We have a '16 GSA LC in the garage. I've ridden it some, though no where as much as my Tenere. It's a feature rich bike that's nice to ride. It will eat up rough trail very well, despite it's size and weight and handle freeway speed touring just fine. It's pretty good corner carving too. It's not $15k better than the Super Tenere. I don't try and find excuses to ride the GSA, it's not a bike that appeals to me. Compared to my '12 Super Ten with 109k on it, I'd rather ride the '12 than the new GSA any day. Compared to the Gen II Super Ten, the GSA shows even less of a refinement from all it's technology and instead shows what happens when you refuse to update and improve, but keep putting bandaids on poor designs. The Gen II Super Ten is improved, has had real thought put into those improvements and is more refined, but every bit as rideable and capable as the Gen I. The GSA just got more crap that most people don't use and the re-design of parts that still suffer from the same critical design flaws.
People talk about the Super Tenere having no soul. ::025:: The GSA has no soul at all. It's more of a funky, low tech agricultural pump with wheels and pretty paint that's had a lot of electronic gee-gaws tossed at it. The Super Ten has a nice bark when you wind it out. The GSA boxer just sort of thunks more in it's quirky pump sounding way. Unimpressive, over complicated and flawed designs. The engineering failures on the design are epic. The huge fanboys I run into that rave about how great the GS/GSA is almost never have more miles on their bike than the warranty period. One fellow told me "the Tenere's break when you push them over a cliff" in regards to off road riding with the big ADV bikes. He was serious, as if somehow the GS/GSA wouldn't break if pushed over the same cliff! He's never owned a BMW out of warranty, and he's owned a bunch of them. He's never ridden any roads outside a tri state area and rides nearly all on off road routes he knows well. :
Hey, he has fun, so good on him. I go places on the bike. I have fun too. I just don't see running thru axle deep sand for 20 miles as particularly fun. He doesn't see covering multiple states in a day as fun. Either bike can do both, it's the rider, not the bike.
Riding the GSA LC and the Ducati Multistrada Enduro back to back, the Duc is a lot more fun to hooligan around on. the GSA didn't really feel comfortable doing any of that. It carries it's weight lower than you would think, but it just didn't enthuse me at all. If the Duc wasn't chain drive, I'd probably find a way to buy one. But the Super Ten does everything either of those bikes do, just in it's quietly competent way w/o extra noise, cost or attitude from the dealer, (that never expects to see us again after we buy the bike!). Go to a BMW dealer and hang around the service counter on a spring day. It will amaze you how many owners come in for trivial stuff and spend $1000 on service they don't need, and don't even care.
