Bmw F650gs Dakar

BMW F650GS Dakar

Long-Term Wrap-Up

Little Beemer, Big Heart

FOR CYCLE WORLD'S MUCH-LIKED long-term F650GS Dakar, one last ride turned out to be exactly one too many.

With 10,000 mostly happy miles on the clock and all spiffed up for its last photo shoot before being returned relatively unscathed to BMW, one of the magazine’s marketing guys borrowed the Beemer for a run up the coast. A new rider but with MSF training and a good track record, he nonetheless committed the rookie error of steering in the direction he was sightseeing, running off the road and out into the shrubbery. Shades of Lauren Hutton, except he came away with only minor injuries. The bike, however, was a mess, rounded on all corners, bodywork cracked, exhaust crushed, fork bent, frame likewise.

The guilty party is no longer with the magazine, but sadly neither is the BMW, returned to the factory leaking fluids and near-totaled in the back of a pickup. (Because it was no fault of the bike’s, the $5000 tab for crash repair is not reflected in the long-term tally.)

While it was with us, though, the Dakar became a staff favorite for everything from commuting to weekend toots to Death Valleywell, after some teething problems were dealt with.

Apparently, one in six of the 2001-model F650s were afflicted with fuel-injection maladies. Ours was one of the ones, bucking and surging so badly between 3000 and 4000 rpm (highway cruising revs) it was all but unrideable. That’s when it wasn’t annoyingly flaming-out at stoplights. “If this is what fuel-injected Singles are like, then stuff ’em,” quot-

Quotes from the logbook

Seat very sweet, just soft and wide enough; wind protection appreciated, works well for those of us under 6 feet.

A week on tour and I never found myself wanting for more motorcycle The GS was totally capable, comfortable, got great gas mileage and let me explore whatever back/dirt road I happened upon, confident that I could handle whatever was thrown at me.

Versatile with a capital V Cruises at 75 mph with little vibration, optional luggage carries everything I'd ever need-though the tour trunk looks like something on' its way to a bowling alley.

ed the logbook. “Why would you buy this over a KLR650?” wondered someone else. “The Kawasaki costs $3K less and carburâtes perfectly.” Semi-salvation came in the form of an updated injector nozzle and remapped EFI module, carried out by our local dealer, Irv Seaver BMW in Orange, California (good folk). There was still some residual flatness in the midrange, but the improvement was so dramatic we didn’t really care. And though you’ll not read about it in any sales brochure, apparently BMW has further tweaked the

"My first dual-purpose bike and I love it! No prob lems with surging, stalling or anything else, and I'm getting 60-65 mpg. I plan to ride this bike to Alaska." -Steve Marlatt,, Middleton,, Idaho

fuel-injection. EFI complaints on the BMW Singles websites (www.f650.com is a good ’un) have dried up, and a 2002-model we recently sampled was flawless. Wanting to do a little solo sport-touring, we checked one of everything on the F650GS options list. The threepiece luggage system cost just over $1000, but was lockable and waterproof, great for peace of mind on an extended trip. The saddlebags are par-

ticularly clever, with expandable hard sides when cargo capacity needs to be upped. Their outer aluminum shells are prone to dents and scratches, though.

Tire-wise, the stock Michelin Siracs still had tread left at 5000 miles, but were traded out for knobbier Pirelli MT21s. A little skatey when pushed hard on the street, the MTs markedly improved the Dakar’s off-road explorer qoutient, saving saddlebags and scabbed elbows in the process. They lasted 3500 miles, replaced by Bridgestone Trail Wings, a good compromise for street and dirt, with the 650’s demise, we are unable to give tread life on A moment of si lence, then, for the lit tlest Beemer, a doeverything dual-

purpose bike that we’d heartily recommend to just about anyone-except maybe a certain ex-employee...

“Not a ‘big-tour’ bike, but it will do 3-4 days with the best of them. At its finest on tight little roads where big power is not an advantage, anyway.” -Tom Overbey, Little Rock, Arkansas

“Truly bulletproof. Currently have 30,308 miles on it (including Massachusetts to the Arctic Circle two-up), and the valves are still at the same setting as the day it was new.” -Gary VanVoorhis, Milford, Massachusetts

SPECIFICATION

$8600