Well a year later and I miss the superbly adjustable suspension of the Tiger 1200 (I had the Gen 3), you are very limited in what you can do with the R1250GS suspension which ended up as my steed of choice. I think I put a little summary of my experience up somewhere on these pages. The high speed damping is crashy and the regular "road" mode damping is enough to make you seasick. There are lots of positives too of course and my suspension is a little compromised in that I have the low chassis model which just doesn't seem to suit the Telelever/Paralever setup. That was never an issue with the low chassis Gen 3 I tried years ago though.
The new GS has launched to a big fanfare and it does look well in the dealers showroom but it is a small bike. The pillion footrests have been raised 8cm,
it is a very small space for them now. Rider seat to foot-peg distance is also shrunk making it a bit more cramped, not great, the tall seat will be popular to try and counteract that. I already had to put lowering pegs on my current GS to try and match the generous Tiger 1200 dimensions.
I think they have excelled with the Automatic Ride Height system and there is now no low chassis GS because of it and they have finally, finally given the user some level of control over the damping, five settings in each of the two main damping profiles, ROAD & DYNAMIC. Only eight years after Triumph have been offering nine levels on the T12
At least Triumph have programmed in a semi-auto rear preload lowering system but you were always able to do something a little similar for years, they have just made that a little easier to achieve
But the big news getting everyone (who knows) upset is that the
"maintenance free" drive shaft now has a
complete replacement service interval of 36,000 miles
I imagine that to be an expensive service, that is CRAZY
