[TheHelix0202]

Had the pleasure of trying out a good friend’s GSA 850 after 2 years and 2 months of taking delivery of the bike along with him.





Looks regal and touring ready!









Notice the Android Auto/Apple CarPlay + 360 camera module (costs 25k).

That’s a brilliant chassis, amazingly agile, weight disappears under you. Fantastic electronic suspension magic, took a speed breaker accidentally at 80+ kmph and didn’t feel a thing.

Only thing I felt it lacking was a bit of outright grunt, but that’s perhaps I tried it in Dynamic mode. There’s a sportier mode too. Stock headlights suck though, this one had very powerful auxiliaries. All in all, this bike’s worth every penny according to my friend.

[Rahulkool]

Did not use the bike much in last 1 month as i was travelling for work. Finally 10k kms done on a solo ride to Pondy.



Gave the bike for 2nd service on 5th Nov

Reached the service center early, first bike for service that day.


Sometimes after wash no plate lights will malfunction and this error will be displayed, no other issue.


Rest was just routine service, told them to clean the chain well, including the front sproket.

Labour cost



Parts cost



Total bill was rs16,647/- , following work was done.

Engine oil and oil filter
Air filter
Brake fluid change
Chain and brake cleaning

Some pics from recent rides.

[Rahulkool]

Another ride to the hills.

Did a ride to Yelagiri and Jawadhu. One friend joined from bangalore in his R1300GS. Plan was to meet at Alankar, Ratnagiri. Then ride to Yelagiri from there, ride back to Vaniyamvadi and then to Jawadhu.

Parked safely at Alankar.


Fantastic breakfast, anyone doing Bangalore - Chennai should try this place. Even the evening snacks are good.


At the top of Yelagiri hill, nice weather.


Nice pose for the portrait






Nothing more satisfying than riding through mountains.


On top of Jawadhu hill, near the lake. Its a beautiful location.










Had lunch at star biryani, Ambur. Food was below average


A nice ride of almost 600kms.

Rode the 1300GS for 100kms on the highway. This thing is bonkers, there is so much torque and engine is much more refined that 1250GS. It masks the speed really well with refined engine and that tall windshield.

[Rahulkool]

IBW ride to Goa.

Always wanted to do Goa ride from Chennai, i have done it in Abarth a few years back and wanted to ride on the konkan route on a bike. IBW seemed like a good excuse.

Posted in our ride planning whats app group. After long discussions 2 more folks from Chennai got ready for the ride and one more of our friend will be joining from Bangalore, he planned to ride to Krishnagiri and then ride back to Bangalore along with us. As he didn't wanted his odo to be less than others in this trip.

Tentative plan for the ride
5th Dec - Chennai to Goa via Bangalore, Tumkur, Davanagere
6th Dec - Stay in goa and visit IBW if we feel like it
7th Dec - Return to Chennai via Konkan route but nothing was planned, we plan to stay back somewhere for a day.
8th Dec - Ride back to Chennai

I managed to order a bigger Puig touring plus windshield before the ride. Had to go and collect from the delivery office as they were not in a hurry to deliver it. I fitted it it myself just the night before, it was a simple installation on the stock windshield mounts. This is a really tall windscreen, at the lower position, I can feel a little bit of air hitting the top of the helmet, I could ride with helmet visor open comfortably. If I push it to the highest position then I have look through the windshield, can use this position for good highways.

All packed and ready to go on 5th morning, i left from my house at 3:30 am as we were supposed to meet near sriperumbudur at 4:15am. As usual one of the friend was running late, we managed to leave the from the rendezvous point only by 5:15am.


Somewhere on the way to krishnagiri.


At Krishangiri for breakfast, we reached around 8:50am, that R1250GS is not from our group.


Reached entry for not-so-nice road in Bangalore around 10:30am. My cousin who lives in Bangalore had come to meet us in his Himalayan 411.

Posing with cousin’s full loaded 411.


Whole gang posing for pic.


12:30pm, tea break somewhere before tumkur, we lost a bit of time on the nice road stop.

From left to right
My F850GS Adventure, Srikant’s R1300GS, Rajaghuru’s Versys 1000 and Swami’s 20 days old F900GS Adventure


2.44pm, lunch stop at A2B after Sira.


4.17pm, First fuel stop at Kasavanahalli.


Beautiful landscape.












