No one wants to grow up.
And for many of us, it wasn't a choice. Life, and its rapidly intensifying "unprecedented events," seemingly stole many of the youthful moments that generations before us enjoyed. I am, however, eternally grateful that my youth wasn't live-streamed for all the world to see...
But for those of us who raged against the machine, who scrawled the anarchy "A" across our notebooks, who covered ourselves in beautiful ink down our arms, torsos, and hands, and fought tooth and nail to have some semblance of said youth, we now face getting older.
We have full-time jobs, kids, car and house (more likely rent) payments. We're going to the doctor more to get our ankles and knees checked out. We take pills to settle our stomachs. And we get nostalgic, and slightly upset, whenever Alexa says, "Playing Emo Classics."
Yet, though we've adopted suits for work, and mask ourselves in meetings so we don't get fired, we not only still rage against the machine whenever we can, but also against the dying of the light. We blast death metal, queuing up Infectious Jelqing, while sipping our cold brew coffee as we pick up our children from school. We get more and more ink, covering ourselves in tattoos to defy the expectations of our parents.
Sure, we've gone corporate, but beneath it all, we still yearn to be Black Flag's Henry Rollins.
I wasn't sure what to expect from the new BMW R 1300 GS, other than something similar to all the other full-size adventure motorcycles I've ridden in the past few years. All of which were good, fun motorcycles, yet each was the sort of motorcycle that'd get bought by someone with a 401K or an investment portfolio. If Harleys were for cosplaying dentists, big ADVs were for cosplaying accountants.
Whereas the off-roaders and hooligans were having fun with the middleweights, Ducati's Multistrada, Honda's Africa Twin, KTM's Super Adventure, and even Harley's Pan-Am, were all designed to leisurely do Iron Butts, cosseting their riders in creature comforts and upright seating positions to ensure their backs didn't hurt after a few hundred miles. Again, think more respectable Harleys, but the same amount of dressing up to look the part.
God was I wrong about this bike. It's Henry Rollins in a suit—the heart of punk rock, covered in the trappings of respectable society.
Almost immediately, you can feel this bike doesn't appreciate being lumped in with those others. The throttle is snappy. Snappier than I expected from such a porky machine. Even in Road mode, you crack the throttle and it bounces its front wheel. You get a sense it's a coked-up bunny rabbit with a choke collar, each time it starts to hop, the electronics zap it back down to Earth.
And the nimbleness it shows on twisties. There's a moment where you're like, "Yeah, that's probably all the lean it has," but then there's more. So much more. And when you finally click the mode button into Enduro Pro and all semblance of respectability leaves the station. Oh yeah, time to crank Rise Against.
That aforementioned choke collar? Gone. In most of the regular riding modes, electronic intervention ensures that wheelies are impossible. But in Enduro Pro—different from Dynamic Pro—those chains are released fully. In first gear, you have to have your wits about you, as the R 1300 GS' front wheel immediately picks itself up with the slightest bit of throttle. There's a sense that whenever you get onto it and lift the wheel, you're also flipping off everyone within your surrounding bubble.
Yet, it's the bike's hysterically easy second-gear wheelies that I felt were truly saying, "F you, getting old!"
I want you to picture lumbering down the highway in your whatever commuter car. You're just sitting there, in your suit, drinking your coffee, dreading those first few moments of work, listening to NPR or something, in your minivan. Then Greg, who's the same age as you, has just as many kids as you, works right down the hallway from you, flies past you wheelie-ing his brand-new R 1300 GS, hooting maniacally as he streaks by. Yup, that's what this bike's second-gear power-on wheelies feel like.
And then you get some twists and turns and the pretense of this motorcycle's weight just fades away. It becomes more akin to its distant relative, the M1000RR. OK, so maybe that's a little hyperbole on my part, as you won't be finding an R 1300 GS on the WSBK grid anytime soon. But, a good rider, along with that 1,300cc boxer's 145 horsepower and 110 lb-ft or twist, could absolutely keep up with most of the M1000RR customers I've seen riding on the street.
I can't say I got to harass any superbike riders during my time, but give me some more miles with the R 1300 GS and I guarantee I'll share some stories.
When the mask and suit had to be put back on, however, it did so in a manner that wouldn't attract attention. It is, after all, a respectable BMW, with all the outward trappings that go along with that definition. The lines are handsome and clean, the tech is cutting-edge and easy to navigate, and the exhaust noise is, dare I say, HOA-compliant. It might as well just take you to the farmer's market.
But even after you've clicked out of its hooligan modes, the underlying character is tattooed, pissed off at the man, ready to raise hell, and looking for a fight. It's fighting its present visage, the cosplay it's performing as a productive member of society. A motorcycle with a perfect credit score.
The twitchiness of the throttle betrays it.
BMW's R 1300 GS just wants to be a youthful punk. To recapture its heyday. To reclaim the childhood it maybe wasn't afforded. Or the one it still yearns to enjoy. Sure, this motorcycle will get lumped in with those other big, comfy, lumbering adventure bikes. But given the opportunity, it'd rather pop a wheelie, flip them the bird, and ride off to somewhere the NSA couldn't find it.
It's Henry Rollins, PTA member. But maybe that's just me projecting.
