BMW R 1200 GS and Adventure now with free Vario motorcycle panniers (UK only)
Posted on 2009/04/03
Good news for UK future GS riders: Motorrad UK has just announced they will be offering free motorcycle panniers for BMW 1200 GS; their best selling bikes: the R1200 GS and R1200 GS Adventure series. Between April first (no joke. hopefully). and until 30 September ‘09, anyone buying one of these two models of bikes will get their motorcycle panniers for free. This comes down to a saving of around 600 UK pounds for the Adventure bike and 450 UK pounds for the normal GS - not a bad deal!
Mottorrad is still calling this set of panniers the ultimate motorcycle accessory for the GS series, but I’m not so sure if they have any value apart from on long overnight trips. These panniers have become a bit of a status symbol, and I can’t imagine them being practical for inner city commuting. Having said that, the Vario panniers have an adjustment mechanism which functions to reduce the width of the boxes to just 120mm (from 68 to 50 liters in volume) - for the R1200 GS. The R1200GS Adventure’s panniers can carry a whopping 82 liters or 20Kg load and the normal R1200GS can carry around 10Kg per pannier.
The Vario panniers manufactured by BMW have are rugged boxes made out of aluminum and been reported to be of great quality; they don’t come cheap at all. So this is a great deal from BMW. Not such a great deal for other manufacturers like Metal Mule, Jesse and Touratech who will probably notice a drop in orders for panniers that fit these bikes. This deal is obviously aimed at people thinking about becoming owners of these bikes at the start of the new riding season.
Mottorad has also put together some motorcycle accessory packages for these GS models; these packs offer another 100 UK pounds savings off the price you’ll get in the shops and they include inner bags for the panniers, a tank bag for BMW 1200 GS, top box and inner bag for this topbox.
Good stuff, but don’t forget to check out other manufacturers of BMW GS accessories like Metal Mule, Jesse and Touratech - they build quality materials and could use a bit of attention in these crisis times.
