A few gems that I've picked up during my ownership of a BMW R1100GS...

On the ABS version, be prepared to run about 500ml through the front and rear lines when renewing your brake fluid. This is due to all the nooks and crannies in the ABS unit. There are front and rear bleed nipples on the ABS unit but you have to remove the petrol tank to get to them.

The rear brake on the ABS bikes lacks feel and needs a fair bit of pressure before it begins to bite. You may find that your foot slips off the brake pedal if you wear road boots. I went out and bought a pair of clunky touring boots after a couple of months with my GS! MV Motorrad Technik, Touratech and Wunderlich all make brake pedal extenders but the pedal is made of steel and can be carefully bent out to suit your foot.

EBC make excellent sintered pads for the front but not the rear Brembo brake calipers. Ordinary EBC pads work OK at the rear. Ferodo Platinum rear pads work better and are more like the expensive BMW ones. 

Fitting road tyres not only improves grip. There is also less vibration and road noise and a tiny increase in fuel economy! Bridgestone BT020s are recommended. I love the BT020 (and the later BT021) because it has a harder compound on the part of the tyre that gets the most wear on the motorway. 

Make sure that you push the front wheel spindle all the way to the left before clamping it when refitting your front wheel. Not doing so puts the front fork under stress. Symptoms may include leaky fork seals (almost unheard of on the Telelever front end) and chattering when the front brake is applied. The latter is caused by the spring washers on the floating disks breaking up due to the stress in the fork legs. Save a lot of head-scratching and expense by giving that front spindle an extra tap when you think it's properly seated.

Fitting a tall screen may actually increase turbulence and wind noise for shorter riders. Adjustable spoilers for the standard screen are available from Touratech and MV Motorrad Technik. These do a much better job and can be tailored to an individual rider.

On non-catalytic converter bikes, the CO (fuel mixture setting) potentiometer should be checked to make sure that it is fixed to the frame in its rubber cradle. The unit is mounted on the right side of the bike, under the tool tray. If it is allowed to bounce around, the vibration can adversely affect the fuel/air mix AND damage the potentiometer which costs around £75 plus VAT! The fuel mixture can be checked and adjusted at service time with a CO meter like the ones made by Gunson. Turning the CO potentiometer screw too far will make the fuel injection unit reset to a default rich mixture (you can hear the engine note change and tickover will slow down when it does this), so adjust in quarter turn steps.

Actual usable fuel capacity in the petrol tank is about 23 litres (just over 4.5 gallons.) You will hear the fuel pump whine get louder as the fuel level gets really low. On the motorway, the engine feels slightly rough when it begins to run out of fuel, then you will notice it missing occasionally and the throttle will feel less responsive when you accelerate. This is a good time to find a service area and fill up. The GS is a heavy bike to push so do not run out of fuel! General solo use will see a tankful of petrol last about 220-250 miles. Two-up with fully-loaded luggage you may see as little as 180 motorway miles on the trip meter before the warning light comes on. If you run out of fuel, you can sometimes get the bike running again by laying it on its right side. This allows the dregs from the left side of the tank to flow over to the fuel pump side and will give you a few miles extra range. Don't rely on this dodge working every time though! 

When filling the tank with petrol, beware of overfilling. If the bike is on the centrestand, the petrol will rise up into the filler neck and sink back down when you stop filling. You can do this a few times and get another litre in the tank if you are on a long motorway jaunt. Ride off as quickly as possible after overfilling or fuel will begin to drip steadily from the overflow pipe, even with the bike parked on the centrestand! If you only ride a few miles and park the bike on its sidestand, it will pour a scary amount of petrol out of the overflow pipe!

BMW recommend using a semi-synthetic 10W40 grade engine oil. If your bike is under any sort of BMW warranty, you need to use an oil with an API SG to SH rating, like Castrol GPS or Silkolene Comp 4. This is because of BMW concerns over the levels of their preferred anti-friction additives in  oils rated SJ or higher. If your engine goes bang, BMW will have the oil tested and if the required additives aren't there, they won't honour the warranty! If your bike is not warrantied, you can use a 10W40 car oil that meets the API SL standard and BMW car oil requirement like Miller XSS, which could save you as much as £9 on each oil change. Please note! The BMW R1100 Series of bikes have dry clutches so my advice about engine oil is specific to them only. Running any motorcycle with a wet clutch on car oil is not recommended. Car oil contains cheaper anti-friction additives that will contaminate wet clutch plates and cause them to slip. Only use car oil in motorcycle engines with dry clutches!

