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This...
 vs. this...  What's the difference? Friday - May 10, 2024: Saturday May 11 is supposed to be the family reunion in San Jose. I had come to Fresno the day before (Thursday May 9) to visit my parents and also take a overnight break for this ride from Fresno to Richmond and eventually San Jose. I decided to take my trusty 12GS because it's built for the long haul. Everything was doing swimmingly from LA to Fresno. The typical Tesla that thinks they can out drive a motorcycle climbing the hill of the I5. Yeah... go ahead and beat me and in the process lose how many 10s of miles off of your charge. Stupidity I say. All the while I'm holding back the throttle because I don't want to give my money away to the State. No free lunches please. All good. I made it into Fresno in good time. The parents were happy to see me and I them. The Me & Ed's didn't quite cut it this time. I think the workers were slacking. They didn't even call us when the pizza was ready while my Dad and I were just standing there waiting. Fast forward to today. I skip the 150 freeway junction on the 99 freeway and kept plowing ahead. Partly pass the 152 junction, the GS threw a fault. My initial reaction was, "Oh no. It's not the stupid parking likght again, is it?" Looking at the fault, it has the icon of the battery. I've never seen that before. I didn't pay much mind to the fault and kept on going. Several miles later, the fault went away. Curious. I get in Modesto and I'm trying to find the exit to cut over to the I5. Of course, I miss the exit. I haven't been this way in ages. "Oh fine, I'll take the Tracy junction." I didn't punch the address to my brother's place so I'm kind of going by memory. Well, memory sucks. Riding by zen can suck sometimes, but I fully accept the responsibility of missing exits and turns so I can drag the ride out just a little longer. Good excuse I say. Anyway, I finally take the junction to go through Tracy and head to Richmond. Before I reach the hills of wind generators, the GS throws the fault again. This time, it stays on. I climb the hill and descend to Lawrence Livermore, Pleasanton, and Dublin. About that time, I need to fuel up so I can easily make it to Richmond. Well, that was the idea at least. I pull into a Shell gas station to fill up. I fill up. I hit the start button and.... nada! No ignition. It was a sad attempt at turning over the starter motor. "What the!..." I push the bike away from the gas pump then dragged out the phone to call AAA for a jump. At the same time this doesn't make any sense. This is a brand new battery. It's at most 2 months old. Mind you, the GS has been having a hard time starting for a while now. So something is up. I got off the phone with AAA and then decided to call Brown Motor Works. I talk to my favorite service manager and go the great news that I have either a "Voltage regulator" problem or a "stater" problem. My immediate reaction was, "Oh CR*P!!! IT'S THE FREAKIN' STATER!" He said, "well, it might be the voltage regulator", but I know better. Freakin' stater. This is the second time I have a bike that has a failed stater. I know well what this means, "Baby is a hunk of metal on the road." In the meanwhile, the AAA guy comes out to jump the bike. I had looked to the area and found there is a BMW motorcycle dealer a whole 3.1 miles away. They were listed as Tri Valley Moto but in reality, they were CalMoto. I just had to be able to ride this beast for 3.1 miles. Just 3.1 miles. AAA jumps the bike. It starts. It looks like I can make it to CalMoto. That was the idea at least. The bike got to the point where I had to rev the engine to keep the alternator RPM up so it can supply power to the system. Oh man! It was bad. I keep the bike alive for a while until I turned onto the 580 on ramp. Of course there is a meter light. I tried to rev the engine enough to keep the bike alive. One slight slip of the throttle and the bike dies. I had to divert the bike to the side of the on ramp so traffic can get on the freeway. Oh the fun. And here I have to be at the family reunion in San Jose tomorrow. Long story short, the bike got towed to CalMoto. There was a question whether I can tow the GS all the way back down to LA. In the end, I settle on trading in the 12GS for a new GS. I ended up booking a hotel at the Holiday Inn Express close to CalMoto. By the time the GS go to the dealer, they were already closed. At least I was able to push the hunk of metal into their garage because the service tech hasn't closed shop completely. What joy. My brother came out from Richmond to take me to dinner at the Marugame Udon in San Ramon. My first time at Marugame. It's pretty good. I should've tried the curry udon, but I settled for the miso instead. Still good. We talked and caught up on life. For this craziness, the idea is to go to CalMoto in the morning and get a new bike. I just hope they give me a semi decent trade in for a hunk of metal that is the '13 12GS. Saturday - May 11, 2024: The first order of business is top haul my butt over to CalMoto and get a new GS. I look through their showroom window and can see a F800GS and a 1250GS. Black. There is also a 1250GSA. That's a bit