Well I thought I'd go see what all the fuss is about and today I got to spend a couple of hours on the Benham demo bike. First thoughts looking round it is its kinda cool looking and still recognisable as a GS
a quick run through on all the buttons and gizmo at first had me thinking "oh heck I wish I'd taked advanced electronics at school" but in reality it's all pretty user friendly. The first noticeable thing when riding it is its still a GS but with abit more poke, handles and steers like a GS should with little imput and generally goes where pointed. So far so good as I settled in a few things started to niggle me, the fuel injection makes a right old ticking noise and as an airhead owner I couldn't ignore it as it was like the tappets needed adjusting
then at 3k in top gear there's a thrumming resonance that just drove me nuts.
Anyway out on the open road and we let the girl lift her skirt and show me what she's got and yep I can agree with the current owners she's fairly quick but this then highlighted a few other issues I didn't much care for. The first being the fly by wire throttle, man does it feel disconnected, I could really feel the disconnection between what my brain was telling my hand to do and what the bike was giving me in return. I tried different modes but even in dynamic I could feel the FBW having its say. Now I'm not saying it'll be the same for everyone but for me I need to feel I'm pulling that throttle open even a fraction and unfortunately with this FBW system I didn't. My next gripe is regards the traction control, as I came out of a bit of a flick flack round about I gave her some fist, all well at first as she stinks out of the corner but as the front wheel left the ground by no more than an inch the engine was cut by the traction control. This could be quite dangerous I feel because if your still cranked over a little bit this sudden chop could push the front of the bike from under you. Now ok you might say "well you shouldn't ride a GS like that" but hey I was out to explore what it would do. The other issue I didn't like was the elastic feeling the chassis has when gassing it on bumpy choppy Tarmac, the traction control holds the engine back then suddenly let's you have it so I feels like the bike stretches then boings back into shape, very strange sensation. The last thing I would say is try as I might I could not find a suspension set up in the ESA that I liked. In soft round town it was ok but in sport mode on fast roads it felt poorlydamped and choppy.
So all in all, it was interesting but would I rush out to buy one. NO. I still thing my 1200adv was a far better bike and without all the electronic gubbins to mess things up. Technology's great but sometimes it's just a step too far and that's how I feel about the GSwc. But for all you guy who do own them enjoy
a quick run through on all the buttons and gizmo at first had me thinking "oh heck I wish I'd taked advanced electronics at school" but in reality it's all pretty user friendly. The first noticeable thing when riding it is its still a GS but with abit more poke, handles and steers like a GS should with little imput and generally goes where pointed. So far so good as I settled in a few things started to niggle me, the fuel injection makes a right old ticking noise and as an airhead owner I couldn't ignore it as it was like the tappets needed adjusting then at 3k in top gear there's a thrumming resonance that just drove me nuts. Anyway out on the open road and we let the girl lift her skirt and show me what she's got and yep I can agree with the current owners she's fairly quick
but this then highlighted a few other issues I didn't much care for. The first being the fly by wire throttle, man does it feel disconnected, I could really feel the disconnection between what my brain was telling my hand to do and what the bike was giving me in return. I tried different modes but even in dynamic I could feel the FBW having its say. Now I'm not saying it'll be the same for everyone but for me I need to feel I'm pulling that throttle open even a fraction and unfortunately with this FBW system I didn't. My next gripe is regards the traction control, as I came out of a bit of a flick flack round about I gave her some fist, all well at first as she stinks out of the corner but as the front wheel left the ground by no more than an inch the engine was cut by the traction control. This could be quite dangerous I feel because if your still cranked over a little bit this sudden chop could push the front of the bike from under you. Now ok you might say "well you shouldn't ride a GS like that" but hey I was out to explore what it would do. The other issue I didn't like was the elastic feeling the chassis has when gassing it on bumpy choppy Tarmac, the traction control holds the engine back then suddenly let's you have it so I feels like the bike stretches then boings back into shape, very strange sensation. The last thing I would say is try as I might I could not find a suspension set up in the ESA that I liked. In soft round town it was ok but in sport mode on fast roads it felt poorlydamped and choppy. So all in all, it was interesting but would I rush out to buy one. NO. I still thing my 1200adv was a far better bike and without all the electronic gubbins to mess things up. Technology's great but sometimes it's just a step too far and that's how I feel about the GSwc. But for all you guy who do own them enjoy
very sexy but abit to impracticle