As I had booked a hotel in Agonda, which is very much in south of south goa. We thought of taking the below route from Haveri, instead of going till Hubballi. The initial 70-80 kms were very treacherous. It was narrow road going through a dense forest and it started pouring cats and dogs once we were in the middle of it. There was not a single soul to be seen for kms altogether in pitch dark road. Some places road was also dug up on sides for widening, so ditch on the sides and the mud from digging was all over the road due to heavy rain, making it very slippery. Upon reaching Yellapur, we thought of having light dinner. While having dinner it again started pouring, we waited it out. Took around 1 hour for rains to subside.


Waiting for rains to stop.


We started from Yellapur to Karwar around 10:30pm. There was a ghat section before karwar, just 15 kms of ghat section but bad roads with heavy rain made it seem much longer.

This is after exiting the ghat section, we took a break for few mins. From here the roads were in good shape and reached the hotel around 2am.


Total 928kms. Lots of time wasted in breaks, happens in groups rides.

[Rahulkool]

Hotel in Goa was good, we checked in at mid night, the hotel staff were very helpful and polite. Only issue was that there was no kitchen was in the hotel but quite a few restaurants around.

I have only these two photographs of the hotel, you can see more pics on google - https://maps.app.goo.gl/FC7WzznVdSpzk7pi7





We did went to IBW next day after late lunch. IBW location was around 80kms from the hotel and took almost 2 hours.

We stayed there for couple of hours, It was too loud and crowded, i dont like both of those things lol. Was wearing earplugs the whole time. Not a pleasant experience to be honest. At least there was decent amount of parking space, we parked the bikes near the entrance, lots of free space, although people were riding the bikes inside but it was very chaotic and not very well managed.



Some random click from the IBW.












Next day we started the return journey, plan was to ride as much as possible comfortably and stay somewhere around Chikkamagaluru.

Srikant and Rajaghuru left early morning for bangalore as they wanted to be back home by same day. Myself and Swami started around 10am from the hotel.

We took the Goa-Karwar-Gokarna-Murdeswar-Kundapura-Sringeri-Chikkamagaluru route. It was very nice and scenic route, around 450kms. Weather was also good throughout, we encountered some rains after kundapura.



The famous Maravanthe beach.












After lunch we finally booked a hotel in Chikkamagaluru.

somewhere after kundapura, we had to stop for tea and to put on the rain covers.


Sringeri town and temple.




Next early morning we started the ride towards Chennai.

Chikkamagaluru hotel




It was quite foggy for initial few kms.




Stopped for tea before entering bangalore. Who says only 1300GSA has a place to keep cups
You can also notice the new windscreen here, another benefit of tall windscreen is that it completely protects the phone, even in pouring rain i could ride with phone mounted and not a single drop of rain on it. I use an old pixel 4a for navigation and it is not water resistant, so earlier i had to remove mobile if it starts raining.


Back on not-so-nice-road.


Had lunch in bangalore with my cousin, which took quite a while. Upon checking traffic we noticed a huge jam near hosur, so decided to take litte detour via Rayakottai towards Krishnagiri.






Finally reached home around 10pm, we were riding slow and took few breaks on the way, including light dinner.

Final trip stats. 2125kms.

[asininite]

Originally Posted by Rahulkool

Attachment 2702442

Sorry if I'm not giving attention to the beamer, but that Xpulse supermoto just looks so good. Those Apollo H1s just fit the bike so well. I wish Hero would slap their 250cc LC engine in there and make it a menace to all those Duke 250s who keep slowing down at potholes every 50m, but I digress.

Excellent pictures Rahul.

[Rahulkool]

Originally Posted by asininite

Sorry if I'm not giving attention to the beamer, but that Xpulse supermoto just looks so good. Those Apollo H1s just fit the bike so well. I wish Hero would slap their 250cc LC engine in there and make it a menace to all those Duke 250s who keep slowing down at potholes every 50m, but I digress.

Excellent pictures Rahul.

Yes it did look good, infact all the bikes at Hero stall looked fantastic. But looking at the hero track record, most of them wont be launched.

[Rahulkool]

Another day, another set of accessories

Got the Chigee AIO5 BMW, its a carplay/Android auto unit which mounts on the standard BMW nav prep. So you don't have to do any wiring and stuff. Also its locked in with a key like BMW nav unit so don't have to remove it everytime.

The chigee unit mounts on this nav prep on the bike, you can see it has pin for power as well as some data like obd connector.


Connector on the back of the chigee unit. It feels like really well build product.


