GS Challenge
Answer: very. BMW’s GS Challenge is well organised and welcoming. And bollocking difficult…
By John Westlake Pics Dave Mackison/BMW
Look up ‘delusional’ in the dictionary and it says: ‘A motorcycle journalist who believes he will cruise through the GS Challenge because he did a trials course two years ago’. I genuinely believed it wouldn’t be that difficult. Fool.
The off-road event started in 2008 as a way of selecting the British team who would go on and compete in the GS Trophy – a massive global competition for BMW riders that’s been held on the planet’s most glamorous dirt locations, from Patagonia to Thailand. That’s clearly hardcore, but the UK event I’m at is open to everyone – novices are welcome. Hence my misplaced confidence. The delusions start crumbling on sight of the first challenge. The aim is to ride an R1300GS round a small, slippy pen while picking up tennis balls from the top of traffic cones with your right hand and then dropping them into a pile of tyres, without ever putting a foot down. ‘So you have to ride round full-lock corners on dirt while your throttle hand holds tennis balls?’ I ask the BMW man in charge, just to be sure. ‘Yes. And you’ve only got 40 seconds to do it.’
Needless to say my run is a lurching, foot-dabbing, cone-bashing disaster as I utterly fail to steer, balance and manipulate tennis balls. I score maximum penalties within eight seconds. Stupid fricking game. How can anyone do that? The next contender is the only other member of our group who’s never done the Challenge before, and he crashes into the barriers. See, impossible.
Then one of the veteran GS Trophy contestants has a go and chugs round on tickover, calmly doing full-lock, one-handed turns while tucking tennis balls into his jacket and then firing them neatly into the tyre receptacle, like some GS-mounted Roger Federer. Barrier-crasher and I desperately want another go to redeem ourselves so we can feel less incompetent, but we’re ushered to the next challenge.
Like all the others, this is held in Walters Arena, a sprawling 4000-acre patch of Wales on the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons. It’s the base for BMW’s Off Road Skills operation and is an extraordinary place, with every off-road surface on offer apart from sand. Muddy climbs, rocky trials sections and nadgery forest trails are linked with super-fast gravel tracks that criss-cross the whole park. A more picturesque playground is hard to imagine.
After the tennis ball farrago I’m on the brink of a huff and am considering riding off to explore rather than face further humiliation. But the next challenge looks easier – all you have to do is thrash down a dirt track, skid round a cone and thrash back. Except it’s not as easy as it looks because there’s not enough width to turn the bike on full lock, so you really do have to skid it round –‐if you don’t carry enough speed to lock the rear, you’re in three‐point‐turn hell.
Luckily I’m not first for this one, so I study Roger Federer’s full-bore approach and remind myself that it’s not my bike – all the challenges are completed on BMW Off Road Skills’ R1300GSs that they use for training, so if I do get it horribly wrong at least I won’t be paying. After only one minor altercation with some metal barriers I cross the line at full chat and beat the allotted time. My Challenge card is marked with its first (and, as it turns out, only) clear round. Halle-bloody-lujah.
Then it all gets trickier, like one of those computer games where every level introduces new realms of weirdness and seems impossible until you play it constantly for three weeks. We pull up at a queue managed by two chipper old ladies who look like they’ve taken the morning off running a tea shop. They explain that the next challenge is in the dark, dank woods in front of us – so dark, in fact, that riders disappear as they enter the thicket and all we hear is muffled shouts and the occasional mad revving as bikes are dropped. Riders emerge on or beside their motorcycles, all being pushed by marshals.
‘How many people have cleaned this one?’ asks Mr Federer. ‘None,’ chirps Mrs Miggins. I ride in and immediately see why. It’s a slippery hell-hole made up of wet tree roots and loose dirt, with the course requiring numerous full-lock turns around the trees. Amazingly, I manage to get round the first bit with only one dab, managing to ignore mysterious, shadowy goblin figures skulking in the trees.
Then I arrive at a slope. It’s not steep, but is criss-crossed with wet roots, has a wicked camber and there’s no run ‐up. And I’m on a 237kg R1300GS. Judging by the number of shadowy figures – probably marshals rather than goblins, on reflection – I know this must be the killer section. Channelling my inner Dougie Napkin [Lampkin you idiot – Ed] I dial in some revs, drop all my weight backwards on to the rear tyre, and feed the clutch out with a dribble of finesse. The GS digs in, bounces over one tree root, churns some mud, hits another root, slides sideways and flops dirt-ward. I prop it up with my right leg then feel the GS magically lift itself upright.
