Learning to Ride the Big Pig

The BMW GS series bikes (Gelände/Straße, or “off-road”/”road”) are known by their owners as “pigs.”  The term seems to be most often used to describe the R1150 GS, which is aggressively ugly with its bulbous gas tank. Nevertheless R1200 GS is ugly in its own special Transformers sort of way.

When you see the bike on the road, trail or parked in front of Rosie’s Cantina, you don’t really appreciate the size of the thing. But when you saddle up, you feel like you’re sitting on a razorback hog. The boxer engine with its horizontally opposed cylinders is about three feet wide. That’s a lot of engine to put between your kneebones. 

I learned to ride on a Yamaha 250 Enduro when I was 13. When I was 18 I stepped up to a 1969 Triumph Bonneville and rode it everywhere from Temecula to Geyserville. None of that riding prepared me to hop on a 490 lb. bike that churns out 100 HP. (This isn’t near the upper limit for power in a modern bike, but for a point of comparison, the Vincent Black Shadow that Hunter Thompson described as a “genuinely hellish bike” spits out 55 hp and a modern gigantimundo Harley Electra Glide pumps 67 hp.)

When I rode the bike off the dealer’s lot I was worried about two things: that I would juice the throttle too much and send the front wheel up over my head. Or that I wouldn’t balance the throttle with the clutch and would stall the engine, flop the bike on its side, pinning my ankle under a cylinder head and lie in the street like a helpless turtle. 

What actually happened is that I rode the clutch and spluttered down the drive, running along on tip-toe with both feet like a tot on a Playskool scooter. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gary, the dealer, running alongside like an anxious father after the training wheels come off. 

I took a few wobbly turns in a cul-de-sac near the shop. I noticed that the entire staff was out in front watching. Along with all the customers. But they didn’t get their money’s worth. I managed to get the hang of things well enough to ride the pig home without injury or woe.