Top of the unit has some buttons for easy access. The touch works really well with gloves as well. My phone was always difficult to use with the gloves and i had to mostly remove gloves. There is a power button on top but the unit switches on as soon as you turn on the ignition, boot up time and phone connection is really quick. When you turn off the ignition then chigee gives a timer of 10 secs before turning off, i am guessing they have a capacitor or small battery inside.


Typical carplay interface






Home screen of the device


It can also show lots of data from the bike like TPMS, engine temp, battery voltage, lean angle etc etc.






Last trip has a some issue with lights while riding in fog so got this yellow filter for the stock fog lights. Installation was simple and easy, can be folded away when not in use.






Got these crankcase covers in carbon fibre finish. Again installation was simple and easy.

[Rahulkool]

Time to retire the Axor helmet. I had gotten this helmet with Interceptor, around 2 year back. Have done little over 30k kms with this helmet on Interceptor and GSA. In the recent few rides i felt a bit pain above the forehead, only to realise that the helmet padding in that area had gone completely flat. Initially i thought of getting a new inner padding but later decided to get a new lid itself.

Axor


I was planning to get a modular helmet and almost bought Shoei neotech 3 in my last abroad trip but unfortunately my size was not available. I thought i could just use the Axor for the time being but in the recent goa trip, it got a bit too uncomfortable.

Shoei neotech 3


Thought of getting a adv helmet for now and will get Shoei later. I wanted to buy Airoh Commander 2 but it was priced almost double in India at 48k if you consider the euro pricing. Tried few places but no discounts were offered.

Airoh Commander 2


Bhpian VW2010 suggested to check out a few models from LS2. LS2 is locally available, finally decided on MX701 Explore carbon helmet. Its just 1450gms, but again M size was not available in any store in Chennai. I had a big ride coming up so needed it urgently. Finally moto gear, mount road arranged it from Coimbatore.

Have used it for a 2000kms trip recently. Helmet feels nice and comfy, the inner padding is of good quality. Being a adv helmet the field of view is large, which was one of the big requirement for me after weight. Helmet has good noise isolation, as per some you tube review, its one of the most silent adv helmet out there. Tons of ventilation on it. It has a inner visor and comes with pinlock. Helmet is ECE 22.06 certified along with ISI for Indian market. LS2 India price is very close to US/Euro prices. Paid 35k for it, which is the MRP, no discounts.

]

[Invstamith]

Hey @Rahulkool, have the control switches on your bike come with a backlight/illumination? If not, how are you managing it on the night rides? I find it to be a huge but silly miss from BMW.

[Rahulkool]

Originally Posted by Invstamith

Hey @Rahulkool, have the control switches on your bike come with a backlight/illumination? If not, how are you managing it on the night rides? I find it to be a huge but silly miss from BMW.

No backlight/illumination on the buttons, even the new F900 and R1300 dont have this feature. It is a small but essential miss from BMW. I am now used to button placement now, but sometimes i do struggle to find the right button in the dark, like in the last kodai ride i wanted to switch on the heated grip and ended up pressing the ride model button first. Backlit switchgear would be an useful addition.

[Ketan_R15]

@Rahulkool, Congrats on the Chigee unit. Even I am ordering one for my BMW F900XR. Just one thing that was on my mind while ordering this (or other nav units like Carpuride etc) in that these being 'Car' play units, the Google maps navigation is always in the Car mode and not the Motorcycle/Two wheeler mode. Here in our country where two wheelers are not allowed on quite a few expressways and highways and this can be a bit tricky as the map will by default suggest route in Car/Four wheeler mode. I guess there are solutions to it like toggling the Avoid highways button in Google Maps settings etc. I even spoke with the Chigee company personnel and was told that they are in talks with Google and working on an in app solution for two wheeler mode. Not sure about that though. Other solution I was told was to use other third party maps like mapmyindia etc.

But this is surely way more convenient and robust compared to using a smartphone for navigation. Congrats once again!

[Rahulkool]

Originally Posted by Ketan_R15

@Rahulkool, Congrats on the Chigee unit. Even I am ordering one for my BMW F900XR. Just one thing that was on my mind while ordering this (or other nav units like Carpuride etc) in that these being 'Car' play units, the Google maps navigation is always in the Car mode and not the Motorcycle/Two wheeler mode. Here in our country where two wheelers are not allowed on quite a few expressways and highways and this can be a bit tricky as the map will by default suggest route in Car/Four wheeler mode. I guess there are solutions to it like toggling the Avoid highways button in Google Maps settings etc. I even spoke with the Chigee company personnel and was told that they are in talks with Google and working on an in app solution for two wheeler mode. Not sure about that though. Other solution I was told was to use other third party maps like mapmyindia etc.

