Checking out the dark side with my old mate Stu

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My old mate Stu currently rides a 62 plate Triumph XC800. He has owned it from new  and dearly loves the old crate. But it now has over 20,000 miles on the clock and he has been checking out a few different bikes to replace it with. On his hit list this day were a BMW S1000XR and a GS1200.

The S1000XR, fun but not suited to his needs

He had the S1000 overnight and he asked me to accompany him back to dealer where he had borrowed it from. It was a cold foggy morning, but it was a fun ride up to dealers near Nottingham and it felt good to on my Duke again. I have mainly been using my ZR550 lately.

Stu liked the S1000, and he even had a brief ride on Duke, but I got the impression he wasn’t all that keen on it! The dealer ship was the usual glittering BMW affair, all very slick and crammed with all the latest BMW models.

Stu rather dwarfs my S2R1000. He summed it up as ‘focused’, which is polite for ‘heavy, noisy clutch, loud and cramped’. I love it, which is the main thing 

However the two bikes that caught my eye in the dealers were a lovely 2014 Norton and a 1980 RD250LC that made up part of the small selection of classics that were in the on site cafe.

In the wall to wall BMWs these two gems caught my eye

Stu exchanged the S1000 for a GS1200 on the return leg to the south midlands, and we enjoyed a brief halt for the compulsory salad to chat over the various merits of the two demo bikes. Basically the S1000 was more fun, but the GS suits his needs better.

Stu and GS1200…better suited to his needs

For my part it was good to get out for a decent run with Stu as 99% of his riding is commuting and he doesn’t get much chance to ride for fun.

In the meantime his hunt continues and he has subsequently tried a KTM1190 which he was surprisingly underwhelmed by. I am currently nagging him to write some reviews for us! 

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