![]() ![]() The long traveling suspension, with 270mm of action front and back, soaks up the roads chaos. The bike is calmly ripping along through gravel, washboards, and potholes, with the only concern being over the occasional tight corners slowing our 100kph pace. The Challenge and I are getting to know each other. Later in the day I fall back from the plumes of dust left from the other press bikes. May dirt biking never an execution of a downhill hairpin this crawling again… Likely I’m relying on too much back brake and not enough front, but this is new territory for me – literally and figuratively. Braided lines, both front and back, provide excellent control and let me near-lock the rear tire but skirt a full slide. A single 300mm petalled rotor up front is gripped by a double-piston floating caliper, meanwhile out back a single-piston floating caliper clenches the 240 mm disc. Suddenly the brakes, which on the road left the Challenge feeling… er… challenged makes sense. Once turned, a process that saw momentarily contemplation of lifting the Challenge’s 156kgs should I drop it, my adrenal gland is faced with an all-new assault – the decent. No fear of scratching the aluminum skid plate thanks to extra-ordinary clearance, I come round though the ditch. Paired with a precise feather-it-all-day light cable actuated clutch control is complete.įeet are planted on serrated foot-pegs, and the bike is narrow and nimble beneath me. Now updated it’s obvious BMW have had time to get the design right, there’s almost no on-off throttle jerking. Around since the Romans, the Rotax manufactured plant has been used in BMW’s F650 series. Then there’s the steering lock so wide this thing could check it’s own taillights.īalance is only part of the control equation the fuelling to the 652cc engine is immaculate – a hard thing to accomplish on single-cylinder. Moving the fuel’s mass down into the frame gives the Challenge the stripped down form of a trials bike and lowers the center of gravity making for better balance. Part of that poise is due to BMW placing the fuel cell under the seat right-hand side. With the balance and deportment of Karen Kane in her ballet prime G650X Challenge turns tail. ![]() I needn’t worry, the bike we’ve jokingly called the “Long Way Down” comes through for me. Even with my 34-inch inseam the Challenge has me high-centered paddling around parking lots – this is an incline with unsure footing. If I stop I’ll need to walk the G650X Challenge around. By the second, I’m beginning to realize self-imposed off-road riding limits and looking for a place to turn around. The first switchback reveals a rusting abandoned bulldozer. It’s an old logging road and it’s a discovery. A twist of the throttle and a muted dirt-bike “brapp” from the high-mount exhaust signals exploration. I’d never attempt this grade on an adventure bike, but standing tall… very tall on the pegs of BMW’s new purpose-built enduro the G650X Challenge the previously unreasonable seems within my grasp. I wonder what’s up that road? It’s rutted, rocked and the soil looks loamy with aggregate mixed in. ![]()
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