Back from Middle-East abuse and demanding conditions for the bike. 12,000kms in 3 weeks and 2 days, averaging 480kms per day. Mine's 1998 1100, my mate has 1999 one.
Tempreatures from +5 in Eastern Europe to +50C in Damascus traffic. Air/oil cooled engine worked faultlessly in the normal range, only once it hit almost max allowed 8 bars in the Damascus traffic jam.
By function, used the GS as supposed to: long very varying distances in a relatively short time. On road, offroad both.
Speeds mostly 150-160kph few full days on highways where the boxer runs very-smooth 5K rpms with virtually no oil consumption and with 2-up fully loaded it still has a power left for more acceleration when needed. Tho it almost killed Heidenau K60 rear tyre, I killed one in Iran two years ago, so this time I tried to stay in Heidenau recommended speed limits for knobby type of tyre, which is 160kph (100mph), but very hot weather conditions took it's tall - tyre was a bit cracked in the end, but they hold up very well in the end, top tyre considering how cheap they come and how good they last for a knobby type of tyre.
Mate's had an elegant crash on oily road in the curve in Lithuania. Touratech handguard broken, engine guards slightly bent, scratches and bruises, so has a proper looking 1100 now. His clutch started to slip in Greece at about 60Kkm, it was from previous owner of the bike who didin't had the clutch freeplay correct, but the bike took him home over 2000kms from Greece, only slipped on very high acceleration and did some bad noise. Nice system that dry-clutch is, with wet clutch we'd been very probably left stranded on the road.
Had few small slower speed crashes meself. Front brake's master cylinder developed a slight leak, put some DOT3 (nothing higher available in that region of the world) and worked out nicely. Probably because of hard usage in the Turkish mountains. Cylinder guards broken hitting deep rocky gravel aside the road, rear brake leveler bent, plus scratches and stuff that add even more character to the robust GS
OEM plastic boxes are shite, got to get alu ones.
Considering how much abuse the bikes got they didn't miss a single beat. It wasn't another slow speed light single-cyl type of "farting pensioner" travel, it was a proper GS expedition with lot of abuse and physically demaning too. Going over 10,000km maitenance interval is no problem for the engine that has separate gearbox oil and dry clutch.
Mine's done now 72,000+kms, riding mostly here in the Eastern Europes potholed roads, half on corrugated gravel: no shaft drive issues, no electronic issues, not a single fault. Some broken bulbs because of lot of vibrations on bad roads is the only thing I've suffered so far, I'm not exacly a light-handed eighter. My previous jap basically mechanically fell into pieces in the conditions we have here, and that on our shaky tar roads alone, it didn't even tasted our gravel roads, so via direct practice I'm not exacly a believer of jap reliability-myth myself, thus I have to give high marks for that robust GS tank that so far works, and works, and works...
Nice reliable kit those late 1100GSes are. So those who fancy one for this type of usage, buy one, they come cheap and they are very reliable donkeys
Tempreatures from +5 in Eastern Europe to +50C in Damascus traffic. Air/oil cooled engine worked faultlessly in the normal range, only once it hit almost max allowed 8 bars in the Damascus traffic jam.
By function, used the GS as supposed to: long very varying distances in a relatively short time. On road, offroad both.
Speeds mostly 150-160kph few full days on highways where the boxer runs very-smooth 5K rpms with virtually no oil consumption and with 2-up fully loaded it still has a power left for more acceleration when needed. Tho it almost killed Heidenau K60 rear tyre, I killed one in Iran two years ago, so this time I tried to stay in Heidenau recommended speed limits for knobby type of tyre, which is 160kph (100mph), but very hot weather conditions took it's tall - tyre was a bit cracked in the end, but they hold up very well in the end, top tyre considering how cheap they come and how good they last for a knobby type of tyre.
Mate's had an elegant crash on oily road in the curve in Lithuania. Touratech handguard broken, engine guards slightly bent, scratches and bruises, so has a proper looking 1100 now. His clutch started to slip in Greece at about 60Kkm, it was from previous owner of the bike who didin't had the clutch freeplay correct, but the bike took him home over 2000kms from Greece, only slipped on very high acceleration and did some bad noise. Nice system that dry-clutch is, with wet clutch we'd been very probably left stranded on the road.
Had few small slower speed crashes meself. Front brake's master cylinder developed a slight leak, put some DOT3 (nothing higher available in that region of the world) and worked out nicely. Probably because of hard usage in the Turkish mountains. Cylinder guards broken hitting deep rocky gravel aside the road, rear brake leveler bent, plus scratches and stuff that add even more character to the robust GS
OEM plastic boxes are shite, got to get alu ones.Considering how much abuse the bikes got they didn't miss a single beat. It wasn't another slow speed light single-cyl type of "farting pensioner" travel, it was a proper GS expedition with lot of abuse and physically demaning too. Going over 10,000km maitenance interval is no problem for the engine that has separate gearbox oil and dry clutch.
Mine's done now 72,000+kms, riding mostly here in the Eastern Europes potholed roads, half on corrugated gravel: no shaft drive issues, no electronic issues, not a single fault. Some broken bulbs because of lot of vibrations on bad roads is the only thing I've suffered so far, I'm not exacly a light-handed eighter. My previous jap basically mechanically fell into pieces in the conditions we have here, and that on our shaky tar roads alone, it didn't even tasted our gravel roads, so via direct practice I'm not exacly a believer of jap reliability-myth myself, thus I have to give high marks for that robust GS tank that so far works, and works, and works...
Nice reliable kit those late 1100GSes are. So those who fancy one for this type of usage, buy one, they come cheap and they are very reliable donkeys