But this is surely way more convenient and robust compared to using a smartphone for navigation. Congrats once again!

Havent faced that issue till now as down south most of the expressways bikes are allowed but you are right this could be an issue.

Chigee is very convenient to use, some of the pros and cons i observed in last few rides.

Pros
1. Easy to mount and no extra wiring required.
2. Touch screen work very well with gloves, no issues at all.
3. Fast boot up and connection.
4. OBD interface.
5. Easy control for media and calls.
6. Bright display even with full sunlight, phone used to overheat and reduce the brightness.

Cons
1. Not a con just for the Chigee device but all wireless android auto/carplay devices, have to charge the phone as battery drain is higher with carplay. With phone as navigation it used to charged on the phone cradle, now have to keep the phone in tankbag and route a wire for charging or use a powerbank.
2. Once navigation hanged on the device, all function were working fine but navigation was not moving. Even the google maps app was working but no change in location. Had to restart the Chigee, killing the maps app on phone and starting again didnt worked. Has happened in phones too but you have just kill the app and open again. To restart the Chigee you have to turn the bike ignition then further wait 10secs more.
3. When you get a phone call it takes up the whole display with accept and reject call buttons, stupid interface design from apple, i dont see any option to disable it. Not sure if its the same in android auto.

[falcon.adv390]

Originally Posted by Rahulkool

Havent faced that issue till now as down south most of the expressways bikes are allowed but you are right this could be an issue.

Chigee is very convenient to use, some of the pros and cons i observed in last few rides.



Cons
1. Not a con just for the Chigee device but all wireless android auto/carplay devices, have to charge the phone as battery drain is higher with carplay. With phone as navigation it used to charged on the phone cradle, now have to keep the phone in tankbag and route a wire for charging or use a powerbank.
2. Once navigation hanged on the device, all function were working fine but navigation was not moving. Even the google maps app was working but no change in location. Had to restart the Chigee, killing the maps app on phone and starting again didnt worked. Has happened in phones too but you have just kill the app and open again. To restart the Chigee you have to turn the bike ignition then further wait 10secs more.
3. When you get a phone call it takes up the whole display with accept and reject call buttons, stupid interface design from apple, i dont see any option to disable it. Not sure if its the same in android auto.

CarPlay consumes a lot of battery from the iPhone. If you using CarPlay while charging the phone, it heats up and leads to performance issues. This one of the reasons I went back to using a backup phone as my navigation unit.

[Rahulkool]

Originally Posted by falcon.adv390

CarPlay consumes a lot of battery from the iPhone. If you using CarPlay while charging the phone, it heats up and leads to performance issues. This one of the reasons I went back to using a backup phone as my navigation unit.

yes thats true, i have been using the iphone for past few month. Its working well so far, the battery drop is not that significant for me. Usually lasts for 400-500kms of ride, if more than that then by the end of the day i connect a power bank. So far had to do that only couple of times.

Originally Posted by Ketan_R15

@Rahulkool, Congrats on the Chigee unit. Even I am ordering one for my BMW F900XR. Just one thing that was on my mind while ordering this (or other nav units like Carpuride etc) in that these being 'Car' play units, the Google maps navigation is always in the Car mode and not the Motorcycle/Two wheeler mode. Here in our country where two wheelers are not allowed on quite a few expressways and highways and this can be a bit tricky as the map will by default suggest route in Car/Four wheeler mode. I guess there are solutions to it like toggling the Avoid highways button in Google Maps settings etc. I even spoke with the Chigee company personnel and was told that they are in talks with Google and working on an in app solution for two wheeler mode. Not sure about that though. Other solution I was told was to use other third party maps like mapmyindia etc.

But this is surely way more convenient and robust compared to using a smartphone for navigation. Congrats once again!

Had this issue few days back while riding from bangalore to Mysuru, carplay was showing expressway route. Bikes are not allowed on the expressway. I was going in that expressway route only but took the service lane, the service lane is not always next to this expressway and sometime you need to find your way through some towns or take some detour. The solution i found is that you can go to map setting and select avoid toll roads, it worked well for me. Dont forget to enable it back for your next trip, dont ask me how i know