BMW Motorrad International GS Trophy 2016. Spectacular Southeast Asia!


Munich.
The fifth BMW Motorrad International
GS Trophy, the 2016 Southeast Asia edition came to a close, after
seven hard days’ riding, with a spectacular finale on Saturday, March
5. With the competition still in the balance right up to the final
special test, it was a tense finish – decided in favour of Team South
Africa who kept their nerve to secure the nation’s first victory in
the event after twice placing runner-up. Let´s have a look back on a
week packed with high temperatures, offroad riding, friendly people
and adventures in the jungle.

The fifth edition brought together 19 teams (comprising 57 riders
plus 19 embedded journalists) representing 25 nations for a seven-day
over-1300 kilometre trek through the forests, jungles and mountains of
Northern Thailand. The riding was possibly the most technical yet, as
the riders guided their
BMW R 1200 GS bikes along single-track
trails more akin to enduro racing than adventure competition.
Temperatures matched those of the South African edition in 2010 –
running into the high 30ºC range – and with high humidity it was one
of the hotter, sweatier GS Trophies!

The start came at the Rim Doi Resort, in Chiang Dao at 8.00am on the
morning of February 28, and while unseasonal heavy rain had washed out
the planned course for day one, the riders were still treated to some
excellent off-road trails before hitting the first – and possibly
physically the toughest – special test, ‘Broken Bridge’. Such themes
are by now familiar, long days in the saddle with always some
challenging riding, combined with special tests that challenge the
riders’ teamwork, their problem solving skills, often their strength,
as well as their bike riding. As ever, the riders would reach the
nightly bivouacs well-exercised.

The 2016 edition again saw the event grow, with 114 motorcycles on
the tour and an entourage of close to 200 people (riders, marshals,
medics, caterers, organisers and more). As ever, the motorcycles – BMW
R 1200 GS and GSA – were up to the task; occasional puncture repairs
on the trail tested the practical skills of the riders while crash
damage gave the BMW Motorrad mechanics a few hours work each evening;
but the engines and chassis never gave up. The latest GS bikes were
praised for their ease of use, great rider aids and sheer ruggedness.
As before, the competitors were won-over by the bike’s character as
much as the sheer capability of these iconic machines.  

Team South Africa wins.

Team South Africa has been one of the strongest teams in every
edition of the GS Trophy since their debut in 2010. They missed out on
the win then, by just one point, and came close again in 2014, so the
win this year was especially savoured. Thorough preparation meant the
team were always in contention – they were in fact the team to beat –
but John Harris, Charl Moolman and Byron Coetsee were winners on every
level, winning as many friends as points.

Team UK and Team Germany were their nearest competitors and the
unrelenting efforts of the two teams kept the outcome of the event in
question right up to the very last test. And while the strength of
Team South Africa could not be denied, it was fitting that the
runner-up position should be shared by these two great teams (Team UK
having won in 2010, Team Germany in 2012).

Three new teams took part in 2016. Team China made an impact right
from the start, having given up their international air flights and
instead choosing to ride to the event on their own GSs! Four days in
the saddle saw them ride up to the Shang-ri La Hotel in Chiang Mai for
the official opening – along with some 60 supporters, most also
BMW-mounted. They made quite probably the most impressive entrance to
the event yet. And Team China proved a competitive team, too, strong
and well-practiced they took an impressive 7th place on their debut.

Team Southeast Asia might have been less successful, but nonetheless
brought much colour to the event, good humour, and found they enjoyed
their ‘home’ course as much as the visitors.

The third new team were the International Female Team. Easily the
most popular team in the event, Stéphanie Bouisson (France), Morag
Campbell (South Africa) and Amy Harburg (Australia) showed
bike-handling skills equal to the men (in fact sometimes superior).
They would have finished higher if they hadn’t been so punished by the
strength-based tests, but as Amy reported, they were never defeated –
not even in lifting the 238kg GS over a 1.5-metre tree trunk – it just
took a little more time for them than for the men. The team was much
welcomed by the men, and cheered-on all the way, but again as the
girls explained, this was the same for all teams – every team supports
everyone. It’s truly a band of brothers – and sisters.

At the finish, Team South Africa’s Byron Coetsee spoke for his
teammates about their win:

“Relief is the first emotion, then happiness. With South Africa’s
record in the event – we’ve come second twice, even losing by just one
point – then to finish like this is like the weight of the world has
been lifted from our shoulders. We share this moment with Roger,
Gerber, Warren and all the previous team members from South Africa!”

 

The BMW R 1200 GS – competition proven.

