When I went to the BMW US Riders Academy to take one of its off-road riding courses, I never thought in a million years that I’d be riding a BMW R 1300 GS. Full stop.
I’m a person who likes to try new things, but I also have some sense of my own personal limits. Physically, there have been bikes that I legit have not been able to ride because I can’t reach important things, like the controls. If I can't even put the side stand down, that's also clearly an indicator that a given bike is not meant for the likes of shortarses like me.
A lot of riders (not all, but a significant number) are both taller than me and, even more importantly, tend to have longer legs. Even riders who are my same height tend to have longer legs. Maybe there’s a greater reason that my parents didn’t ride than I ever really contemplated, and maybe it has something to do with inseam measurements?
As a short rider with incredibly short legs, BMW's R 1300 GS seemed way out of my potential range in terms of comfort, practicality, and feasibility. Initially, the BMW US Riders Academy tried sticking me on a GS Trophy with the adaptive suspension, thinking that would help. However, they quickly scrapped that plan, because that’s got a much taller saddle than even the standard bike. As a result, I couldn’t even stand it up off the side stand. My little corgi legs just would not reach.
Most people feel like they understand physical height limitations if you give them a measurement, but it’s incredibly difficult to explain short leg length to someone who doesn’t also deal with that problem on a personal level, in my experience. In case you’re curious, I have a 27-inch inseam. Even just an extra couple of inches would make a massive difference in terms of coping with many a motorbike.
But while I wasn’t immediately completely comfortable on the R 1300 GS, in the end, I got along best of all with it equipped with a Low seat, in the Option 719 Traumontana livery. All the available F 800 GS were taken, for those wondering why I didn't select those. But as my classmates who had them learned, they don’t fall over as nicely as the R 1300 GS (as long as it’s got proper crash protection). And the G 310 GS I rode later in the day was actually a bit taller, twitchier, and more difficult to cope with than the R 1300, and it definitely hurt the most to fall on (which I’ll show you in the video, coming soon to our YouTube channel).
Again, though, I never thought I'd ride an R 1300 GS. Until I did.
One Foot Down For Secure Starts and Stops
A personal weakness of mine, despite my nearly two decades of street riding, is that I often try to put both feet down on the ground at stops. It’s like I think I’m a normal-sized person riding a bike, even though I know better. Now, if I know ahead of time where the foot pegs hit in relation to my legs, sometimes it’s possible to get two tippy-toes down, particularly if I know that I need to put my legs either in front of or behind the pegs in order to reach. My point is, it requires a level of prior planning and understanding of the bike that most folks with longer legs rarely have to think about.
One thing the BMW Riders Academy drove into my head is that it’s infinitely better to get one foot solidly down on the ground than two tippy toes. That’s true both off-road and on, and the R 1300 GS makes that point abundantly clear by sheer dint of its imposing size. It is a massive, massive bike.
According to BMW’s official spec sheet, it’s got a 523-pound curb weight, which may of course change if you add accessories and/or luggage, never mind mounting up with both yourself and a passenger. And yet, while I didn’t ride with any additional payload other than myself on board, one thing I can tell you from experience is that this bike carries all of its considerable weight extremely well. Its balance and low center of gravity really do a lot here.
Once you get moving, even at very low speeds, the R 1300 GS is pretty confidence-inspiring. That’s especially true when you stand up on the pegs; that’s where it really shines in terms of feeling in control. If you’re like me, and you feel a bit like an ant riding an elephant, you’ll still regard the whole thing extremely warily. You might also side-eye your combined mechanical shadow and briefly contemplate how ridiculous you must look, but little by little, you’ll start to ease into it. Maybe even crack a grin or two.
And you’ll also laugh when you fall down, because you will fall down. But as long as the R 1300 GS has proper engine guards, hand guards, and the enduro pegs and shifter on it, just know that they’re totally built to take your low-speed, off-road spills with aplomb. Then your main concern will be standing it back up, either with help or without (and that’s a whole other thing).
Falling Down Is Easy After You Do It Once
If you haven’t read my initial thoughts, then you may not know that I fell a lot. So I’ll tell you here: I fell A LOT on the R 1300 GS. Also, once on a G 310 GS, and I’m here to tell you that with properly protective gear, all I really went away with were a bunch of bruises and a slight aggravation of an old ankle injury.
But the R 1300 GS crashes very well at low speeds off-road. I still wouldn’t advise dropping it on either cylinder without those engine guards, and especially not at high speeds on asphalt. I don’t know how well it would do then, and I wouldn’t want to find out. I can only tell you from my own experience that if it’s got protection and it goes down at low speeds off-road, it’s really not as bad as you might build it up to be in your brain.
In fact, most times I dropped it, I just ended up laughing. “Oh man, I’m on the ground again! Hahahaha.”
Where I went down wasn’t during maneuvers, even the extremely low-speed ones. Instead, it was when I was trying to put a foot down at a stop. Stopping, as I said, is tricky. And for us super short-legged folks, it’s probably always going to be the trickiest thing until and unless our entire bodies learn the correct strategy to get one foot solidly down, followed by the side stand.
Feeling Safe To Try New Things Is Super Important
It’s one of those things you were probably told a lot as a kid, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. You might think you understand something, but your perceptions may change if you experience it for yourself. Now, I know that not everyone is going to have the time, opportunity, or inclination to try all the things. I know that I’m lucky to get to do what I do, but while skills enrichment is definitely one goal of mine, being able to share these experiences with you is a major motivator as well.
I didn’t expect to ever ride an R 1300 GS, because I thought that it wasn’t meant for riders like me. Short, small riders and a giant flagship adventure bike (some might even say THE giant flagship adventure bike) doesn’t totally seem like math that adds up, right? And yet, BMW Motorrad’s engineers clearly put a lot of thought into how they designed this bike and integrated its ergonomic qualities to fit the range of potential riders who might sit in or stand above its saddle.
I won’t say that it’s easy, and I will also clearly point to the fact that it wasn’t my bike that I was dropping definitely made a difference in my comfort level while getting to know it better. Certainly, I’m not a person who likes dropping any bike, ever, regardless of whether it’s mine or not. But still, there are levels of discomfort, you know?
Number One Takeaway: Don’t Be The First Person To Count Yourself Out
Before this class, as I said, I never thought I’d ever ride a BMW R 1300 GS. Mentally, I’d marked it down in my head as something that wasn’t meant for me. I wasn’t sad about it; I had simply mentally crossed it off my list as a possibility.
There’s such a thing as delusion, of course; it’s probably a really bad idea for yourself and those you care about to have just gotten your shiny new M license in the US and then go out and buy an H2R as your first bike. I can’t tell you what to do, but for the sake of your loved ones, please don’t do this.
But there’s also a certain brand of quasi-levelheadedness, where you convince yourself that you’re just being realistic, but in reality, what you’re truly doing is drawing a tight little box around yourself and imposing limitations that may not need to exist.
That’s apparently what I did here, and while it’s one thing to not want to or be comfortable with doing something, you also don’t need to talk yourself out of doing something before you’ve even given yourself a chance. Let yourself have a dream, try it out if you have the opportunity, and then make a decision on whether it’s meant for you or not. I can’t tell you whether I see myself riding an R 1300 GS in the future, but I’m glad that I now know it’s not as impossible as I once thought.
