Back in 2015, if you had just come out of your local Triumph dealer empty-handed because they’d sold out of Sprint GT’s, you might have been tempted to pop ialong to BMW. There you may have seen the spanking new R1200RS, ready to roll just as soon as you’d parted with your 11 grand.
Not everyone wants to ride a GS (no, really, it just seems that way). Some still refer the comfy compromise of a sports-tourer. This one came with 125bhp and shaft drive, plenty for nipping along the autobahn, more than emough for the M25, and loads of room for your executive lunchbox.
Sports-tourers were falling out of fashion by this time, at least in the UK, as adventure bikes became de rigueur for the distance rider, so you don’t see many of these about. Though they’re easy to recognise with that face…
It reminds me of something…
. Fast forward a few years and after 3 GS’s I finally got there with the 1250. They ride quite different, the GS is more comfy and wafty, where as the RS is more involving and even though similar in weight the throttle response is noticibly quicker on the RS. It’s not in Rocket 3 territory but 143 nm of torque is quite addictive. I went out yesterday and when I filled up at the end of my ride the pooter said it had done 64.1 mpg and had 249 miles of range, which as I’d ridden mostly on twisty B roads, was quite impressive