The BMW R 1200 GS proved more than up to the challenge of seven days
on the trails in Northern Thailand. The 2016 R 1200 GSs featured the
latest engine revisions, including a new heavier crank that makes for
smoother running and Shift Assist Pro that allows clutchless up- and
down-shifts. As well the riders had the code plug that enables the
Enduro Pro mode to modify the rider-assist systems to suit sportive
off-road riding. And with just the lightest level of crash protection,
including the aluminium enduro engine guard and steel crash bars –
plus the rugged Metzeler Karoo 2 tyres – the GSs were totally trail-ready.

The feedback from the riders was uniformly positive, most expressing
delight in the ease of handling the bikes, their tough resistance to
extreme riding, and engaging character.

 

Here’s what a few of the riders thought of the bikes:

Morag Campbell: “I loved the bike, the torque, the instant reaction,
the maneuverability, especially the attitude! And so fast! I rode mine
in Enduro Pro without traction control and ABS – and still it was so
easy to ride. I love it, for all of us, every time and everyday it’s
the best bike!”

Francesco Catanese: “The BMW is a surprise, because in my imagination
it was a big bad bike, but on enduro tracks, in the sand and the dust,
the bike was completely perfect, no odd sounds, no mechanical problem,
for me it was a surprise. Much power, perfect bike!”

Anton Vlasov: “I have ridden this bike several times, but I should
say that this bike is great, I found out so many things about the
handling, the engine, everything. This event shows us everything about
this bike, it’ll ride highway, then singletrack trail in the
mountains, then you can ride relaxed with your friends. The event
showed this perfectly!”

 

The GS Trophy in their words

 

St
é
phanie Bouisson, Morag Campbell Amy Harburg /
International Female Team

Amy: “I loved it, it was definitely tough and some of the tests for
us were really physical, but we got through them, only maybe not quite
as quick as the men. But it was so much fun, so I loved the whole event.”

Morag: “It’s beautiful, the local people we met are extremely
friendly, and curious, and open to us, and wanting to engage and
that’s really nice. From the physical viewpoint the scenery is
stunning, it changes all the time, forest, mountains, rivers. I’ve
enjoyed every bit of it. And the food has been great, too!”

Stéphanie: “The country is amazing. I’ve been travelling in Chile, in
Morocco, in Europe. Here it’s very different, the scenery, the people,
it feels very safe and gentle. The people are everything. Amazing.
What can I say? Peace and love!”

 

 

Alfred Scheurer / Team Alps

“The country was very nice, we appreciated riding the small trails
and being among the flora – banana trees, bamboo, palms – it was very
nice. We had a good time, we made some mistakes when we were very
nervous at the beginning and we didn’t work together as well as we’d
have liked!

“All the same, in all it was a very nice experience. Normally I ride
alone, but to work as a team in this, that’s very nice, it was a very
special experience.”

 

Gast
ó
n Quiroga / Team Argentina

“It’s been a great week, we’ve enjoyed the beautiful scenery, the
people and seeing so many things – elephants one day, water buffalo
the next. And all these things wrapped around the most incredible
riding, and the friendships that you make in the GS Trophy. It is an
amazing experience. Everyday has been so big in experiences, it will
take some time to remember them all. It is very special.”

 

Fernando Deneka / Team Brazil

“Everything is beautiful. It’s the dream to get to ride a bike like
this for seven days. Team Brazil hasn’t done so well in the event, but
our presence is very beautiful. Thailand is beautiful, the people here
are beautiful, and the motorcycle the R 1200 GS, is spectacular.

The experience in my life, it is incredible.”

 

Cory Villeneuve, Danick Cyr Scott McDonald / Team Canada

Cory: “It was pretty amazing, we had a good time it was a lot of fun.
I think it surpassed all expectations.”

Danick: “It was a tough competition, but really-really great, nice
country, nice people. And great competitors from 25 countries.”

Scott: “We loved the single track, we don’t ride single track so much
and the concentration level that you have to apply is way more: 100%
all the time. You make one mistake and you’re going to get hurt. And
it’s not for just five minutes, it’s for a long time – hours! You’ll
be thinking I can’t do this any longer, my brain can’t concentrate
this hard for this long, I’m going to make a mistake. And then once
you get out of it, you’re like, ‘Wow, I did it!’”

Cory: Everything is perfect, everything is beautiful here, BMW
Motorrad have done a great job this week and I’ve really enjoyed the
GS Trophy, I’m very thankful, it’s been amazing.”

