I recently sold a 790 ADV R and a 2015 R1200GS for a 2023 R1250GSA with the factory low option.
I rented a R1250GS last summer and enjoyed it. I find these bikes great touring bikes. I really don't plan to do much gravel, except for the Dalton Highway to Deadhorse (hopefully this summer).
The Low option makes it super easy to reach the ground, at the expense of clearance. But I'm NOT planning on hopping logs or riding anything where that massive clearance is required. For touring bikes I like the shaft drive. I have owned several GSes so I'm happy and familiar with that platform.
If you go the GS route, avoid the BMW vario bags. My rented bike had those. They have some sort of reverse "Harry Potter" magic that makes them bulky on the outside and cramped inside. Plus the top box fell apart on the first day of the tour and I rode the next 2 weeks with a strap holding the top box lid on. Their big old aluminum boxes made by Touratech are good, just not the vario boxes.
I have a 1250 GSA with the low suspension option. FWIW, here's my perspective.
I've owned 4 RTs. 1100, 1150,1200 hex and finally 1200 wet-head. I love the design of BMW boxer bikes. None are perfect but they have redeeming traits that I've grown fond of and spoiled by. I love telelever and driveshafts and an engine smooth enough to bolt directly to the "frame". They aren't light, but they're big-bore twins with storage and amenities. They're very light for what they offer. They're also really "designed". Sometimes well-designed and sometimes "what the eff were they thinking?" designed. I've taken enough of them by now that I'm not afraid of taking one apart and working on it or making subtle improvements.
I thought I might be nuts for buying the GSA. Was perfectly happy with the 1200RTW, but I'd just retired and the perfect spec was staring me in the face at the dealer. I needed to celebrate. After a year with it, I like it better!
My friends bought pickups and trailers. They're hauling their bikes to rallies. This is not why I bought a big motorcycle. Getting there and taking the time to do it is sort of the point - blocking out the time and just going with what happens. Half these guys haul their GS's. I don't get it. The others have SV's or WeeStroms or dirt bikes.
I didn't want another RT because the new RT does not have real GPS. In hindsight, I could just buy a Zumo XT, which is more reliable than my Nav V1, and use it in addition to the phone-powered BMW system. Probably would be fine.
The other reason I wanted a GS is the better storage options than RT. GSA comes with a rack for the aluminum boxes. You buy the boxes separately. I found out later that there are some advantages to soft bags and that soft bags are made for GSAs. Mosko Moto's stuff looks best to me, but I haven't bought any. I got the BMW pillion aluminum boxes. I really like them, but read on...
So many ways to tweak a GS. I really wanted to avoid a rabbit-hole of gizmo purchases.
I bought Altrider luggage plates for the back, one replaces the BMW luggage rack. The other replaces the pillion seat and comes off easily just using the key like removing the pillion seat. With both plates on, it's like a flat-bed. You can put a lot of stuff on there. I started camping with a Redvers Solo tent, 2 folding camp chairs and a folding table. I have a big air matress and a 15F sleeping bag. I sleep like a baby in that tent and love the "spare room" that I can change in, stand up in and invite people over when it rains. It takes a couple good sized dry-bags to hold it all, but it has changed my views on camping, which previously were pretty negative.
The GSA's big fuel tank blocks some wind. I don't find GSA to be harder to ride than a standard GS. The low suspension is mandatory for me on a GSA. I could avoid drops on a regular-height GS, but not a regular GSA. I wouldn't fall often, but it would happen.
I've tweaked the aero, seat and bars and it's now a lovely tourer. Not quite as plush as an RT, but very nice. Loaded up, the dry-bags make a great back-rest...put the soft stuff in the front where you're going to rest your back.
GSA has a little bit more aggressive geometry than the standard GS. Makes it easy to do U-turns and low-speed maneuvers. The extra weight of the big tank is really not an issue so long as I can reach the ground. GSA's geometry makes it slightly more darty on the highway, but it's not a problem at all, just something I've noticed. It's only half a degree different from the GS. I haven't looked to see what the 1250 RT steering angle is.