much. I had spoken to the service tech the night before and they didn't have a 900GSA. I walk in an introduce myself. You know... the guy with the broken down 12GS... with the stater problem. Long story short, the service tech has went ahead and checked on the bike and sure enough, it's not the voltage regulator. "IT'S THE FREAKIN' STATER!" So the question is asked... and I know they're going to low ball me, but how can I haggle with a broken GS that needs to have the engine ripped apart to get at the stater? The answer is I don't. Plus the 12GS is 11 years old. Sure, it has the full set of Touratech suspension and doodads, but it does not good when the bike refuses to fire up. They off me $1K. Sure, sold. Now let's get paper work done on the R1250GS triple back so I can make it to the family reunion. The folks at CalMoto was generous enough to move the Touratech luggage rack, BMW Nav V, the BMW top case, Givi tank bag, and BMW small windshield over to the 1250GS. Fortunately for me, the 3 year warranty is still valid, and I also went ahead and purchase the extended warranty. All under finance, of course. I don't have a check book to at least put a down payment. Such is life. At 12:45pm, they're done moving everything over. I has walked back to the Holiday Inn Express and checked out of the room. I lugged my Ortlieb dry back and rear tail bag from the hotel to the dealer. Now I'm off to the family reunion. That is until the wonderful GPS go me going in the wrong direction. Ugh... I doubled back and took the 580 to the 680 and eventually got to the family reunion, a couple of hours late, but at least I made it This 1250GS is smooth. It's much smoother then the 12GS. Of course the stock seat and shocks sucks eggs. I was pogo-ing all over the road. Even with hard preload, I was still bouncing around. Ack! How can BMW do this with a premium bike like the R1xxxGS? Come on BMW! What's wrong with you? Thursday - June 20, 2024: Now fast forward to the present. Basically a month later and many more $K's worth of money and we have this... Fully decked out. No longer
pogo-ing.
 Proof it's a different bike.
The first thing I did was to get rid of the BMW OEM rear shock. The darn thing was pogo-ing all over the place. It doesn't instill confidence in riding at all. If you want confidence, you get a mostly stiff shock so you can feel the road and better control the bike. I went with the shock expert ... Ted Porter's Beemershop. I went with the TracTive eX-PERIENCE-EPA. It's night and day difference. Nothing like a custom performance shock.  While I was at it, I had Brown install the latest Denali. 8K lumens each baby!  Wide foot pegs. I didn't realize it at the time, but these foot pegs were offered by BMW. These are actually Gilles Tooling. The OEM foot pegs are OK, but they're a bit narrow. I like a slight wider foot peg. It's more comfortable when you stand. For off road. In my case, I mostly stand up for lane splitting. You can see miles down the freeway and other can see you. If you look at the foot peg center pin, you'll see there is a retaining clip at the bottom of the center pin. Guess what, that's no retaining clip. It's a hack job of a retaining clip. Apparently the foot peg didn't have a retaining clip. The OEM foot peg could have fallen out during travel. When I went to install this Gilles foot peg, the center pin came right out. Just.. like.. that. I don't know if the retaining clip fell out or if it was never there in the first place. I fabricated a retaining clip using a galvanized battery anode/cathode ring. I trimmed the ring to have an open end and got rid of the end that solders to the copper wire. I then used pliers to clamp the makeshift retaining clip to the center pin. I eventually bought a real retaining clip from Brown. $5 bucks. Amazing. BMW pricing. Anyway, when I went to pull the makeshift retaining pin out, it refuses to let go. So the makeshift retaining clip is still being used. No more bouncing around in the seat and there is also support. They said 2K miles to break in, but it already feels like it's broken in.  Puig headlight protector. It's a bit dirty from wet misty riding. I don't get he previous owner. He didn't put a light protector on so there is a very small nick on the headlight from a rock or pebble. These LED headlights are really expensive to replace. They're at least $1K each. I rather replace a $100 headlight protector. The last thing I did to custom the 1250GS is to isntall a small handlebar riser. Just a riser and not a riser and backwards locator. Now the 1250GS is basically the same as the 12GS except this beast is much smoother.  New dash.
Notice something different with the Nav. There are several missing telemetry items. The "Current Consumption" was the real-time fuel burn rate. The 1250GS no longer provides that information. Bummer. Also the "Tripmeter 2" doesn't exist any more. I kind of like the real-time burn rate. Then again, I think the "Fuel Economy 2" might be the real-time burn rate since it's blank when the bike is off. And... the TFT display. BTW, you notice all that yellow or amber? Here's what it looks like from the front.  That's only 50% brightness.
Shinko tires.... ugh... that's a story for another day. |
