BMW GS HISTORY PART 3

After Helge Peterson conquered Africa , it was Gaston Rae's turn at first .

There's a discernible racetrack but it soon disappears .

Steers the BMW R A G s at an unbelievable speed and it runs reliably like clockwork .

Yesterday , we had 745 miles and it is tough through the sand .

A tough race , especially after we've done some 3100 miles and this day was very , very difficult .

Roy , a only five ft four inches tall is nicknamed Tom Thump and has to literally mount the BMW R A G s .

However , he handles the bike brilliantly .

He is totally focused .

He has to make up time .

And what might be perceived as child's play is in fact , writing expertise at its best alone and without teammates , but with an undeniable fighting spirit , Gusta Rae lays down an unbelievable speed through the 10 desert to the extent that many of his competitors cannot keep up with a cheering of several thousands on the beach in Dakar and a lead of over 50 minutes .

The king of the deserts Rae races towards the finish line .

It was the second time that the 34 year old Belgian Rae won the perry dear rally on a BMW and it was the fourth win of this gigantic race for BMW with Gusta Rayer exclaiming at the finish line .

This was the toughest race of my life , but I am happy the success of the G S and the world's toughest rally paved the way for the Boxer's career as a dependable means of transport for Globe trotters BMW naturally followed their victory with the Paris dear special edition model in 1984 which further enhanced the bike's growing reputation as the motorcycle of choice for long distance travel .

By 1987 more than 24,000 G S motorcycles were produced and the next generation of the BMW G S was on its way now written without a forward slash .

The new G S featured a para lever , rear swing arm in place of the mono lever .

A new front suspension , cross spoke wheels and frame improvements .

A 980 cc engine represented the top of the line in the R 100 G S .

The 1988 Pari car kit was designed for the long distance traveler and featured better weather protection and adaptable luggage solutions .

For the first time , a red tubular frame ran outside of the fairing and an aluminum engine guard plate was bolted under the oil pan .

It also featured cylinder guards , hand protectors and a mud guard .

It became Germany's best selling motorcycle in 1988 by now the G S was a mature world traveling bike and it had evolved considerably but the evolution wasn't about to stop throughout the nineties .

BMW continued to evolve .

The G S motorcycle releasing a redesigned four valve boxer with a tele lever suspension in 1993 and a sportier and more aggressive .

11 50 .

By the end of the decade , the last of the two valve boxers rolled off the production line in December of 1996 .

In 1993 BMW returned a single cylinder model to the market with the F 6 50 fund .

Although BMW had produced single cylinder bikes before this was the first BMW ever produced with a chain drive .

Although it was initially perceived as a somewhat less capable version of the larger G S , all of that changed when the bike was used in the 1999 Paris de de car challenge .

The modified BMW 650 R R won the race two years in a row .

Not only that but BMW swept first through fourth place in the 2000 race experience and knowledge gained the Paris De Car rally eventually led to the engineering concepts used on the F 650 G s dear and the new R 1200 G .

Although BMW had pulled out of competitive racing after the win at the Paris de Car , the world of adventure touring was booming .

More and more riders were expanding their horizons and exploring ever distant lands on their G S motorcycles .

Motorcycle adventure touring have changed tremendously and more and more people are doing it today .

You go on the internet and Google motorcycle adventure G S riding , you get tons of web page dedicated to it .

People that sending reports all the time .

I can see the BMW bikes too .

They have changed with that and got better and better all the time .

BMW answered the demand by continuing to improve their GS motorcycles throughout the decade , releasing a completely updated version of the GS in 2004 .

In fact , the R 1200 GS is the most successful motorcycle in BMW Moto Rod's history proving that the GS has indeed withstood the test of time when I first got my R A G S in 1981 .

I thought it can't get better than this .

Well , it got better , it got more bee here , more horse power , stronger forks , better suspension .

And now here we are with fuel injection and we have , I can sit with the press of a button to change my suspension .

It's incredible .

And most of the changes though that I mostly enjoy , it's not just the horsepower , it's how it handles and the proof has been up through the years .

You've seen it over and over again .

Editors in magazines around the world are praising the DS .

In 2005 BMW introduced a competition worthy production boxer , the H P two designed with harder edged off road use in mind .

The H P two weighs in at just 175 kg and comes with a 1200 cc boxer engine that's good for 105 horsepower .

The H P two is the most uncompromising production off road boxer of all time .

And BMW is once again at the forefront of off road events in 2009 , the range was expanded with the introduction of the F 800 Gs middleweight sports Endur , which is also destined to become one of BMW Moto Rod's best selling machines riding in the dirt .

It's been in our blood since the beginning .

Almost 60 years of off road experience went into the first G S motorcycle and another 30 years of further development have brought us the G S motorcycles of today when the R A G S first came out in 1980 30 years ago , I saw it and I thought it was the coolest ever .

But I also thought , when is the competition going to kick in here ?

When are they going to come and come up and at least meet what the BMW D is doing ?

But for some reason that nobody been able to match what the BMW is making .

So it's going to be very curious to see how this is going to carry on into the future .

And if we look back in 10 , 15 , 20 years , how that legacy is carrying on , people buy a GS motorcycle for lots of different reasons .

But riders of BMW Mato Rod's legendary enduro all share a common desire to travel further off the beaten track and to experience more unusual and interesting places than ordinary riders .

When it comes to long distance rough terrain and serious adventure travel , no other motorcycle comes close to matching the ability of the all conquering BMW G S .