I’ve just spent a glorious, warm and sunny afternoon deciding not to buy three bikes that, on paper (well, on my laptop), seemed hugely attractive. And I was very surprised by my decision, especially as it concerned in large part that icon of South African biking, the BMW R1150GS.

You get an idea in your mind that maybe it’s time for a change of motorcycle. I do this periodically, usually after a minimum of five years of ownership. I was happily five years into my second Honda Valkyrie when I saw a Triumph Rocket III at Dun Laoghaire on my way home from a visit to Ireland – and a few months later the Valkyrie was history and I owed a shiny new Rocket III Touring. The Triumph took my wife and I across Europe and we had some great times together; it even tackled the Via Appia Antica in Rome, which suddenly switches from tar to Roman-era rocks, with aplomb.

It travelled with us to the Middle East and was my regular ride in Abu Dhabi for several years – until I decided it felt just a little too agricultural, too rough, to warrant a sixth year of ownership. So it was replaced by another Valkyrie, my third, which lasted 10 years until I hankered after something more comfortable in the form of a Gold Wing. You get the picture.

The latest “time for a change” moment came when my wife was looking for something larger to replace her much-loved Yamaha TW200 farm bike. The Yamaha had been chosen as a short-term solution to the problem she was having with her Triumph Tiger 800XC, which was perfect in every way apart from being just a tad too tall, even after installing a lowering kit. So a couple of weeks ago she picked up an immaculate BMW F60GS, a 2003 model with just 12,500 km on the clock. Here at last was a bike that could cover serious distances, handle dirt roads, of which there are many in these parts, and allow her to plant both feet flat on the ground – not an easy thing on most modern adventure bikes.

We found the BMW at The Cave, a very cool secondhand bike shop in the town of Sedgefield, about 40 minutes away from our “winter” home in Plettenberg Bay on South Africa’s southern tip. The Cave is run by brothers Gary and Alan and stocks an interesting range of older bikes, all in great condition. It’s contiguous with another business run by their brother Trevor, who acts as a broker for classic bikes. For people like me who grew up as a motorcyclist in the ‘70s, it’s a treasure trove: right now it houses a CBX (in need of a lot of TLC), a CB750, a Suzuki Katana, Kawasaki Z1000 and all kinds of cool stuff.

Yesterday The Cave featured a 2010 Triumph T100 on its website. My eye was caught initially by the colour, which appeared at first glance to be a tasty burgundy and cream but turned out to be black and white, and by the 9,000 km it had covered from new. I wasn’t looking for a Triumph twin, but I’d owned one back in the ‘70s, ridden a beautiful Thruxton briefly about 15 years ago, and I wanted to ride this one.

It was a beautiful autumnal day, 24 degrees and blue skies, so I rode my TL1000S out to Sedgefield to have a test ride. The T100 wasn’t far short of immaculate: a minor spot of rust on the odd nut and bolt and the usual stain of boot sole on one silencer where a previous owner was searching for the sidestand. It fired up easily and I headed for a test route that combined some straight highway with a twisty rural two-lane. It was like pulling on a pair of comfortable old boots: the bike felt light, smooth and agile, with a comfortable riding stance. However, the idea was to buy a bike that would allow us to tour all over South Africa and into Namibia, and it was soon clear that the T100 was not that bike: seat too hard, suspension way too hard, no screen and no luggage (although obviously they could be bought after the fact).

I really enjoyed that 25 km ride, but concluded that my wife’s Tiger (now my own main ride when we’re down south) was more suitable for the trips we had in mind. Back at the shop, Alan invited me to try a BMW R1150 GS Adventure, a 2002 model with 70,000 km on the clock and one of those humungous 30-litre petrol tanks.

Now, I’d bought a brand-new BMW R100 Special Edition (bikini fairing, metallic green paint, Krauser panniers) back in 1979. That decision came as a direct result of my participation in the launch of BMW’s 1979 range in the American west in my roadtester days. It was February back home, but here we were riding the new RT and the rest of the range in 80-degree heat (Fahrenheit) for 10 days from LA to Tucson. This photo was taken in Nogales, Mexico, if I recall correctly. It was a memorable trip, stopping for roadside lunches laid on by chefs in a Winnebago motor home, dinner in good hotels (suffice it to say that if Carlsberg organised bike launches, this would have been their best).

The bikes had been great, especially the RT and the R100T, and the experience pushed me to lay out hard cash for my own Beemer. I looked forward to it with great anticipation and, when I rode it home from the dealership, I loved it. As fate would have it, the next day I had to pick up the latest Gold Wing for a road test, and I realised instantly that I was more of a Wing man than a BeeEmm man. After that, the BMW felt clattery and clunky. I kept it for two years but the love affair was short-lived.

Nevertheless, the sheer number of BMW GS models on South Africa’s roads is so overwhelming that I came to the conclusion that these guys must know something I don’t. Maybe the later GS models (1100, 1150, 1200 and on) were a significant improvement over the noisy bike I owned in 1979. Out on the road, the bikes looked planted, secure, comfortable, equipped with great luggage capacity, shaft drive and serious fuel range. Maybe this was what I needed now.

My Suzuki V-Strom 1000 had been okay, good even, but it too felt a bit clunky now and had blotted its copybook with a magneto rotor failure a year or two back. So that didn’t represent the future. Neither, I felt, did the Tiger 800. It felt supremely competent: it was smooth, fairly comfortable with its gel seat, totally reliable, had a great engine and surprisingly sprightly performance. Somehow, though, it felt a bit bland. It was a bit like an electrical appliance: shove it in sixth gear and roll on the throttle and it would just keep going. I wanted something more.

I held out great hope for the 2002 1150GS. It was tall, certainly, but at 6’ 2” I could cope well enough, so off we went. The exhaust sounded noisy to the point of being annoying; the riding position was okay but the straight bars felt a little too high; and the power was only so-so. A top-gear roll-on lacked any real urgency, compared to – oh wait, my Tiger 800XC! Generally, the bike felt heavy, cumbersome and old-fashioned, it wasn’t particularly comfortable and I struggled to establish any sense of rapport.

Back at The Cave, Alan helpfully suggested that I try the other version on the showroom floor, a 2008 model. It had just been reduced in price a few minutes earlier by R10,000, so I took it out over the same route. The seat was even taller, giving me my first experience of being only just able to get both feet down almost flat. It felt somehow lighter and nimbler than the other BeeEmm, and had a little more urgency in its demeanour. The exhaust was louder, of anything, and it wasn’t a nice loud. The clutch lever had been changed to curl outwards at the edge so that it really accommodated only two fingers, which wasn’t enough. Again, the overall impression was of a heavy and cumbersome bike with no particular redeeming features, beyond shaft drive and a huge tank. Performing a three-point turn on a dirt driveway on tippy-toes to head back to the dealership required more skill and effort than I’d want to summon up on a regular basis.

I rode back, exploring the engine performance and finding it unremarkable. The question I kept asking was: in what way would owning this bike be an improvement on owning my existing Triumph Tiger. The only answer I could come up with was “in no way”. The Tiger is smoother, more comfortable, has a better riding position, is lighter, more manoeuvrable and has better acceleration. It’s eight years newer and has only 22,000 km on the clock.

I was surprised and disappointed at first, then realised that I was ready to fall back in love with the Tiger. I rode home on my TL, which I’ve owned and loved for 22 years now, and became aware that after riding three upright bikes that afternoon I was falling out of love with the sports riding position. I just turned 72 and maybe my body is sending me a message. So there’s a mint-condition green TL1000S with only 9,500 miles on the clock that could be heading to a new home soon. The afternoon proved to be productive after all!