Too much electronics to qualify as a long distance off roader (in my opinion) and what is this thing with the master cylinder reservoir floating around in mid air looking fragile - everyone seems to be doing that these days.

I'd still pick the DL650 Wee Strom. Buy a used one, put a grand into it and go. It's just that simple. :funmeteryes:

No worries, Ali. You can't be blamed for anything here: you made your points clearly and politely. The problem is that when "the other crap" is just pure bias, then there's nothing more you can do. Django Loco (trans. Daft Django) likes to stir the pot, and the HUBB is all the livelier for it.

This thread has atracted almost 2000 views in less than two weeks, must be some sort of record I'd say!

Thanks for the link to that thread on the Wild Dogs forum mollydog, maybe others reading it won't just pick out the juicy bits but will read the entire story and see that the accident had nothing to do with the bike but rather the combination of overloading, soft suspension, high speed and most importantly a Michelin Desert front wheel that is known to cause stability problems at high speeds. Even though I was not aware of the dangers associated with the Desert front tyre when used not only on tar but on any hard compact surfaces at high speed I did recommend the use of more road bias tyres for the first leg of the trip and I recommended to Philip to keep his maximum speed less than 130km/h.

They will also read that the bike was assembled again after the accident and that there have been another mayor accident involving a truck in Tanzania and that later the bike had a catastrophic drive shaft failure when still in Tanzania and that at the moment the bike is being shipped back to me because the clutch, fork seals and subsequently front brakes have been destroyed.
I know mollydog will have a field day with this but I don't care much what he says and I think nobody else takes his righting serous, in fact I think most readers skip over the posts he has made because they know they are just waisting time to read it.


I especially don't care much what others might make of this as I know that Philip does not takes things easy on this bike or any of the half dozen in is garage back in the UK. I was told that crossing Angola you need 5 days traveling dawn to dusk to make it through while Philip entered Angola from Namibia on the 6 of December 2007, with not a word from him for 6 days, he finally reappeared in the Caprivi back in Namibia on the 12 of December. 200km from the norther border of Angola he was told by local Portuguese that he will be shot in the DRC if he continue to travel through on his own and decided to rather turn around and find an alternative route. 6 days south to north and then all the way back with one day being lost in the desert only managing about 40 or so kilometers, he must have been flying through there.

Philip is very hard on his equipment as his profession does not allow him months or years to travel through Africa.


PS: I am not finished adding all the info on the Wild Dogs forum so keep checking it for the second part of Philip's attempt to get through Africa at the speed of light.