BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

Just been watching on Youtube a video of a 1150GS rider with a bike cam doing the mountain part of the Isle of Man TT course. Pretty impressive as he wasn't holding back and managed to overtake numerous "power rangers" on their sports bikes!
A lot has been written praising the handling of the GS bikes but not much about the R bikes. Never having ridden a GS does anyone know how the 2 compare?
What would they be like side by side on a track? Just wondering....................

There's a lot more word out there on the handling and abilities of the GS's because BMW has sold a bunch of them; more than they sold R/R's in recent years.

In regards to handling: All i know from experience is that my dad's r12gs turns in much much faster than my R/R ever will. High center of gravity, totally different front end (ignoring utterly the fact that it's a totally different bike) i think adds to it's handling abilities.

I've seen the video you're referring to, with the 1150gs blasting his way across Mann, and I didn't see him do anything radical, he just looked much more familiar with the roads. An 1150R with a similarly competent rider would have no issues keeping up, there's just more people on GS's that film and post videos of rides than there are r1150/1100/1200 riders that do.

my .05