By: Séan Hendley
At one of their Friday Morning Gala Breakfast Events, (which are now becoming quite legendary), BMW Motorrad East Rand unveiled the latest bit of Motorcycle Candy to throngs of excited attendees. The usual smoke machines, black drapes, celeb MC and tables loaded with food and a very overworked Coffee machine were the order of the morning.
At around 09H13 and 23.7ish seconds sharp proceeding got underway with Altus Theart, well known SA singer and actor, gathered everybody around and after a few quick formalities had the bikes unveiled and invited everyone for a closer look at these beauties. Within minutes, Daleen Webber, was invoicing the first BMW R12 G/S Enduro pack unit to a client who preferred to remain anonymous, (we can only assume his better half is a fan of this publication and no discussions to this effect had been had yet), congratulations Sir. Lots of photos were taken, lots of seats were sat on and lots of discussions were had. We do believe this machine is going to be a great seller for BMW Motorrad, especially in the Enduro Pack spec, it is a spectacular machine and something we desperately want to ride.
We asked Jacques from BMW Motorrad East Rand to give us a quick rundown of these new machines:
Harking back to the R80G/S, the R12G/S is the latest in BMW’s popular retro inspired offerings, paying tribute to the beginnings of the G/S legend. In standard form it is an impressive looking machine and very well spec’d as per Motorrads norm, you can read all about them here. However, once you kit it out with the Enduro Pack, it really does become a very desirable Adventure machine. The 19”/17” wheels get replaced with a 21”/18” setup, a chunky bash plate gets added and a set of serious Marzocchi Forks upfront and a meaty Marzocchi shock outback replace the standard faire. This all gives it some serious ground clearance and even more adventure cred. The “standard” bikes have BMW’s usual TFT screen, but the Enduro version gets an old school round digital set-up. The engine is BMW’s 1200cc mill, with a bunch of tweaks to deliver more punch where the serious adventure rider wants it.
THEN!!!! We joined the team and customers from Motorrad East Rand for their annual “Frostbite Breakfast Run” to Clarens before the sun came up on Sunday morning – read all about that in our sister publication, RideFast Online.