 

Jan Zlabek / Team CEEU

“We had a lot of fun, riding a lot of fun tracks, with a lot of
challenges, everything went alright, except for a few accidents,
including mine on tarmac – my own fault as I’d turned the traction
control off!

“We enjoyed Thailand a lot, the views, the people, but this was no
tourist trail; we were riding and riding and riding, and the evenings
were busy with planning, meetings, eating, results, so you don’t have
so much spare time during the GS Trophy, it’s all go.

 

Wen-Gao Liang / Team China

“We have enjoyed the GS Trophy very much. I’ve personally owned a GS
since 2006, so this is a wonderful celebration of the past ten years
for me; I knew I must come to this event. With all the riders from
around the world, it’s so special; it’s every GS rider’s dream.

“As a team, we chose to ride here, rather than fly, it was four days
to get here, but that helped unify us before we started. We love
Thailand as well, all the people are smiling, the people in China call
Thailand ‘the smiling country’, it’s a special place.”

 

S
é
bastien Saphores Marc-Antoine Peltriaux / Team France

Sébastien: “It’s a beautiful experience, the temperature was very
high but it’s been beautiful, very nice. The third day may have been
the best, just 160km but to ride crossing the river back and forth is
so beautiful, we can’t do this in our country, it is forbidden.”

Marc-Antoine: “We are a happy team, no problems, all is perfect.
Laurent, our journalist, is a crazy but beautiful guy and the movies
he makes are very important to us because it’s wonderful for our
families to see what we have been doing here, it’s life and so
beautiful, but it’s a hard job for him, because even after one day he
has so much work to do. ‘Lolo’ is our hero!”

 

Peter Kopf Steffen Rahn / Team Germany

Peter: “We enjoyed the week, everything was good, we were definitely
in it for the competition. Most times we did well, our teamwork got
the results. We tried to win, but didn’t. But we knew also that this
is an event that comes once in your lifetime, if you are lucky, so
there’s so much more to it than just whether you win, to be in the
event is the main thing – the best feeling!

Steffen: “Thailand is the perfect country for enduro riding and for
the GS Trophy. The highlights for us were riding the difficult stages,
the Hò Chi Minh Path, the Helicopter Trail, the loop around Mae
Sariang – tough riding is the highlight!”

 

Francesco Catanese / Team Italy

“It’s been a strange week for us in the competition. We are all
enduro and motocross riders, so this has been different to our usual
riding, when we are racing. We thought we’d do better, but in fact
‘gas’ is just a little part of the competition. If we’d known this was
the way we’d have done more specific training, but still it’s a
wonderful experience.

“And we loved the country, the jungle, the forest, the mountains – an
amazing experience. In so many ways, perfect.”

 

Tsutomu Morohara / Team Japan

“I think Team Japan got most enjoyment from the GS Trophy. We came
not for a good time, but for the best time. For me, definitely this
has been the best time in my life!

“We’ve enjoyed Thailand, it is very good, sometimes like Japan in
summer, more excellent tracks though – good people, good culture. And
we’ve had good guys for company.

“In Japan we have many manufacturers, but they only make motorcycles
– BMW Motorrad make motorcycles and culture. Especially in the GS
Trophy – the best of culture. To participate in the GS Trophy, this
has been my dream and it has come true!”

 

Felipe Horta / Team Latin America

“For us it’s been an amazing experience, the Latin American team is
from different countries: two guys from Columbia, one guy from
Guatemala and me from Chile. It was a first time for us to ride
together, so from the competition perspective it is difficult because
the event is extreme and emotional and we are not as prepared, we
haven’t practiced the teamwork, as have the other teams. But our guys
are very good people, very quiet but happy every day. And whether, in
the competition, it was good news or bad for us, we were every day
very happy.

“Our appreciation is the event is a very-very nice idea, for the
marketing for BMW surely, but it’s also very close, very warming, for
the riders it’s an amazing experience.”

 

Jorge Marroquin Bascos Leoncio Reynoso Sosa / Team Mexico

Jorge: “This has been an excellent event, I’m proud to be here, I’ll
never forget this GS Trophy in my life, I’ve meant so many guys from
all over the world and we hope to be in touch with them, everything
was perfect.

Leoncio: “I saw elephants, that was amazing day, but every day the
nature was very good, it was a very amazing event with BMW. I am just
18 years old but this will be a memory for the rest of my life. If I
could, I would do it all over again.”