‘You did well there,’ says the marshal, puffing at the effort of hoiking me and the GS vertical by its luggage rack. ‘Did I?’ I ask, in dire need of compliments. ‘No, not really,’ he chortles. ‘But at least you didn’t drop it like everyone else.’ And so the day continues, with entertainingly dour marshals encouraging, cajoling and picking us up as we blunder our way round the course. In the afternoon we get to repeat the challenges and I start to enjoy myself more as my attempts become less pathetic. And when we get to the dank dark wood I discover they’ve removed the uphill section and I make it round without stopping. ‘That was only nine dabs,’ says one of the tea ladies. ‘Is that the best so far?” she asks her colleague. ‘Oh God no…’
For me, the highlights of the day aren’t the challenges, but the miles of deserted gravel tracks between that we all ride on the bikes we turned up on. I’m riding Bike’s long term test F900GS, which underwhelmed me during the four-hour ride to Wales, its parallel twin not uncorking adrenaline no matter how miraculously the suspension controls all that travel. It felt capable rather than exciting.
But for fast trail riding it’s magnificent, making average riders like me feel Dakar ready. Suddenly the motor’s featureless torque plateau makes perfect sense – open the throttle round a third gear corner and the tail slides out so progressively that even I don’t feel compelled to slam it shut. Just hold your right hand steady and marvel as you drift out of corner after corner, feet up and grinning. After a while it occurs to me that the Enduro Mode electronics might be helping rein in the engine, so I turn them off and nothing changes. It’s all down to that motor.
And the suspension is just as dirt-friendly. On the road the yards of travel feels like overkill, but on bumpy gravel tracks it’s a godsend, gliding over minor imperfections and letting you hit chunky rocks and potholes without banging your hands loose from the ’bars. Confidence inspiring? Hell yeah. It feels like a big 450 enduro bike rather than the R1300GS’s smaller brother.
Before the end of our final firetrail thrash I’ve undertaken a mental handbrake turn and gone from wondering what the point of the F900GS is, to wanting one rather badly (along with a 4000-acre playground). Even the noise is better off-road – with walls of trees beside the trails bouncing back the exhaust note, I can appreciate the Akrapovic’s bark at the top of the rev range. It’s turned from a competent commuter into a wicked-fast trail weapon.
The rain lashes down that evening and all 200 competitors gather in a clearing where the Off Road Skills operation has set up a marquee, bar and street food vendors. As the beer flows – we’re camping, so anaesthesia is essential – I’m swept along by everyone’s enthusiasm for making a large motorcycle do improbable things on dirt. And it is genuinely astonishing what the R1300GS can achieve; earlier on our group watched slack-jawed as a Dutch chap rode one round an enduro course like it was a 125 motocrosser. It was like Eddie Hall excelling at ballet.
So, would I do another GS Challenge? Heavily refreshed by Welsh beer and swept along by the GS crowd’s bonhomie, I briefly consider it. Maybe I should buy a trials bike and practise. But I’m deluding myself again. What I really want to do is go trail riding round Wales on our F900GS…
How to ride a big bike on dirt
Ex-Dakar Rallyist Si Pavey manages BMW Off Road Skills and offers some tips…
‘Over decades of teaching people to ride GSs off-road, we’ve discovered the biggest factor is mindset. If you can truly believe that low-speed skills are the foundation of everything else, you’re on the right path as then you’ll practise them and see dramatic improvements. We all want to jump puddles and do skids, but you can’t do those safely and reliably unless you’ve nailed the foundational skills.
‘Firstly, you need to be comfortable with the weight and balance of the bike when it’s stationary – being comfortable with one foot on the peg and one on the ground at a standstill, turning the bars when you stop to stabilise the bike… these are simple skills that can make life easier when the bike is moving.
‘Every time you lose balance on a heavy bike it’s a big job getting it back. It’s not like a little bike that you can muscle. A lot of people want to rush through the low‐speed balance stage and get to the more exciting stuff. But if you nail the low-speed skills, when the bike is unsettled by a bump or a rut, your default reaction will be the right one.
‘Even off-the-bike practice helps – moving the bike around, walking with the bike. It improves your feel for the bike’s balance. Then go to a car park and turn around in tight spaces. Those skills set you up well for the more advanced off-road techniques.’