Touratech-USA News

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Touratech's TEST TOURS in a Glossy high quality picturebook.

Travel Time

Each year Herbert Schwarz, founder of Touratech, tests the latest Touratech parts on test-tour in a different continent. Bikes, parts and riders are tested in real world adventure-travel conditions, to ensure that what starts in the design department in Germany can survive in the bush!

You may remember these rides from the travel section of the annual TOURATECH catalogs and DVDs; Tibet in 2003, Namibia in 2004, Bolivia in 2005, Mexico in 2006, and North America, from Canada to Mexico in 2007.

Touratech has now compiled these stories into in one volume, with larger pictures, in a high quality, glossy edition.

TOURATECH RALLYE CONVERSION

Touratech G650X Rallye

Touratech developed this wonderful rallye tank and fairing kit for the BMW G650Xchallenge. This strong, long-lasting, lightweight and economical single-cylinder provides a perfect chassis for a rallye bike. This bike was built for the 2008 DAKAR RALLYE, and it was in Lisbon, Portugal awaiting the start when sadly, the African event was cancelled due to safety concerns.

Nevertheless, the design was finished, incorporating optimum wind protection, the latest lighting technology with the full equipment spectrum for the epitome of Desert Rallies, the Dakar. Starting with perhaps the most essential component, a 16-litre auxiliary tank down to super-strong Excel wheels, solutions for use at extreme conditions are a normal challenge for Touratech's XC rallye and sports program. You can equip your Xchallenge for any rallye in the world  - and convert it to a very special and entirely individual machine for sports and fun.

The Rallye Conversion includes, among other things, xenon lighting, long-distance travel tank, rallye fairing, heavy-duty radiator, and rallye engine guard.

More G650X Rallye photos can be seen on www.touratech.com.

CUSTOMIZING A GIANT

So, if you want the ultimate GS, what features do you go for? 

Touratech's worldwide distributors are innovators and very involved in the community.

From the Touratech-Czechoslovakia owner, Tomas Kocanda, comes this R1150GS project story in his own words. Touratech-CZ is a small shop with large goals! Tomas has an extensive project description which is mostly written in czech but has many many photos, and test photos in Morocco. Tomas was on a Dakar press team to follow the event in a Hummer H2! He was very disappointed to hear the cancellation announcement in Lisbon.

Touratech-Netherlands (Bert Duursma) provided the frame. Bert is the producer of the first conventional forked R1150GS frame, designed by Nico Bakker, a famous european Rallye-bike designer. Nico's frame design was then copied by a USA company, which did not fare well. Bert's genuine frame by Bakker is still available and would be our recommendation, of course! Here is Bert's website.

- Tomas Kocanda, TOURATECH-CZ
In my case, the ride has to be easy to handle in off-road, have plenty of power, be very reliable, economic with good mileage (important on adventure trips), and can carry all my luggage if I need to and also can easily convert to an amateur racing tool for rallies. My GS was pretty good, very reliable - but handling the bike with the telelever and 19" front wheel off-road was not easy. Once you try different bikes, you always think about the best combinations. Things like true rallye bike configurations and cockpits (ideal for riding on pegs), good chassis and shocks, low centre of gravity and economy. Something like taking the suspension from LC8, combine it with BMW engine, and the overall reliability and style as with a rally special.

After many discussions and consultations with various people, I was looking at various conversions at BMW biker meetings and other places. Last fall I came to my conclusions and I ordered major parts for large a scale conversion. The main thing was a new frame, in my case ordered via Bert Duursma (BMW dealer in Netherland), who has huge experience with building BMW conversions. Baaker makes the frame itself, as with many other conversions I am familiar with. The original idea was to use a 21" rim with BMW hub and keep the ABS and dual brakes. I know, its heavy, but the reason for this is simple - I want to keep at least some of the on-road travel stability and good brakes should be important. As far, as I know, nobody else tried to use EVO brakes with a semi-dual system with ABS. So, on my new front wheel there is a prototype of a new ABS ring (again Duursma BMW).

I purchased second hand LC8 (standard) forks and we thought they would be good to use on the project. Unfortunately, it happened that a modified HP2 triple tree did not fit the diameters of these forks (as Marzzocchi use same diameter at both clamps while WP uses different diameters) so I had to make new parts locally. We also have a new design of wheel "clamps". I was then prepared for the ABS sensor, IMO sensor and backup IMO magnet without adapters. The upper tree was made ready for the steering shock damper, which was prepared on the HP2 clamps too. When I realized the cost to modify standard WP forks to the extended "S" versions, I traded the WP setup in for good Ohlins forks with 280mm travel. The rear shock is Ohlins as well.

The upper area will fit the custom made cockpit - using parts from a Touratech F650Rallye conversion with integrated xenon light and new oil cooler. I was shocked with how heavy the cockpit from the original Adventurer is. I saved a lot of weight there.
 
Friends ask me, why I did not purchase a new LC8 for the cost of parts, what I invested in this project - but it is great fun to do such special work.

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