The BMW R1300 GS is an Unexpected Hillclimb Beast
The BMW R 1300 GS might have been marketed by the Bavarians as a go-anywhere adventurer, but it’s also a missile up a hill
What do you see when you look at a BMW R1300 GS? The key to your off-roading dreams? A motorcycle to carry you across Europe? A bike destined to be the first twin-cylinder BMW to have an M badge stuck on its fuel tank?
The guys at the Mansell Collection evidently lean towards the latter perspective. The Jersey-based motorcycle dealer and service centre took an all-new BMW R1300 GS to Bouley Bay on the largest of the Channel Islands for the annual Easter Hillclimb at the beginning of April, and almost made the adventurer a record breaker.
Ridden by the Collection’s Greg Mansell, the GS was lashed up the Bouley Hill in 46.6 seconds, which put it under a second off the record that stretches back to 2010.
A video posted by the Mansell Collection to its social media channels shows Mansell running up the Bouley Bay hill on the GS, and it must be said that, for a motorcycle that you’re used to hearing lugging its way out of corners at minimal engine speeds, it does sound pretty good when it’s being pushed to the redline.
Ducati Multistrada V4 RS.
The indication of the GS’s discomfort with its environment in this case is made evident by the supermoto-style leg-out riding technique used by Mansell, but the Ducati Multistrada V4 RS proved when it was unveiled last year that it is possible to make a track weapon out of an adventure-tourer. So, perhaps an M1300 GS isn’t so fanciful after all…
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Alex has been working in the motorcycle industry for as long as he has been at Visordown, which has been since March 2022 so we'll let you work it out from there. He's the new guy. He'd be fetching us all coffee 'round the clock if he wasn't based in the arse end of nowhere.
