Road Trip: Taking on a Mountainous Route to Askari.

My love for adventure riding started off as a bike crush on one of my colleague’s bike. This bike infatuation persisted for a period of about two years straight, during that time I would see the said bike mostly twice per day in our office basement parking! I guess things could have been better, at that point in time I was still ripping around on a superbike, needless to say, characteristics of superbikes are contrary to those of adventure bikes. For me riding superbikes is fun, but only in small doses, that could be attributed to the sitting position and cramped up ergonomics, these days long road trips on a sportbike are a big no no for me. By the way meet my colleague, Joe, and the bike crush in question was his 2018 Honda Africa Twin CRF1000L manual. This is not just any Africa Twin but its a bike that was ridden by a 2018 Honda Quest Competition champion, Joe was lucky enough to be able to lay his hands on this bike as used Demo from Honda Menlyn. From what I could hear from Joe, his weekend adventures always sounded like good fun, even though on some occasions he would come back home with a bruised ego from dropping his bike while ripping off-road trails!

Sunday morning came, surprisingly we woke up to full cloud cover and some rain drizzle. By the look of things the weather Gods were against us, however, we were not dithered by this, the ride was much more important than the weather. We clutched out around 7:15 am from our Pretoria East meeting point, making our way to the nearest fuelling station for some fuel. After refueling our bikes, we proceeded to join the N1 Freeway in a Southerly direction, we then nonchalantly continued riding in a Westerly direction along the N14 freeway towards Krugersdorp. On the open road, I realized to keep things in check via cruise control on the BMW F850 GS Adventure was a nice to have, and the ability to keep my hands warm via 3 levels of heated grips is like a cherry on top, especially on cold mornings.

We rode along the N14 Highway West until the Lanseria Airport Off-ramp, turned right onto R512, but instead of riding straight as if we were going to Lanseria Airport, we took a short-left turn into R552 in a South Westerly direction as if we were going to the Cradle of Humankind. The BMW F850 GS Adventure TFT dashboard kept me abreast with a whole host of bike information, from what I could read out from the screen, with the odometer locked at 130km/h, the BMW F850 GS Adventure was able to achieve an average fuel consumption of about 4.8lt per 100km. By now the weather Gods were beginning to smile at us, for the first time we were beginning to see clear skies and some sun. Now we could even enjoy beautiful views of Magaliesburg and surroundings areas!

We continued with our ride on the black stuff, and after Buffelspoort road things took a slightly different turn of events, an exciting one to be more specific. Now we were at a rocky gravel section of road that traverses over Breedtsnek Pass, about 3km in we came across a steep rough rocky section, Joe misread his lines and was forced to bring his bike to a complete halt. To rescue his bike from this sticky situation proved to be awkward, at some point we lost our footing and the bike unceremoniously fell on its side. Luckily his bike was safe from any harm, thanks to the aftermarket scaffolding fitted around it. Sadly the same cannot be said about Joe’s sunglasses, as they took a bit of a knock from the resulting fall.

Surprisingly for me, the BMW F850 GS Adventure’s off-road manners proved to be exceptional, the bike goes anywhere you point it, and it can tackle any obstacle you throw at it. The bike handled the mountain pass ascent and descent like a pro, this could be attributed to the Enduro riding mode, standard knobby tires, long suspension travel, and electronic adaptive rear suspension to name a few.

The 2019 BMW F850 GS Adventure has good built quality, and the electronics package fitted to it is class-leading. In the middle-weight adventure bike segment, in my opinion the BMW F850 GS Adventure is competitively priced at R243 000.00, with most optional extras selected. On the road, it does almost everything seamlessly, performs even better off-road. I think it is a befitting bearer of the ‘Touring Enduro’ bike tag given to it by its Bavarian manufacturer. Without a doubt in my mind, the BMW F850 GS Adventure is an awesome proposition in the middle-weight adventure motorcycle segment, one you cannot ignore if you are on the market for a new adventure.

For more about the 2020 BMW F850 GS Adventure, click https://www.bmw-motorrad.co.za/en/models/adventure/f850gs-adventure.html