Some of the BMW fanboys will definitely frown upon reading the title of this piece, but after reading it and watching the video below, they’ll be thanking us. That is, in case they haven’t found out about this weak point of the bike and had things fixed.
Long story short, the crash bars BMW is selling for the water-cooled R1200GS Adventure are not as good as we’d all like them to. Basically, their design seems to have missed out a rather common crash scenario, when the bike is dropped and rear end of the engine guards fall on higher ground or meet a boulder.
Since there is no bracing in that area, they can bend fairly easily, and in some cases, they will hit and break the boxer-engine’s valve cover. From a tiny scratch to more extensive damage, this is definitely not the surprise you’re looking for. First of all, in more severe crashes, you might have a hard time making it back to a city. Even if your bike is not severely damaged to the point where it would cease to work properly, the repair is not going to be a cheap business.
Cheaper to prevent than to fix
ADVPulse mentions a Cycle World test with the water-cooled R1200GS Adventure when a crash led to the engine guard flexing and puncturing the valve cover. Fixing the Adventure returned a bill reading $1,245 for parts and $470 for labor, a total of €1,385 for the readers across the pond. Definitely not the type of “reward” one expects from a ride in the wild, is it?
Adventure-focused aftermarket manufacturer Touratech was quick to figure out a way how to correct this weakness. The fix consists of an additional brace which is made from stainless steel and which reinforces the rear loop of the engine guard.
The brace is electro-polished for a finish identical to that of the EOM crash bars, and installing it is a 15- minute job, requiring only common tools and wrenches. The Touratech kit is complete with all the needed mounting hardware.
Now, this $189 (€152 equivalent) investment can definitely save you a lot of money in case things go wrong, even though it adds even more weight to a bike which isn’t exactly the lightest of the pack already. Still, better safe (and heavy) than sorry, ain’t it so? The Touratech brace also fits the water-cooled R1200GS. You can order it from Touratech or their dealers and install it yourselves, following the video guide below.
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