What mileage ?

[Spud]

My faithful old 1150 GS is now 22 years old and 130 odd thousand miles under her belt. I love going away abroad on trips, so at what mileage did you start wondering will it stay the trip ?
What mileages have you and still do long foreign trips ?
Do I go mad and buy a newer one for my trips ?

 

[Riceburner]

My faithful old 1150 GS is now 22 years old and 130 odd thousand miles under her belt. I love going away abroad on trips, so at what mileage did you start wondering will it stay the trip ?
What mileages have you and still do long foreign trips ?
Do I go mad and buy a newer one for my trips ?

TBH, when I blew up my 130,000 mile Rockster it came as a complete surprise*. I genuinely believed the bike was good for another 50K at least.


* : well, almost complete.... I really should have known better than to razz it at full throttle in top for about 3 miles down the AXXX....

 

[theoneandonly]

mine went bang at 142k , camchain blades broke on 1 side . bike not worth fixing .
if this hadn't happened , i'd still be on it .
still ran , just noisy , and all the bits would clog the oil pickup. can be fixe in situ , but you need to take g/box and barrels off to do it.
i had been in Italy 3 weeks before , and was on my way back from a trackday at Cadwell Park that day .
noisy at low rpm , quiet at 2.5k rpm and above. rode it home and parked it .

 

[Spud]

mine went bang at 142k , camchain blades broke on 1 side . bike not worth fixing .
if this hadn't happened , i'd still be on it .
still ran , just noisy , and all the bits would clog the oil pickup. can be fixe in situ , but you need to take g/box and barrels off to do it.
i had been in Italy 3 weeks before , and was on my way back from a trackday at Cadwell Park that day .
noisy at low rpm , quiet at 2.5k rpm and above. rode it home and parked it .

Was the track day on the 1150 ??


Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk

 

[theoneandonly]

yes.
checker in the holding area , thought it looked a bit rough for a bike with 14k miles on it , i made him look again to read the odometer properly , he didn't believe it had done 142k miles.

 

[Wrigsby1]

My faithful old 1150 GS is now 22 years old and 130 odd thousand miles under her belt. I love going away abroad on trips, so at what mileage did you start wondering will it stay the trip ?
What mileages have you and still do long foreign trips ?
Do I go mad and buy a newer one for my trips ?

Most of the battle is feeling comfortable with your ongoing maintenance... You can have any bike that will let go with something but as Donald Rumsfeld alluded it's known knowns that matters... Buy anything else and your just into a world of unknown knowns and unknown unknowns...

 

[Grizzly]

I bought my 1150 brand new in Sept 2001 - and it's now done 216K.
It still runs just the same as it did at 20K. I've done ALL the maintenance myself - except for the 600 mile service, which was by BMW.
The engine has never needed any work other than normal servicing - but I did have a whining bearing in the gearbox, so had to remove box and replace a couple of bearings.
It's still running the original Hall sensors, injectors etc.
I decided a few years ago to semi-retire the 1150 - just incase it went "bang" on a longer trip - middle of Bosnia etc - and I now use a Super Tenere as a main bike - but the 1150 is still on the road year round.

Great bikes, cheers ...................................................... Grizzly

 

[Spud]

I bought my 1150 brand new in Sept 2001 - and it's now done 216K.
It still runs just the same as it did at 20K. I've done ALL the maintenance myself - except for the 600 mile service, which was by BMW.
The engine has never needed any work other than normal servicing - but I did have a whining bearing in the gearbox, so had to remove box and replace a couple of bearings.
It's still running the original Hall sensors, injectors etc.
I decided a few years ago to semi-retire the 1150 - just incase it went "bang" on a longer trip - middle of Bosnia etc - and I now use a Super Tenere as a main bike - but the 1150 is still on the road year round.

Great bikes, cheers ...................................................... Grizzly

Thanks Grizzly,
Strangely I bought a Super Tenere as you may remember, but couldn't get along with it for some reason (Mainly the noise of the engine, even though it never put a foot wrong) but I let it go. I remember your 1150 having big miles on it when we met up at Applecross, I was amazed at the condition for the miles, it's a credit to you

 

[Grizzly]

Thanks Grizzly,
Strangely I bought a Super Tenere as you may remember, but couldn't get along with it for some reason (Mainly the noise of the engine, even though it never put a foot wrong) but I let it go. I remember your 1150 having big miles on it when we met up at Applecross, I was amazed at the condition for the miles, it's a credit to you

I know what you mean about the S10 engine noise - it fine really on the move - but at idle its like a biscuit tin full of nuts and bolts! - But on the plus side they seem to be built to last - I've done 70k on mine now and it never uses a drop of oil, no need to carry spares on a big trip etc.
Then when I get back on the 1150 I just think - wow! what a sweet running quiet engine this is!

Cheers...........................Grizzly

 

[gspod]

When my old 1100 had 114k miles on it, it was running but needed a bit of work on it. I decided, rather than spending a lot of money on a newer bike, to let Mikeyboy give it a good over haul.
At 150k miles I took it on one of Bilko’s trips. Sold it with 180K on the clock.
My twin cam has 98K miles on the clock but, rightly or wrongly, I don’t trust it for another big trip next year.

 

[Wrigsby1]

My relatively short ownership of an S10 was quite respectful of it's legendary engine reliability but couldn't be comfortable with the balance and handling as per my 11GS's especially on slimy wet winter roads... I still measure all comers on whether it can hustle though 4 seasons with the assurance of an oilheads GS...

 

[bim3330]

My relatively short ownership of an S10 was quite respectful of it's legendary engine reliability but couldn't be comfortable with the balance and handling as per my 11GS's especially on slimy wet winter roads... I still measure all comers on whether it can hustle though 4 seasons with the assurance of an oilheads GS...

love my s10 had it ten yrs now put 10 grands worth of extras on it lol

 

[Wrigsby1]

love my s10 had it ten yrs now put 10 grands worth of extras on it lol

Yep I think with some extra time and suspension work I'd have felt a bit more with it... Been tall thought I couldn't find a screen that I was totally happy with and for dark winter running I found the headlight to be weak even with Starship Enterprise extra lights... Mind the 1150gs lights are pretty shite as well...

 

[Grizzly]

To get back to Spud's original question - about mileage and big trips on an 1150GS.
I've just checked old photo's - and when I shipped my GS out to New Zealand in late 2015 for a 9-week tour of both islands in early 2016, it had 186K on the clock before shipping to NZ and had 193K on the clock in NZ before shipping back to UK.
It ran faultlessly for the 9 weeks with no problems - Great bikes indeed.
Sadly, it also reminds me it's only done a further 30K since then - which is a bit sad really.
.
Cheers....................Grizzly