BMW R 1300 GS Automatic Shift Assistant (2023 - ) review

You’ll have a sense of the R 1300 from our previous rides on the GS and GS Adventure, Automated Shift Assistant (ASA for short) changing nothing of real substance beyond swapping the manual clutch lever for an electro-mechanical actuator, with another to operate the gearbox. These can be controlled by the black boxes to operate automatically or with a manual override via a traditional style foot shifter – a smart move compared with the toggle switch Yamaha uses for its mechanically similar Y-AMT system for the fact most GS buyers will have grown up changing gear this way. Overall, it’s a simpler and lighter alternative to the full DCT style transmission found in the likes of the Honda Africa Twin as well but, perhaps, a little less sophisticated with it. All very well, but does it add to the riding experience or simply dumb it down?

Business as usual here, our R 1300 GS test bike adding optional and self-explanatory Adaptive Vehicle Height Control to the clever Dynamic Suspension Adjustment you get with the TE trim level. More on that in due course, but the Adaptive Vehicle Height Control is a potential game-changer for riders who’ve found previous GS models too big and unwieldly in low-speed situations. It does this by automatically winding off the preload to drop the bike by as much as 30mm, the fact the two suspension units for the signature Telelever/Paralever arrangement are linked and in close proximity within the frame meaning this happens in the blink of an eye. This can be controlled automatically as the speed drops or, alternatively, when you extend the side stand. Or via manual control via a pre-configured hotkey on the left grip. The GS of course remains a big, heavy bike. But with this system pretty much anyone can flat-foot it at low speeds, opening it up to a much wider audience than before.

The Automated Vehicle Height Control has further benefits beyond making the bike easier to manoeuvre, operating the other way when you go to put the centre stand down to jack the back of the bike up and make lifting it an absolute cinch. Sounds a small thing but for those intimidated by the idea of lifting a big heavy bike onto the centre stand it’s an absolute god send. In terms of the ASA transmission practicality is improved in the sense you can cruise through town and leave the gearbox to itself, leaving you to concentrate on what’s going on around you rather than worry about feathering the clutch or picking the right ratio. Nor can you stall it, the gearbox automatically downshifting or opening the clutch as you slow, even in Manual mode.

BMW claims the ASA gearbox means no more clattering lids with your pillion as you go up or down the gears but it’s not as slick as Honda’s DCT and, ridden without sympathy, you can still get head-nodding lurches in certain combinations of revs, engine load and speed. Most of the time it works pretty well, though, the changes coming fast and (mainly) smoothly whether selected automatically or via the foot-operated shifter. In Automatic mode you can trust the ‘box to downshift ahead of corners for stabilising engine braking as you’d use with a manual, the software seemingly well up to ‘reading the road’ as you might yourself. Or you can just select the gears via the foot shifter as you would normally. Other than that it’s exactly per the regular versions of the GS, the new 1300 boxer delivering its 145 horsepower and 149 Nm of torque with a winning combination of charisma and brawn.

With the ability to independently adjust spring rate, damping and ride height there’s an awful lot going on with the GS’s suspension. So, it’s credit to the engineers you don’t even notice, the ride showing an uncanny ability to settle on the right compromise between comfort and composure in nearly every situation. Much has been said already about the 1300 GS striking a decidedly more sporting poise than its predecessors and you can certainly fling it about more enthusiastically than you might have imagined, the GS’s traditionally broad bandwidth now including a bit of B-road scratching if the mood takes you. Or settling back to a more relaxed cruise when it doesn’t, and you just want to cover distance in comfort. A Multistrada V4 S probably still has the edge in power, poise and sportiness but the GS never feels out of its depth, even when ridden with vigour that suggests it ought to be.

At the time of writing the ASA gearbox adds another £755 to the price of the R 1300 GS and tips the TE-spec bike we tested to within a hair’s breadth of that symbolic 20-grand threshold. Which most buyers probably exceed anyway by the time they’ve added a few options. But not cheap to buy. And probably not that cheap to run, either, given those big cylinders have quite the demand for fuel. True, you might scrape above 50mpg on a cruise but ride with any enthusiasm and that drops to the low 40s in no time. With a bike this big and costly don’t expect insurance to be a bargain, either. At least shaft drive means you won’t be going through chains and sprockets.

Still early days with this new 1300 boxer engine, so we’ll hold judgement for now. The ASA gearbox adds some further complexity in terms of the electronics and actuators required to operate the clutch and shifts, and while BMW has broad experience of this from its passenger car side it hasn’t always been plain sailing on that front. We’ll be watching with interest.

If all this tech on a bike still relatively new to the market has you worried there is at least the reassurance of BMW’s three-year warranty, which will address anything that might go wrong in that time.

A true base-spec BMW R 1300 GS is probably something of a unicorn bike, given most buyers would likely consider this a blank canvas onto which their preferred options will then be added. But even without hitting the extras list you’re getting the fully-functioned TFT screen, keyless start, cruise control, hill start, cornering ABS and a manually adjustable screen. You can’t add ASA to this bike without the Dynamic Package (Dynamic Suspension Adjustment, Gearshift Assist Pro and additional riding modes) though, meaning it’s a £1,660 option rather than the mere £755 it costs on the TE trim where all that is already included. In for a penny, in for quite a few quid as it turns out. As seen here with the Triple Black paint, radar-assisted rider aids and wire wheels it’s a 22-grand bike, with the potential to spend quite a bit more if you really go mad in the configurator.

We didn’t think we were ready to ditch the clutch lever when we first got on the GS ASA but, given many modern bikes come with quickshifters anyway and a good number of riders will only use the clutch when stopping and starting, it’s perhaps not quite the culture shock you might imagine. And if any bike feels suited to a system like this it’s the GS, given it’s already a very complicated, sophisticated machine and ASA actually frees up headspace to concentrate on some of the other clever stuff it’s doing. Pays your money but, in this instance, we found the ASA system a smaller emotional leap in practice than it might seem on paper. And we can see a lot of GS owners taking the plunge.