► Wheel sizes - 21in, 19in, 17in, alloys/wire

fred boyd

Guest
i like the look off the new f800gs but if i was to get one it would mostly be used on the road. i do not like the 21' front wheel!
do you think it would be possible to fit a 19' front? if a 19' front wheel is good enough for the 1200 gs why did they fit a 21' wheel to the 800?

fred
 
Because the 800GS is designed to be useful offroad, where a 21" wheel is distinct advantage, whereas the 12GS is more road biased, so a 19" front is more suitable.

You probably could stick a 19" front wheel on the 800, but it's kind of missing the point isn't it?! If you are buying mostly for road use then maybe the 800GS is not the bike for you in the first place. The new '650' (which is actually the same motor as the 800, just tuned different) has a 19" front wheel and is more road biased.
 
I am back

under a new name after a couple of years on an other brand.;)
Just orderd the 800gs,and would like to get a 19" front wheel,I will not do Dakar,or river crossings.
Can anybody point me to a place where I could get my 21" rebuild with a 19" rim and shorter spokes,or a complete 19" wheel that will fit the 800.
 
wrong wheels ?

fit the "650 twin" wheels

or buy the 650 twin and alter all the mapping etc etc to make it the same as the 800

or by the s or st

or just get on the bike and enjoy riding, that what I'm gonna do :D
 
I fitted a 19" rim on my '04 Dakar for general road use. It had a tendency to 'drop in' on some corners and roundabouts... wuz OK but not as nice as I knew it could be. With the 19" rim it rolled in and out of corners and handled just great :thumb

I reckon a rim off one of the 650's (X Country) ?? will be OK but haven't checked. Colours right though :thumb

Get my 800GS next week so wait to see how it handles on them thar tight nadgery twisties :)

Micky

:beerjug:
 
Ac Snitcher

have buildt a f800 gs super moto with 17" front.
Called them today and asked about rebuild to 19" for the 800.
Price 500 euro,using the original hub, takes 2 weeks to be done + transport from\to Norway.

I will customize my bike until it fits like an old shoe,or as the Spitfire pilots said about that airplane, you dont enter the plane,you put it on.

fishburger
 
my dakar does well with the 21 inch front wheel on the road, i can get silly lean angles on it even at not so legal speeds :augie

Best one was Passing a harley at 95ish on a tight left hand turn from the m180 onto the m181 into scunthorpe, he'd come blasting past us so i thought i'd show him up, had the panniers on as well :D Mate said the pannier was about an inch from the deck :eek:

Also had the same mate on a 748 struggle to keep up on fairly slow twisty stuff in the lake district, He said it was due to the large rear tire on the 748, i knew it was cos he's shit :D
 
me mate says that as well micky i dunno why :D


you know what the funny thing is JoeKnow, i ride the dak like i do because i don't know any better, I've owned 6 bikes, two of which were scooters, and only two were only over 125cc (excluding the non finished 370) I simply don't know and don't have the experience some of the other people here do to be able to tell if a 19 inch wheel on the front handles better than a 21 (i bought my dakar without even a test ride, all i did was sit on it to make sure it wasn't too tall :D ) I probablly couldn't tell the difference either :D You could also say i've been used to bikes with skinny tires up front all through my riding lifetime, soi'm used to the handling of em. The cbr i used to have had pretty much the same cross section tires as the dakar front and back :eek:

The first time i went out on the dak with tourances fitted it did drop into the corners way more than the saharas did just something to watch out for for the new 800 owners if you go for tourances on a 21 inch rim. :thumb2
 
Tim Cullis said:
I always have TKC80s on my 1200GSA and I wasn't happy with the on-road handling of the F800GS with 21-inch front wheel, see post #12 on this thread: http://www.ukgser.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137785 And the Telegraph review says, "the large-diameter (21-inch) front wheel... makes the 800 more reluctant to change direction on asphalt."

But thinking more about it, I'm wondering whether swapping the factory-fitted Battle Wings for TKC80s would obviate this problem?
Click to expand...


I had my first ride on the F800GS this morning and it corners beautifully with the 21" front wheel... certainly better than I expected. But as said, the Battlewings are more road orientated than Tourances :eek:

The road testers give the bike good stability at speed etc. I wonder what the Tourances will be like... I guess they may be a bit more skittish :eek:

Get my F800GS next week :thumb

Scottish Borders for Easter, Germany in a month, Germany again in two months... maybe Siberia later in the year... Morocco later in the year... and the Nord Kapp to the South Cape next year :bounce1

:beerjug:

www.adventure.gs
 
Bigger wheel diameter = slower to turn in. This doesn't mean that in any way it detracts form the handling, just that the bike will need a little more effort/time to turn. By the way tell the guy on the Duke not to worry too much, as they are notorious for being slow to turn in, but once over they hold the line so very well. A bigger rim will in no way affect lean angles.

