As a long term veteran of sportsbikes the GS is new to me, as is the concept of off-roading.
Not sure what it means, watched long way down and noticed they never actually took the GS off-road yet still manged to repeatedly break suspension and got stuck in mud any deeper than 1/2 an inch.
I bought the bike to slow down and enjoy a wider range of roads (last bike only fun on fairly fast roads with little traffic - i.e. not the ones where I live) most of my riding is two up, partly because we like to get away and partly because the roads round here were crap on my last bike I could never be bothered to go out for a solo spin.
In 3 hours I will have my GS, and a new world awaits, sure I am going to bounce along country lanes I would never have ridden on with the last bike and all of a sudden have hundreds of miles on my doorstep to explore, but beyond that what can the GS do???
This for me is a roadbike, and one I want to maintain in near pristine condition, maybe odd to veteran GS owners, but for the last 25 years I have spent almost as much time cleaning as I have riding, so it is a hard habbit to break.
In the Alps I took the ZZR over the Umbrail pass, a bit apprehensive of the 5km or so of unpaved section, half expecting to turn back, it was dead smooth hard packed with very fine gravel surface, OK on ZZR and a doddle on a GS no doubt, however I want to do more of these roads and I guess some may be a bit rougher.
How much rougher can the GS go? I don't want to ride anything tricky enough to make dropping the bike a high probability, but would like to get to tops of mountains etc where possible.
Also where can you go in the UK with these sorts of roads, I assume Wales has a few and is probably closest to me, cannot remember seeing a "not suitable for vehicles" sign in my neck of the woods, I am guessing this is what I call off-road, which are really just poor roads.
Any decent routes in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire or Wiltshire would be greatly appreciated, nothing too rutted or muddy, just off the beaten track.
Would like to have a go over the winter locally, maybe a weekend in Wales come spring, and then I can decide if I want Dual Purpose or Sports Touring tyres for the summer.
Not sure what it means, watched long way down and noticed they never actually took the GS off-road yet still manged to repeatedly break suspension and got stuck in mud any deeper than 1/2 an inch.
I bought the bike to slow down and enjoy a wider range of roads (last bike only fun on fairly fast roads with little traffic - i.e. not the ones where I live) most of my riding is two up, partly because we like to get away and partly because the roads round here were crap on my last bike I could never be bothered to go out for a solo spin.
In 3 hours I will have my GS, and a new world awaits, sure I am going to bounce along country lanes I would never have ridden on with the last bike and all of a sudden have hundreds of miles on my doorstep to explore, but beyond that what can the GS do???
This for me is a roadbike, and one I want to maintain in near pristine condition, maybe odd to veteran GS owners, but for the last 25 years I have spent almost as much time cleaning as I have riding, so it is a hard habbit to break.
In the Alps I took the ZZR over the Umbrail pass, a bit apprehensive of the 5km or so of unpaved section, half expecting to turn back, it was dead smooth hard packed with very fine gravel surface, OK on ZZR and a doddle on a GS no doubt, however I want to do more of these roads and I guess some may be a bit rougher.
How much rougher can the GS go? I don't want to ride anything tricky enough to make dropping the bike a high probability, but would like to get to tops of mountains etc where possible.
Also where can you go in the UK with these sorts of roads, I assume Wales has a few and is probably closest to me, cannot remember seeing a "not suitable for vehicles" sign in my neck of the woods, I am guessing this is what I call off-road, which are really just poor roads.
Any decent routes in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire or Wiltshire would be greatly appreciated, nothing too rutted or muddy, just off the beaten track.
Would like to have a go over the winter locally, maybe a weekend in Wales come spring, and then I can decide if I want Dual Purpose or Sports Touring tyres for the summer.