"Off Roading" on a GS 12

Rasher

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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.
 
How much rougher can the GS go? I don't want to ride anything tricky enough to make dropping the bike a high probability,

You've answered the question yourself. :comfort
 
the zzr would be pretty good off road atleast you can get your feet to touch the ground...:thumb2
 
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.



The GS is about travel, its about getting you places and taking you on journeys that you wouldn't do on road focused bikes. If you want to go pukka off roading at the weekend with your local green laning group, you won't find any of them on a GS. (Albeit you've only got to look at the photos on the 'show us your..' to see how capable it is..). This is a bike to take you of the tarmac in the Pyrenees , Morocco.... what you're buying into here is the versatility of a bike that will commute down Park Lane and take you two up with all your luggage to the desert. Embrace it!! Open a new and different chapter to your biking!!

timolgra.jpg
 
Rasher, the GS is not an off road bike. if you are really interested in off road get a KLX 250 or something similar.

The GS can take tracks and unpaved roads, but your chances of dropping your 12000 pound toy increase a lot. Sure you can be brave and have a little fun on green lanes, but you need to take a lot of care and two up would not allow you much excitement.

Its a great all round road bike, and you will be surprised just how well it handles, and it can certainly handle bumpy roads way better than any sports but, but you still have to go slow on such roads. A bit like a landrover...it can go off road but very slowly.
 
A bit like a landrover...it can go off road but very slowly.

That's fine by me, I am not looking to be sideways everywhere and get big air at warp factor nine, just get to see some views I could not reach on a sportsbike and escape all traffic.

I suppose off-road is the wrong term to you guys, after sportsbikes a gravel track is off-road, I am looking for the "not suitable for heavy vehicles" type roads, gravel tracks, farm type tracks, preferably that lead somewhere interesting or pretty and without tresspassing / breaking the law.
 
Big GSs are surprisingly capable offroad

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You could do with hooking up with your local TRF - they should know the local lanes and be able to point you in the direction of lanes that are suitable for a GS, as well as helping you to learn to handle the bike offroad. If you get the bug, you are better investing in a cheap light bike to learn on - the less weight that you have to manhandle, the easier it is to learn. That's the route that I took with my 1150 and I'm now happy to take it up tracks that I wouldn't have considered a couple of years ago.
 
Possu and Loz live in the Oxford area, and both know tracks around them parts.
Not too far away in the Salibury Plain, with tracks suitable for the GS.
Do try and ride within a group though as recover of the bike is energy sapping, and you may not always fall away from it, so being stuck underneath can lead to serious problems.
If your budget can stretch, get another bike to use on trickier trails, as mentioned KLX250 or even a DRZ400, cheap and easy to maintain. The TRF will have you riding legal trails in no time.

Timpo.
 
I am after simple track where falling off should not really occur, anything with tricky elevations, rocks, boulders or lashings of mud are off-limits for me.

Really is unpaved roads I am looking for right now, I may progress, but I bought the bike primarily for road use and to be more suitable for some of the narrower Alpine passes, a fair few of which are unpaved in parts, but considered a road all the same.

I cannot afford to regularly crash what amounts to many months wages and a couple of years disposable income!
 
I love the GS because I don't have to plan any ride
I get on it and ride, some days I'll take a fast route to the coast
Most of the time I head into the country and if I see a side road that I have no idea where it goes or what's down there then down I go
If it detereates into a single track or gravel path I know the GS will cope
I have taken short cuts up a few easy green lanes I know but I am no off road god so I don't push it
So the real joy of a GS is just going to see where you end up you will be surprised what you will find that you never knew was there :thumb
 
My first suggestion would be to get some basic off road training.

if you have been riding for 25 years and never ventured off road you are going to drop the bike when you do .
Even a group of muddy puddles is going to upset the bike,you need to know what to do.
dont make the mistake of thinking that riding a 200kg plus, off road capable machine is going to turn its rider into a "off road rider" you need to feed lots of "input" when off roading that beast.

enjoy the bike,they are great and in the right hands are extremely capable machines,good luck.
 
Madame and I want to do a bit more in the way of poor surface (rather than off road) riding so we've had a chat with someone we know who's a great off road rider and also trains quadbike trainers. also a brilliant trainer and someone we both trust and really get on well with.

We both want to ride stuff like fire roads and unpaved roads with more confidence and less fatigue. It's the 'all road' rather than 'off road' capabilities we want to exploit with the GSes.

We're going to have a day's instruction using the quad terrain to build up a bit of confidence. 1 to 2 training so not cheap but due to injuries (Jo needs to wear a substantial knee brace and I'm a loose collection of failed parts) we need to work at our own pace. To be honest, we would also feel abit intimidated by most off road types for whom our limited ambitions are little more than pathetic.

Will be next year but we'll let you know how we get on. I think that there's a need for some of us to learn a bit of track riding without feeling the pressure of a full off road course.
 
I'm confused.

Rasher you obviously have been around this great site for some time with over 200 posts to your credit (I haven't traced them - can't be bothered) yet you are only just getting a GS for yourself. :confused:
 
A lot of people 'buy into the dream' of the GS being the adventure bike that will take you to far off continents and sell them a couple of years later when they've used it in exactly the same way as the rest of their previous bikes i.e. sunny Sundays and the occaisional ride to work.
The reality is like 4x4 SUV's the nearest most get to off road is cutting across a grass verge.

I got a GS as its a tall bike as I started looking like a gorilla on a minimoto with the latest sportsbikes and for its touring/luggage lugging ability as touring by bike is something I love.

Don't feel you have to off-road because you have a GS, its predominantly a road bike and far too heavy for off road work.
The GS'es you see performing wonders off-road are in the hands of capable off-road riders who'd be able to make any long travel suspension bike look good.

As others have said get some off-road training on somebody elses bike and only take your bike on the rough stuff if you don't mind dropping it.

Whatever you decide you've bought a great bike thats main limitation is the rider!
 
A lot of people 'buy into the dream' of the GS being the adventure bike that will take you to far off continents and sell them a couple of years later when they've used it in exactly the same way as the rest of their previous bikes i.e. sunny Sundays and the occaisional ride to work.

I don't think I fit into the wanabe category, I have taken my ZZR to France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, ridden many miles in the Black Forest, Pyrenees and Alps including some of the best passes, many of them not really ZZR territory.

On these travels I have found I would like more comfort, easier low speed manners and do not need the 200mph top end, hence the GS.

I have also been along a few rough roads and short unpaved sections of Alpine pass which were not much fun on the ZZR, and also passed up some turnings down "roads" as the ZZR may not have made it through, this is where I want to be able to go.

Since getting the GS I keep noticing little tracks, though I guess many are private and belong to farms, how do you know - apart from seeing if some angry bloke in a Land Rover starts waving a shotgun at you.
 
Since getting the GS I keep noticing little tracks, though I guess many are private and belong to farms, how do you know - apart from seeing if some angry bloke in a Land Rover starts waving a shotgun at you.

If he pulls the trigger you shouldn't be there:thumb
 
You can always do what I do and buy a can of spray on mud from Halfords

It just makes them look that little bit better.

They are very capable off road in the right hands. Shame I'm not one of them.
 

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