R1200GS

The marketing material for the BMW R1200 GS describes the bike as the ultimate riding machine that you can take anywhere. It shows happy riders jumping the bike in the middle of the desert. Well, one has to realize that the jumping is done by professional riders that do that for a living. Although I have nobby tires, I'm not even thinking of taking this bike of the road. The bottom line is that it is way to heavy and very expensive for off road use. Despite this, I love the bike. With a 100HP, it is extremely fast and has great looks.

2006 BMW R1200GS The bike has extremely bright lights. The high beam is an aftermarket HID. In addition to that, there are two Touratech lights mounted. One is an HID, the other is a foglight. Since the headlight is asymmetrical, the high and low beam are seperate bulbs with each it's own reflector. The combination of high beam (and automatically low) and the HID Touratech, makes for a very bright frontage. During the day the high beam can also be controlled by a modulator. This switches the light on and off a couple of times per second. Needless to say, that the bike is very visible. For the off road trips I purchased in 2007 a 2005 Kawasaki KLR 250.