You're right, Oldrascal. No use in testriding the 12GSA.
It was love at first sight, period.
I saw it first at the dealers in -06. But the finances wasn't to good at the moment, so my '78 Kawa Z650 "Pink Panther" had to keep up apearances for a year more. But it said goodbye in the beginning of may -07. Burnt it's third coil in a year. I bet it had heard that the dessert animal was ordered for delivery end of may
.
Winter -07, finances allowed ordering a brand new 12GSA. The local dealer could'nt get one, but the dealer i Oslo had ordered two in december -06, and hoped they showed up before the end of may. I could have one of those if I decided today he said on the phone. "OK, I take it, but I wat it end of may." My club, Senior MC, chapter Trondelag, was going to Sweden, trackdriving the first weekend of june, and I wanted to go with them.
But when the Panther broke down, I was whitout a ride, so one of the guys in the club borrowed me a -03 Triumph Bonneville, and also offered me to use it at the track if I did'nt get the GSA i time. Himself he drives a Kawa z14 or something, and his wife was then driving a Buell Ulysses, which she traded in a Triumph Tiger this year. Nice toy, got to admit that
Anyway, friday the dealer in Oslo called, "I got your bike from Berlin now, it's on the shopfloor, we are doing the final assembly now". Me, stuffing the riding gear in bag, helmet in hand rushing to the airport in a beatiful summer day, looking forward to nice ride across eastern Norway, across the border to Sweden and the track in Älvdalen, Dalarne, Sweden where we were going to drive saturday. Arriving in Oslo it poured, cats, dogs, old hags, you name it. I'm born and bread at the north Norwegian coast, and acustomed to the most of what the weather gods give us, but this was by far the worst rain I ever have experienced. Had to call the dealer, "I'm at the airport, hopefully I reach you before you close". "We'll wait for you" he said, and a quarter to closing time I showed up, then dessert animal standing outside, the dealer inside, ready to sell me a coverall rainsuit and a second hand GPS. Which I needed, going in to uncharted terrain across the border. Starting my life on a new bike, twice as big as anything I had driven on two wheels before, in that rain was'nt the pleasure I had hoped for. But it was a challenge I had to stand up to, my clubmates was waiting at the hotell at the track, expecting me. They had been driving down on friday, and I had halfway said I would go with them on Jan's Triumph.
The GPS wasn't mounted, I had it in the tank bag, three litres of gas in the tank, and my luggage in the two Hepco & Becker "Gobi" boxes. The topbox hadn't showed up in time to go on the first trip. Oslo isn't my cup of tea, and I ended up driving south on E6 instead of northeast, with the rain still pouring cats, dogs, old hags and whatever, making visibility like zero. Had to find a cas station, found one and a map sent me in the right direction. Half way to the border the rain gives in, and I can start to try out the bike and it's potential (Which I haven't found by now, anyway). Norwegian speedlimits isn't made for bikes who has an average work speed around 120 km/h, which I know, but I didn't know how well the GSA handled at speeds above the work speed of the Panthers 95 - 100 km/h. And behind that big screen, it was a new world of biking
Tried to get a friend to help me mount the GPS, but nope, he was busy, my charms failed
I had to make a new stop at a gas station to get the GPS mounted, Swedish backroads in the dark could be a bit more interesting than I like. And it was getting dark. Biking in the south has it's disadvantages, one of them is that you see stars in the night midsummer, and that's not right
But the dessert animal have better headlights than the Panther, so we drove on through dark backroads with a big hope there were no elks crossing in front of us. Which there wasn't. On my 42 K km I have only got one elk crossing the road, and a handfull reindeers. And it's not a pleasant experience on loose gravel when a reindeer jumps out form the forrest whitout knowing which side of the road it will bee on.
Back to topic. Riding a bike like GSA for the first time is a bit awesome. But somehow it fit me. It was on it's first service (1000 K km) inside the first fortnight I had it. And the better part of those 1000 K kms was driven that first weekend. And before the -06 seasons end it had 19 K km on the meter. And it's all been said in the previous posts. Don't testride a 12GS Adventure, by it and drive it. It's the ultimate driving machine.
But it's got one drawback, it's to heavy for wintergames