26
JULY 2021
By Bob Coleman, Member #4406
The 2121 G310GS
T
he ‘baby’ GS doesn’t feel like a small bike. At 188 cm and 100 kilos, for me it provides a comfortable upright riding position and the feel of having enough bike around me. The standard windscreen is tiny but well positioned and angled, providing clear air to the lower edge of my helmet visor. I’m not going to dwell on power comparisons. It’s a 310-cc bike. But once you get used to using its power you can make much larger bikes work hard for the pleasure of overtaking you. My biggest day on her has been 930 kms, from Goulburn to Ballina, on the way home from the Alpine Rally. Having left the rally site the afternoon before, my pre-dawn start from Goulburn in June was everything you’d expect it to be – miserable. And I was still feeling the effects of Stones Green Ginger ‘Wine’ gifted to me by someone I thought a friend when I ran out of red.
The LED running light on this bike looks really cool and is a great safety feature. Toggling to low beam I was pleasantly surprised by the width and length of throw of the headlight, as well as the whiteness of the light. High beam seemed to add another 50 metres to the throw. I felt confident I was able to scan the road surface sufficiently to be able to respond to any threat and maintain a reasonable speed. The standard Metzeler Tourance tyres feel quite hard to me, so I like them warm before I put
THE LITTLE BIKE THAT CAN any energy into cornering. As dawn arrived, I was in a comfortable groove at between 110 and 120 kilometres per hour and wasn’t feeling any need to reduce speed for the sweepers.
Revs at 100-105 kmph are a very comfortable 6,000, increasing to between 7,000 and say 7,250 when traveling along at 120 and occasionally overtaking slow cars and trucks. Redline is at 10,000 revs. Top speed is just shy of 140 km/h at around 8,000 revs. 130 is not hard to achieve for overtaking on the flat. The instrument panel is digital monochrome with the essentials easy to see in sunlight and welllit at night. Speed, fuel, revs, and gear position are prominent. You can also toggle between fuel range, odometer, trip meters and such. The exhaust note is a lovely single-cylinder flutter at lower speeds, becoming a busy hum above 100 kmph. Earplugs ensured it wasn’t unpleasant. Some have complained that this model is buzzy but I don’t feel it. I did put soft grips over the top of the originals because I found the diameter of them too small. Maybe that makes a difference.
