BMW R 100GS PD

With newly-legal plastic tanks comes the UK BMW R100GS PD. But there's much more to it than an ancient engine and eight-gallon refills.

THIS IS A BIKE AND A HALF. It's half tourer, half schoolboy motocrosser and, in its violet and white paint, it looks half Cadbury's Dairy Milk too. But oddest of all, it's half thanks to Triumph, of all people, that the bike's here in the UK at all.

IKE first tested the P-D (for Paris-Dakar, though BMW isn't allowed to use the full name for copyright reasons) version of the popular GS a year ago when, because of its oversize, illegal-inthe-UK plastic tank, it was available only via a grey import back door in our case known as Guernsey. Now, due mostly to Triumph's concerted parliamentary lobbying over the then imminent and similarly plastic-tanked Tiger 900, things have changed. Placcy tanks are now (as long as they meet the required standard) legally kosher; the Triumph Tiger is here, the similarly be-tanked Cagiva Elefant is back and BMW's P-D is now officially available too. Great, innit?

Essentially the P-D is stock GS and none the worse for it. BM's enduring, rose-tinted, 980cc flat-twin embraces the now familiar Paralever shaft-drive rear, a pair of soft-ish, leading-axle teles up front and some rather tasty Akront wire wheels, with the spokes on the outer edge of the rim to allow for tubeless tyres at each end. It's all familiar, pleasantly proven and, well, let's face it, a bit old bast'd. Sixty lumbering horses at 6500rpm and a top whack that struggles to count up to three figures was never likely to get anyone younger than 30 to drop their knickers, but Boxers manage to get you going in other ways. And that's not just another way of saying it's slow.

This might have all been said before, but BMs, and Boxers in particular, take time and many, many milesto appreciate. At first, a lot of  things are a pain in the bot: unfamiliar switchgear; a tight and clonky gearbox; an almost impossibly tricky sidestand; an engine that seems to want a higher gear before you've even reached 4000rpm; and a severe lack of go. But no matter how irate such things make you at first, I defy anyone to then stop the fondness start flooding through.

Even though the Dark Ages gearbox was always unhappily clonky around town and sometimes full of more neutrals than a UN peace keeping force, above that... just stick it in top (fifth) and travel; this thundering, but soft, elastic twin can still deliver. What vibes exist seem only to numb the second finger on the throttle hand -and even then only on long motorway journeys. The single plate clutch is reasonably light and nicely precise. And any other idiosyncrasies from the two-valve old-timer are quickly overshadowed by the lumbering, practical, unpressured joy of it all. The P-D may be a little soggy, but there remains a barrelling thunder about a Boxer BM when you really roll it on. So, roll that throttle; roll around those bends; roll a little Beethoven or Strauss around in your helmet and, with that 35litre tank and a range potentially the far side of 300 miles, it's 'Next stop: Somewhere Very Far Away', cos that's the sort of fun it brings.

Handling, though a little unsophisticated and heavy and a touch vague when on the edge of the excellent Metzeler Sahara tubeless tyres, is, on the whole, fine. Around town the low comfy seat, good visibility, light steering and masses of steering lock, put the P-D ahead of virtually anything. On motorways at a steady, respectable 80-85, the plush seat, half-decent (and adjustable) screen, hand guards and top-gear effortlessness come into their own. And along fast country roads the preload-only adjustable Paralever rear-end sumptuously absorbs every rut and hole. Wherever you may be, however hard yo,u may be travelling, on a GS, PD version or no, everything seems to attract a comfortable, easy, mile-eating hue.

Push a GS and you'll be surprised how ably it responds. I remember a guy who used to race a GS in Battle of the Twins around Cadwell and the like and there was many a red-faced Ducati, Guzzi or Cagiva rider in his wake. Unlike some Japs (the Super Ten springs to mind), the BM nears its limits slowly, gracefully, gradually. It never gets ragged, threatens to throw you off or scares. It merely deteriorates, gets slightly more sloppy the more crazy you ride. And that's largely why it's so much fun.

The only time you really have to wake from this swinging, lumbering bliss is on the brakes. With its solitary 285mm Brembo up front and single disc rear, the P-D's brakes are, to be blunt, a little marginal. I always needed hefty wodges of rear to slow as I'd like -and that was relatively unladen and solo. With repeated hard use, such as my twisty, eight-mile hack into work, they faded quicker than a cheap T-shirt in a Philips Whirlpool. The rearwards weight bias doesn't help, of course, but an extra disc up front would do wonders for my self-preservation.

Overall, those are the sort of conventional performance-orientated parameters that plain don't seem to matter very much on the P-D. Yes, you can have a whoop-whoop blast on this Beemer, even if it is lOmph slower than would be possible on most of its obvious competition. But, more usually, even more idiosyncratically, it's the things that aren't immediately obvious that, in time, bring big smiles to your face. And that can be the first long ride when you notice how comfortable the deep seat and low and easy riding position is; the first unscheduled shopping binge when you realise how useful those panniers are — big enough for a full face lid for example or that first cold morning when you fall instantly in love with the wonderful heated bar-grips. And on top of all that the P-D has that aforementioned but unobtrusive huge tank, a useful rear rack, stylish if a tad useless raised front mudguard AND more gaudy style than any GS can shake a stick at.

Whether that's all worth the ,£909 the P-D costs over the standard R100GS is another matter. And if you want the heated bar grips they're an extra $105. But for me, the GS remains my favourite BM and the P-D version of it is, if not some kind of weird ultimate, definitely the best yet. For two weeks it was my car, my scratcher, my van and my joy. It had a heater, it had superb panniers, it was comfortable, but more than anything, it was fun. And one day I'd like to end up with one. When I'm 35. D