 

Anton Vlasov Ivan Chekov / Team Russia

Anton: “That was fun, definitely. Our expectations were to have fun
within our team then make new friends in the other teams, to have a
nice experience in Thailand. It measured up, it was hot, it was fun,
at times quite hard. Maybe for the first few days we had a strong
feeling that we wanted to compete, but then over the last few days we
realised that the important thing was to have fun, so then we let it
go, it was time to have fun.”

Ivan: “The strongest memory – perhaps of day six on the Hò Chi Minh
Path, that was tough but we made it as a team, helping each other. It
was a really good experience.”

 

Byron Coetsee John Harris / Team South Africa

Byron: “It’s definitely a close call for me, between wanting to do
well in the competition and enjoying the experience. So between the
special stages I ran my GoPro a lot, because you’re concentrating on
the road, thinking about what’s going on and so you miss the insane
scenery that’s about you. So I ran the Go Pro, so I can watch back
again later, and I tried to look at everything, as much as possible.”

John: “I have to agree with Byron, I’d see the Japanese team and
they’d be running last or second last but we are actually jealous of
them. We rode with them and their spirit, the fun they had, in terms
of getting the most out of the trip, those are the guys who are the
real winners, they’ve had the best time ever. I envy them for that!”

 

Tommy Lee Boon Jun / Team Southeast Asia

“We are enjoying the GS Trophy maybe a little bit too much! We were
very serious initially, but we made lots of mistakes, so after that we
just wanted to enjoy the event. It’s been great to meet similarly
minded people and with the riding skills so similar it makes for
really enjoyable riding. We’ve had a wonderful time.”

 

Du-Yeol Choi / Team South Korea

“Thailand is a very good place, everybody is so very friendly and
always smiling. And Thai and Korean mountains – and many places – look
the same, very similar, so we are very happy here, we enjoyed the
riding and felt comfortable and safe.

“We had many special experiences, and many funny ones. We loved the
slow race, we’d practiced it often in Korea, but then when it came to
the race here we were so nervous we were all finished in 30 seconds!”

 

James Berrill, Oliver Twigg Gordon Blackley / Team UK

James: “It’s been better than I expected by far, it’s not just the
competition. The trail riding and the scenery has been amazing, the
competitors, everyone, even the journalists and the story tellers!”

Gordon: “The feeling after the first two days was amazing. We were
just buzzing. The trail riding up the mountains was really good fun,
we enjoyed the views, enjoyed riding in the jungle. And the fact you
get to ride with different teams each day is great, you don’t become
insular, you get to know everyone.”

Oliver: “There’s real camaraderie, some banter, but competition as
well. Riding with the Germans we had a puncture but they fixed it. We
could have fixed it but they insisted on fixing it for us. It’s that
balance that the event seems to have. But there’s still that edge –
I’ll help you but I really want to beat you! Oh, and it’s been my
first time camping. I hadn’t even thought about it, but the cold
showers – yes, you even get the hang of those!”

 

Charles Lucht Dennis Godwin / Team USA

Dennis: “The whole event is everything I expected and then some. The
accommodations are incredible, the food is off the chart, the riding
is even further off the chart, everyone is cool, we’re busy all the
time, the special tests have been ingenious, fun, interesting, it’s
really been a great-great experience.”

Charles: “The bike is awesome, if I had remembered to reactivate the
ABS and traction control I’d not have crashed on day one that was 100%
operator error, I ran out of talent! I have an 800GS – but I’m
changing up to the 1200GS now, this has been the best test drive I’ve
taken in my entire life!”

Dennis: “What else is really interesting here is whereas almost
everywhere in the world you find you come around a corner and it’s
‘oh-no there’s a truck’. Here there are no cars out there, just
motorcycles, just scooters, always on their own side of the road. That
it’s just motorcycles out there, that’s so cool! What an amazing
place. This has been an amazing event.”

 

BMW Motorrad Int. GS Trophy 2016

Final results

 

1 South Africa                                                      
299 pts.

2 Germany                                                            
268 pts.

2 UK
                                                                    
268 pts.

4 CEEU
                                                                254 pts.

5 Latin America                                                    
244 pts.

6 Brazil
                                                                  242 pts.

7 China
                                                                 234 pts.

8 USA
                                                                   229 pts.

9 France
                                                               208 pts.

10 Italy
                                                                  200 pts.

11 Argentina                                                         
188 pts.

12 Mexico
                                                             181 pts.

13 Russia
                                                              180 pts.

14 Canada                                                            
176 pts.

15 South Korea                                                    
146 pts.

16 Japan
                                                              138 pts.

17 South East Asia                                               138 pts.

18 Alps
                                                                 117 pts.

19 International Female Team                              116 pts.