octatonic wrote:
Yeah, it will be fine.
I find the GSA handles great- the front end feels more planted than the GS.
A guy did this trip last year on a huge Victory cruiser that weighed an additional 100kg- it was tricked out a bit.
There is an easy and FREE way to keep your Nav from being easily removed.
Just remove the pushbutton!
This is a little more difficult than it appears, but I will explain.
Remove the windshield (4 torx screws) and the two torx screws that hold on the cover panel above the Nav. do this carefully as to not damage the Nav button or the mounting tabs on the plastic cover panel. You will then have access to the Nav pushbutton.
There is a plastic spur on the button that keeps it from falling out of it's mount. Push it in to remove the button and file or shave down the spur so that it no longer will keep the button in place.
Now you can slide the button in and out and keep it in the lockable compartment on the RT fairing. Buy a suitable small black rubber stopper or PVC tubing cap at a hardware store and insert it into the button shaft hole. Shave down the two opposite sides to make if fit better and look like the original Nav button.
Alternative:
Leave the plastic spur intact and fabricate your own "pusher" shaft from a piece of plastic and store it in the locked glove compartment along with the NAV cover plate.
Save the original button so that you can return the bike to 100% stock by simply pushing the button back in through the open hole - it will slide in and lock in again and function just like it did when new.
The button shaft is quite long and gets rather thin at the point where it engages the release on the Nav Mount. So you would need a very thin screwdriver and since you can't see the release location, know exactly where to put it in order to release the lock.
Certainly, a dedicated thief will stop at nothing to get the Nav if they really want it but this makes it a great deal more difficult to remove since you have the "Key" (Button) located somewhere else.
If you mess it up, a new button is only a 8 bucks from BMW.
