Ride Quality & Brakes
4 out of 5
This is an astonishingly easy bike to ride. It's not light, but all the weight is low down so it feels remarkably stable. I sat on it and immediately pulled away into a feet up U-turn, no trouble at all.
You can hustle it through turns, although you need to remember that it's not a featherweight.
Comfort is excellent for me. Some owners bawww about the seats, I find mine all day comfortable, helped by the totally neutral riding position. Glasgow to South Wales in a day was no trouble at all, no aches or twinges anywhere. I felt like I could have jumped back on and done it again.
Yes, there's "only" one front rotor, but unless you're doing triple figures then hauling and stamping hard on the brakes will almost immediately trigger the ABS, showing that the tyres are the limiting factor.
On that, the stock Battle Wings are mince. Fine in a straight line or dry bends, but hit a typical wet, diesel soaked roundabout and you'll be hanging off to try and keep the bike as upright as possible, or experiencing arse-clenching wobbles. They're also useless off-road, the "chunky" pattern being for appearance only. I've replaced the Battle Wings like-for-like once, but I won't be doing so again.
The "650" is a lowered version of the F800GS and mine is (I believe) the lowered version of the 650. It really is astonishingly low: with 28" inside legs I can comfortably flat foot it both sides. This is hugely confidence inspiring and it doesn't seem to suffer from it - I've never managed to ground anything out. If you think you can't ride a "big" bike, try one of these, it will surprise you.
Engine
4 out of 5
In its detuned form, the engine will pull from 2000 rpm all the way up to the 10K (or thereabouts) limiter. You can ride it like a car, short shifting and riding the easy torque, or hammer lumps out of it and it'll happily take either. Fuelling is superb, with no hunting, surging or flat sports: it really is a great unit. I don't get the vibes that other owners report, even though I've replaced my stock bars with narrower, lighter ones for filtering fun.
The one issue is that in stock form, the gearing on the "650" variant is too long, with an annoying gap between 1st and 2nd. Fitting an F800GS front sprocket (one tooth fewer) for a few pounds sorts it all out and makes the bike feel much livelier, at the cost of a few mpg if you do a lot of 6th gear motorway runs.
Build Quality & Reliability
5 out of 5
Very little to fault it on. The coating on the underside of the engine is a weak point, and may need a dab of Hammerite if you ride through winter. Other than that, nothing has so much as dulled and it just keep going and going and going. This is one of the very few modern BMWs that hasn't had any recalls or any common problems. Some owners report issues with headstock bearings - mine have been fine.
Value & Running Costs
5 out of 5
Forget the MCN mpg figures, that's them ragging it in 2nd gear. Real world, you'll get 65mpg or more.
Even BMW servicing is surprisingly affordable, with a 'major' service running to not much over £200 (you can get rinsed for twice that at Suzuki). Not that I'd trust the local Motorrad to change the month on a calendar, let alone valve shims. This is an easy enough bike to home service - even the ABS brakes can be bled without any of BMW's notorious servo nonsense.
It sips fuel and the consumables - tyres, chain and sprockets, oil, filters - nothing really runs expensive. No £250 belts, no shaft drives that cost nothing until they cost some unlucky owner thousands, it's just a decent, honest, straightforward bike.
Equipment
4 out of 5
Mine came with the "computer" (don't they all?) with - almost - everything you'd want to know. Gear, fuel, two trip meters, average/instant mpg readouts, temperature. The only thing lacking is a range counter, although there's a pointless "miles since the fuel light came on" number.
The two-temperature heated grips work OK, although the £9 Chinese specials on my Enfield heat up faster.
There's a fairly high draw power socket built in, although it's some Euro-trash rather than the standard fag-lighter socket that Baby Jesus would have used. Adaptors are readily and cheaply available though.
At the rear there are two decent grab handles which also form part of the four solid mounting points for a top box, built right into the bike. Why don't all bikes do this? I have a huge 2-helmet top box mounted there, solid as a rock, with the weight over rather than behind the axle. None of your silly "bag of feathers" weight limits, I've had upwards of 25kg of locks and chains and beers in there without any drama.
I have what I think is an F800GS screen which does a fair job of wind deflection. Although there's no fairing, the shape of the bike does deflect a little of the weather away from your knees and body.
I've commuted, toured and (sort of) scratched on this bike and never found it wanting for features.