Before checking the oil level on your GS, leave it on its side stand for about 10 minutes then put it back on its centre stand and watch the level rise in the sight glass. This allows oil to drain out of the oil cooler and other galleries in the engine casing. If the oil level has fallen below the red dot in the middle of the sight glass, it needs topping up! The oil can be topped up to the level of the upper red line on the sight glass. Average oil consumption on my 53,000 mile GS was about 100ml of oil per 750-1000 miles. A lot of motorway miles can as much as double consumption in some engines so check your oil level EVERY DAY.

Mixing different brands of motor oil is A BAD THING because they all use differing blends of additives with their oil stock. Stick to the same brand when you top up and your engine will love you for it, although a different brand of the same API grade will do in a dire emergency. Buy a cheap 1 litre alloy water bottle and fill it with your preferred engine oil. Take it with you when you go touring for peace of mind when you check your engine oil level. Make sure that you label the bottle "OIL"!

Various companies make tamper-resistant oil filler caps. I bought a Wunderlich item which unlocks with a 7mm allen key. If your plastic oil filler collar leaks or spins round in the rocker cover, you can re-seat it with a socket of the same diameter and a couple of taps with a rubber mallet.

Home mechanics can buy oil filters etc from specialist aftermarket BMW dealers like MotorWorks, James Sherlock and Moto-Bins who sell spares that are OEM quality for much less than BMW prices. Remember that the oil AND oil filter should be replaced every 6,000 miles. Remember - always replace the aluminium sump plug washer with a new one when you change your oil.

Spark plugs should be replaced every 12,000 miles. BMW recommend either Bosch or NGK multi-electrode plugs but you can also fit NGK BKR7EIX iridium plugs. I believe that the single fat spark from iridium plugs gives a cleaner burn than the multi-electrode plugs, especially as the plugs erode over time. You can also adjust the spark gap on the iridium plugs, which is impossible with multi-electrode plugs.

The R1100 engine has an annoying habit of bogging down and surging at low speeds, making you kangaroo down the road in a very undignified manner. There is a lot of discussion about this on various web sites so here is my twopennoth on the subject. (A) Keep the bike in a good state of tune. This means checking and cleaning the spark plugs and checking the balance of the throttle bodies every 6,000 miles. (B) Change to iridium spark plugs {see above for my reasoning}. (C) Practice low speed  machine control. The Motronic injection system does not like you closing the throttle at low engine speeds, so try to keep it slightly open as you ride slowly. You can vary your speed with small movements of the clutch lever as well as the throttle. Find an empty car park to practice in and work on your feet-up U-turns. Beware! Other BMW riders will tell you to fiddle around with the throttle position sensor and a multimeter and poke paperclips into the wiring harness. Don't listen to them! Buy a cheap Motronic diagnostic tool through eBay (I recommend the BMX SystemTest tool, which also reads and clears Motronic and ABS fault codes, sold by eBay seller reg-babe) that connects easily to your bike. Check the throttle position sensor with this tool every 6,000 miles and you'll find that it rarely goes out of adjustment. Trying to fine-tune your 8-valve Boxer engine if you're not sure what you're doing guarantees an expensive trip to see someone who does!

If you are short, turn the handlebars to the right when you get on the bike. This naturally leans it toward you and makes it slightly easier to throw a leg over. 

MV Motorrad Technik make excellent handlebar risers if you want to have the bars closer to you. You may have to slightly adjust the angle of the front brake hose banjo union if you fit bar risers, but there is enough slack in the cables to make for easy bar riser fitment.

If you drop the bike, use the handlebars as a lever to pick it up. Turn the front wheel away from you and heave the bike upright with both hands on the handgrip.

In the winter, the bike will sometimes show an ABS fault due to low temperature draining the battery on startup. Give the throttle a couple of blips before you ride off and you should hear a whirring noise that wasn't there when you first started the engine. The ABS should then set itself normally as you ride off. If this doesn't happen, ride off with the ABS lights flashing. Once the engine is warm, turn off the ignition, wait a few seconds, turn it back on, start the engine and ride off again. PLEASE NOTE! The bike also shows an ABS fault if you turn the ignition on and quickly press the start button. Always wait a few seconds between turning the key and thumbing the button! Thanks to keen-eyed reader Baz for reminding me of this tip.

The alloy wheel rims on the R1100GS are uncoated, so be careful when using acid-based wheel cleaners on them! It's worth buying a can of ACF-50 and applying it carefully to the wheel rims every month, unless you like polishing them every weekend...

The CO2 capsules in the BMW puncture repair kit will not inflate either the front or the rear tyres to their correct pressures. Carry a sturdy mountain bike hand pump or a compact foot pump for emergency inflation. BMW sell the components of the puncture repair kit separately if you need more repair cement or tyre plugs.

The standard toolkit is good, but does not include pliers. It is a good idea to carry a Gerber or Leatherman multi-tool with you.