Okay folks, here's the skinny: I'm getting ready to move up to a new (or at least new-er) ride, and for a number of reasons I've begun to seriously consider a GS. Currently I ride a '94 Yahmaha Seca II, which is a great little street bike, but somewhat underpowered and under-torquey. It's also beginning to show it's age, and I'd rather not spend the next couple of years fiddling with some or other new little (or not-so-little) repair on it.

Granted, moving up to a Beemer is a pretty big leap, especially financially, so I'd really love to hear some informed feedback and opinions from experienced GS riders.

Here's some info about my current riding sitch:

Currently I primarily use my bike as an in-city commuter, with most trips between five to forty minutes in length. Lots of starts and stops, lane-splitting, and nimble little zigs through stopped-up traffic. However I also do a reasonable amount of adventure/touring type riding, with three+ hour freeway rides taking me out to some backwoods fire road, dirt track or desert. I don't ride dirt for pleasure (though I imagine it might be fun on a bike other than my Seca) it's simply that an increasing number of my destinations are separated from the highway by some length of unpaved road. And, in at least one case (Burning Man), the destination itself is unpaved.

About seventy percent of the time I find that I'm riding with a passenger. Only one of my girlfriends owns her own bike, and the others just ride bitch. Which, as you might gather, makes the already pokey Seca start to dog pretty bad. Also, since I'm doing more touring type riding, there's the added weight of saddlebags/panniers and all the gear I stow in them. It would seem that moving up to an 1150 would be one solution for this.

The Seca is also traditionally carburated and air cooled, which is kind of annoying since much of my riding is made up of short hops around a cold city. As a consequence, I sometimes spend more time waiting for the bike to warm up than I do riding. Okay, so I'm exaggerating, but I do often wind up leaving the choke out for the entire rides. So: I'd love to move up to a bike with fuel injection and a cooling system.

Lessee... I'm 6'3" and mostly leg, which is one of the reasons I ended up on the Seca in the first place. A lot of other mid-sized bikes (EX500, SV650, etc.) are too compact for my frame and leave me feeling way to bunched up and crampy. Possibly bearable for short city rides, but totally not doable for multi-hour touring. Along these same lines, it's worth noting that I really really like the seating position on the Seca, which is essentially a standard. I put slightly sportier handlebars on which, while nowhere near as low as clip-ons, do lean me forward a little bit more than the stock bar did. But I still have a wide range of comfortable seating positions, from a full forward tuck to an almost cruiser-like backwards lean. Usually I'm somewhere in the middle, 'natch. (If you hadn't guessed by now, I really have no interest in a full on sportbike, for a lot of reasons, required riding position not the least among them.)

I like the light weight of the Seca. This is probably one of my biggest concerns about moving up to the GS (second to the price). Any GS other than the stoopid-expensive brand-new 1200 is gonna be way heavier than what I'm used to right now. Not to mention taller and wider. Not so much a problem on the highway, but what about in-city streetfighting? I've slid my Seca through spaces that shaved the stubble from my head and then flicked it through traffic like a greased black laser. I don't wanna give that up.

I also like the length of the Seca and how well it fits my body proportions.

My Seca is black and beat to shit. I like that look, and don't give a damn about fairings, chrome, plastic dinguses or snazzy two-tone paint jobs. In fact, even if I fell into some bizzaro alterna-world where I could suddenly afford a brand spankin' new 1200GS there's an even chance that I'd hit it with flat black paint the first week I got it home. Not sure if this info is relevant to my purchase decision, but I just thought I'd put it out there. Basically, I still want to ride a rat, just a bigger, better and more reliable one than I'm on now.

Leseee... is there anything else that I forgot to mention? Well, there is the slightly depressing fact that whenever I clock someone riding a beemer, they always turn out to be a white-haired oldster. Does anyone under thirty-five ride these things?

Oh, and if anyone has any thoughts on the standard GS versus Adventure debate, toss 'em in. Thus far I'm leaning towards the standard, just because I'm not planning on riding Paris-Dakar anytime soon, I don't need (or don't think I need) dirt tires, and the larger gas tank just makes me think of more weight. If I'm wrong about any of this, please lemme know.

Thanks everyone! I really look forward to hearing your opinions. Consider this your opportunity to recruit another happy GS-rider into the fold (or warn off someone who won't be happy with one - your call).

- Slim