Does anyone know that feeling? You're about to ask something of your bike, which you have never done before? Especially when you've done such a lot of work to the bike, that its a direct questioning of your engineering skills.
Well, lets go back 2 weeks. I got invited to a weekend abroad, however, i needed to go by bike, since the car was already full. I screamed "NOOOOOOOO, MY BIKE CAN'T DO THAT!" on the inside but a very enthusiast "Yes sure! It'll be fun!" came out. I never ride on the highway! Hell, i never even let it rev up high enough :p (some may have seen the 130 km/h top speed post :p). My jets aren't correct. My needles need fine-tuning, my rear tire leaks, my chain is done for, My oil/oilfilter hasnt been changed for close to a year, Front fork seals are leaking, and temps of my plugsensor would run over 200C from time to time. All reasons NOT to go on a roadtrip, specially not on the highways (and german autobahn) for extended periods of time. On top of all this, it was going to be a HOT HOT HOT day when we would take off. 32C (thats really hot for me as a dutchman).

And when a week before the trip my engine started knocking at idle, i lost all hope of me actually arriving at my destination! I did do an oilchange + filter, and installed new sprockets and a chain. But i was So sure that my bike would stall, or worse on the trip.

But this Gs500, this TANK OF A BIKE had no problems whatsoever! It had no problems going 130,140 and sometimes 150 km/h for hours!
It has truly earned all my trust now!

Im not sure why im posting all this :p i guess that im just happy that the GS is more of a workhorse than i've been giving it credit for in my mind. All well, Ends well!

Good show man! glad it worked out! 

I know 110% what you are talking about here... not just about my GS either.  What a great post, thank you for sharing   

This bike is often referred to as bulletproof by motojournalists. Great bike!


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Enjoyed the post about your trip Krav it brought back fond memories for me.  Back 10 years ago we were making annual trips to the mountains to ride and would travel the Interstates at high speeds for 400-500 mile days to get there and return.  I've ridden them hard and ridden them easy and racked up 180k GS500 miles and never once did they let me down.  It's an old design but still a great one.

Couldn't agree more used to ride mine to school/work ~60 miles on the highway each way every day. Only maintenance I did back then was top the oil when I noticed my clutch acting funny.