1200 GSA (2012) upgrade to LC - is it worth it?

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added after each point with "RESPONSE"

I went form an 06 hexhead to a 16 wethead


The quickshift is interesting

- RESPONSE hideous disaster on all BMWs, yet on a 1200 Tiger its brilliant. So good I went back and turned on in the menus as it didn't offend me

The clutch is light as a feather, compared to the old version

- RESPONSE I never knew there were supposed to be stiff, my air cooled is exactly the same as my brand new LC was. But the lever on the later bikes are a nasty offensive shape when they were perfect on the air cooled bike

The new dash is nice and modern, but designed by a child who worked on the maxim cram in everything

- RESPONSE the air cooled bikes had it right, not used BM TFT but the idea in general is offensive

Suspension, ESA

- RESPONSE buy a budget one then fit aftermarket shocks, would be much better, but a bit of a pain if you regularly do one up vs two up trips

Lights

- RESPONSE I didn't keep my LC long enough to notice

Steering damper? makes it ponderous and slow at low speeds

- RESPONSE steering dampers tend to make in traffic manoeuvring and mini roundabouts a horrible experience. But it was never an issue on my GSA LC, you didn't ever notice it was fitted. Unlike a KTM. It was fitted to the Adventure LC from launch as it runs steeper geometry to cope with mass / off roading, but retrofitted to all std GS' to resolve a dangerous instability issue. Check out the damage on the BIKE magazine launch were they hit a small pothole in South Africa at 70mph and it set off a lock stop to lock stop tank slapper that smashed the bike to bits... he didn't come off but the bike was a write off (severity of damage) and the whole launch event was scrapped for everybody. Not helped by he unusual crash that killed the other UK journalist (which might have also been a high speed wobble that caused the rider in front to fall off)

Bars? Why put the bars low and forward, all the weight is on your wrists, so you get killed by the vibes

- RESPONSE never noticed (try the triumph 1200 tiger feels very much like a r1200GS air cooled)

Screen, lets put a sports screen on an adventure bike

- RESPONSE fully aligned BMW have zero understanding how to do a screen, so noisy, so much turbulence they should be illegal. They must be some of the worst on any bike in history... (although the current k1600 GT gets is right, nearly fell off in shock)

 

[Santa-2512]

added after each point with "RESPONSE"

- RESPONSE hideous disaster on all BMWs, yet on a 1200 Tiger its brilliant. So good I went back and turned on in the menus as it didn't offend me

- RESPONSE I never knew there were supposed to be stiff, my air cooled is exactly the same as my brand new LC was. But the lever on the later bikes are a nasty offensive shape when they were perfect on the air cooled bike

- RESPONSE the air cooled bikes had it right, not used BM TFT but the idea in general is offensive

- RESPONSE buy a budget one then fit aftermarket shocks, would be much better, but a bit of a pain if you regularly do one up vs two up trips

- RESPONSE I didn't keep my LC long enough to notice

- RESPONSE steering dampers tend to make in traffic manoeuvring and mini roundabouts a horrible experience. But it was never an issue on my GSA LC, you didn't ever notice it was fitted. Unlike a KTM. It was fitted to the Adventure LC from launch as it runs steeper geometry to cope with mass / off roading, but retrofitted to all std GS' to resolve a dangerous instability issue. Check out the damage on the BIKE magazine launch were they hit a small pothole in South Africa at 70mph and it set off a lock stop to lock stop tank slapper that smashed the bike to bits... he didn't come off but the bike was a write off (severity of damage) and the whole launch event was scrapped for everybody. Not helped by he unusual crash that killed the other UK journalist (which might have also been a high speed wobble that caused the rider in front to fall off)

- RESPONSE never noticed (try the triumph 1200 tiger feels very much like a r1200GS air cooled)

- RESPONSE fully aligned BMW have zero understanding how to do a screen, so noisy, so much turbulence they should be illegal. They must be some of the worst on any bike in history... (although the current k1600 GT gets is right, nearly fell off in shock)

Clearly you love the Truimph Tiger

that is without doubt the worst bike ive ever ridden in 800 & 1200 guise

it was so bad i managed 6 miles and 8 minutes on each before handing the keys back and walking away

 

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Clearly you love the Truimph Tiger

that is without doubt the worst bike ive ever ridden in 800 & 1200 guise

it was so bad i managed 6 miles and 8 minutes on each before handing the keys back and walking away

Not true. Which did you ride? I was talking about the current 1200 mk3 with all the toys.

it was too slow, made the rider very hot, the TC was irritating, and the suspension modes far too muddled (individual control quite clever in menu structure that almost made sense... but then in a different place able to be completely over written with a dumb badly thought out quick fix mode in the cluster that ruined it, and it was hard to know if had been enabled).

However, the screen was fantastic, the brakes were good, the riding position and feel of the bike was like an air cooled 1200gs. Cure that heat issue, fit a 5 ltr bigger tank, add the option of conventional dials on the LCD screen, give it another 25 bhp at 8k and 15lbs ft more of torque at 4k and knock 5k off the price and we should all have one

 

[SteveM]

My tuppence worth:-

Keep the twin cam, and spend some money on a remap, headers and can, and Wilbers/Öhlins suspension if you think your current set up isn't good enough.
I've ridden the LC's and they're great, but my TC is about perfect at doing what I need it to do.

 

[buncobooth]

My tuppence worth:-

Keep the twin cam, and spend some money on a remap, headers and can, and Wilbers/Öhlins suspension if you think your current set up isn't good enough.
I've ridden the LC's and they're great, but my TC is about perfect at doing what I need it to do.

Or Tractive - I just replaced my 2008 GSA shocks with a full Tractive setup (the Touratech ones without the Touratech branding/markup) and they are amazing, really transformed the old dog !

 

[SteveM]

Or Tractive - I just replaced my 2008 GSA shocks with a full Tractive setup (the Touratech ones without the Touratech branding/markup) and they are amazing, really transformed the old dog !

Do they work with ESA or are they just regular passive shocks?

 

[buncobooth]

Do they work with ESA or are they just regular passive shocks?

Yes they are full ESA replacement. They are plug and play to the bike and replace all of the crap that is attached to the old shocks. Having spoken to a few suppliers I went for the front shock without electronic preload adjustment (which BMW dropped soon after that anyway) and a rear shock with, both shocks have the ESA damping operated from the normal buttons on the switch. Whereas I couldn't really tell the difference between the damping settings before, I now have normal, bouncy and rock hard !

 

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when I was last at a dealership and we were talking bikes, I said I had a GS he said: an LC? No an air cooled one. His response "oh, you've got a real one"