I got quite a bit of seat time last year on a stock-height GS, which is a little taller than the short suspension GSA. This was in the Swiss and French Alps on a moto tour. It was advanced riding, basically tight, technical riding on pavement or nearly pavement all day through fog and cold and sometimes difficult to follow GPS maps. The height of the GS was OK for me...just. Surprisingly, I didn't find the GS to be more maneuverable than my GSA. I think that ½ difference in steering angle is why.
I spent a lot of time and thousands of miles back road storming with a friend who has a GS HP with the tall suspension option...This option gives a GS the GSA standard height. He's getting same sort of MPG as my bike with his aluminum side boxes on. I got same sort of low MPG at speed with boxes before I started messing with touring windscreens, so I don't think my aero changes hurt MPG.
Big aluminum boxes on the sides of a bike eat about 10mpg at speed. My bike is fine with bags off or at lower speeds, but at 78mph (by the GPS) cruise control riding, mpg is mid-30's which to me is just obscene for a motorcycle. I can get better mpg in a Honda Accord on regular gas. If I really try to stretch it...accelerating moderately and avoiding all high revs, I can get...36? If I ride normally, I get 34. It's the side cases combined with the slightly lower gearing of the GS plus the speed that does it.
If you want a nice touring bike that's not too blasted heavy, GSA or GS are good contenders. R1250RT is also a contender. My problem with it was the lack of real GPS (easily fixed) and the fact that you need to order Active Cruise Control, which I don't like, in order to get the good things that I want.
I have a riding pal who has a KTM 1290. I'm not jealous. He's not thrilled with his bike either...and trailers it to events more than about 2 tanks of gas away from home. I sat on it and it's really tall. He's a huge guy. It fits him.
For me, touring is the thing. The GSA adds 3 things for my kind of touring that I think are useful.
1st is real GPS. A lot of times on trips, I'll spend days hunting really wicked curvy roads. I just point myself at some mountains and find a town with a short name that's on the far side, punch the town's name in to GPS and follow the pink line for an hour or two, then find a new destination...inching my way toward the actual destination. It's great fun for solo riding and I see truly amazing country this way. Plan on taking an extra day or two to get anywhere you want to go with this method. Garmin has "curvy roads" option these days. It's great some places and not great others. If there are no hills, there are no curves and it just takes you on dumb roads and wastes time. Some days, I don't care and I'll just take dumb roads all day for fun.
2nd is that GS and GSA with road or near road tires is slightly better if a road goes pavement-free for 10 to 20 miles and the "unpaved roads" GPS avoidance doesn't work. It doesn't in about half the states.
3rd is luggage capacity. RT's is pretty good but GS is bleeding amazing...just add money and you can carry a whole lot of stuff and look cool doing it.
I have to plug Continental Trail Attack 3's again. They're quiet on pavement, stick really well and seem to last a very long time. They seem to have a bit better puncture resistance than many street tires too...I've had a lot of stupid punctures on various Michelin "Road" tires that have ruined some trips. I'm pretty sick of it. No punctures, knock on wood, with TA3...and I've corded a rear one already.
If you really want long miles and very good, not great, dry pavement performance, put the TA3 on the front and a Conti TK70 on the rear. They work well together and the TK70 gives longer highway miles than the TA3. TK70 makes some noise when you lean it, but it sticks pretty well, TA3 makes less noise and sticks better, but not for as long. Looking at the tread on the TK70 front tire, though, I can see that it will make more noise than the TA3 front, which makes practically none. My TA3 front tire has near 14K on it and is still good for another 2K trip. I've got about 8K on the TK70 with a lot of tread left.
As to some of the other choices: The Triumph 1200 seems heavy and awkward to ride to me. I liked the middleweight one better than the big one. Tried a Multistrada once. I think they're a nice bike if you live in the hills and want to go riding often but not so much for travelling. I didn't like the seat and I really didn't like the Duc 4-valve, watercooled maintenance complexity and expense on my ST4 (1999?). The new bikes are definitely not simpler than that one. I sold that ST4 to a seasoned Duc owner who had 8 of them. He loved it. I feared it mechanically. I guess it just depends what you get used to. I've had boxer twins forever and I kind of know what to expect, I guess. Also like being able to access the cylinder heads without taking the whole bike apart as with most V-twins.