A good example of the opposite effect was on the early blades and hornets when Mr H decided to run with 16.5 inch rims. Many peeps found that the bikes were prone to turn a tad too quickly and tuck the front end, so Mr H then started to fit 17 inch rims, and all sorted.
 
how much said:
Now why didn't i think of this before.......

F800GS Supermoto

17" rims, sticky rubber, "better road-biased" gearing. junk all the cr*p. now that i would buy!
Click to expand...

Why change the GS800 when you could just buy the GS650? Ok,it's 'de-tuned' down to 71bhp but the tests I have read,such as in Superbike mag have said that it is a much better bike for the road,when they tested the 650 and 800 b2b.

The 650 weighs 6kgs less so apparently you don't notice the power loss. And the 19" front wouldn't ride much differently to a 17"? It's like why do some guys buy a GS1200 and then fit 17" wheels ?

Why not just buy an R1200R ?
 
Tim Cullis said:
Apparently AC Schnitzer is working on a supermoto. Nothing on their website yet: http://www.ac-schnitzer.de/en/bmw-motorcycles/
Click to expand...

They displayed it recently at the Dortmund show.

f800gs_DO_2008_02.jpg
 
Wizard said:
Having ridden both, I'd have to disagree. The F650 is a very good bike, but compared to the 800 the front end feels vague and a bit spongy. What I will say is that the 800 does dive a fair bit more under braking, and until you get used to leaning on the back brake more, that can be a bit disconcerting.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.I've not ridden either.

But if the 650 feels spongy on the front with a 19" rim compared to the 21" on the 800,then surely fitting 17 inchers as mentioned above will exacerbate the problem ?

Schtum said:
Ooh....what an interesting parallel universe.....:thumb

:rolleyes:

I doubt that the "spongy" front end on the 650 has anything to do with it having a 19" front wheel as opposed to the 21" wheel on the F800GS. I suspect that it's largely attributable to the lower budget RWU front fork legs on the 650 in comparison with the better quality USD fork legs on the 800.
Click to expand...

Silly me.

Still,at least you got to use the :rolleyes: smilie !

I was just going on the test report I read stating that the 650 handled much better than the 800, so didn't realise that the former had lower budget forks.
 
Turning in

You want to turn in quicker? try dropping yokes 10mm down forks. You beemer dudes must have cheque books instead of toolkits!!!!::nenau
 
Like this guy?

Wizard said:
Because there's some feckinh eejits out there who still can't figure out that different bikes do different things.
Click to expand...

Have a look at this video,its old but still hit the nail on the head.
If you want to go,you go with what you have aviable:thumb
You dont need a 1200GS and a buddy to ride with including a following car with spares and a doctor,like some "adventures"do and call it hardcore riding

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/26968/sjaak_the_world/

I have 50 years off riding experience,building bikes,racing speedway and motocross and I have owend at least 40 bikes in my life.
The Bmw GS concept is more than offroad and one of the things is comfortable riding position(upright)for us close to 70 and in the spareparts age,and with an inseam off 30":D
got the picture:D
 
Engineer said:
trolling removed
Click to expand...

Two Wheels Only (TWO) mag arrived today and John Urry has tested the F800GS and F650GS.

He drones on about preferring the 19" front wheel on the 650 to the 21" on the F800 - but then he was using it on the road (when he wasn't bogging it on a beach in SA !).

Oh yes . . You'll be delighted to know that the F800GS will wheelie in second gear :D

All in all it got the thumbs up from the 'hooligan' element.
 
I had a great time green laning on my FZ1 Fazer in Ireland last year, probably woulda been easier on a GS but I had no problems.

Kerry07081.jpg
 
The 21" front wheel works just fine on the road, like someone said somewhere else on this site, it maybe needs a little more input to get into the turn but you soon get used to it. There's not an issue with the existing front wheel being unsuited to road riding. It's just a little bit different, but then it's a BMW, different comes as standard...

Have you had a test ride at all?
 
Want to go road biased

with my F800 GS,would like to go for 17" front wheel and change both wheels to tubeless option,will probably run Tourance or Anakee,same set up as I had on my 1200gs.
Can anyone point me to a place where I could get new wheels buildt with existing hubs?
Building spoked wheels here in Norway seems to be a lost art,at least not easy to find the right people.
If possible I would like to get the BMW stainless\tubless spoked rims as I had on my old 1200 gs.
Thanks for any help
fishburger
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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