I get that, but It really does boil down to your saying "you need to love you (sic) bike". In college, I bought my first bike, a Honda CB750 and kept it until I bought a Honda GL500 Silver Wing as a graduation present for myself. I added a 250 for off-road (TS, then a YT) while I was in Hawaii on Oahu; riding the sugar cane and pineapple fields was a blast. Before I returned to the continental US, I traded my way from the GL500 to my first BMW, an R100/7. When I returned to the states, I brought the R100/7 and the YT250 with me, but my first experience off-road was dirt roads that had been deliberately strewn with roofing nails. That took the air out of my tires and the wind out of my off-road ambitions. From then until just six weeks ago, almost 40 years, I owned and rode only street bikes and, thanks to the quality I experienced with the R100/7, they were all BMWs. Yes, thanks to modern production methods, I know most modern bikes have comparable quality now, but that wasn't the case during the 80s and that left it's mark on me.
At this point, I have logged some 500,000 miles across 49 states in the US (Alaska is in my plans). When I retired, I knew I wanted three bikes, a sport-touring bike, a sport bike, and an adventure bike. After the R100/7, all my bikes have been inline 3 or 4 cylinders and I've gotten addicted to their smoothness. So, I ended up with an S1000XR for sport-touring (165 HP, 498 lbs), an S1000RR for sport (199 HP, 459 lbs), and an empty spot in the garage for the adventure bike. To me, an adventure bike should be light enough to be OK off-road and comfortable enough to OK on-road for at least moderate distance days, say 300-500 mile days. All of BMW's serious adventure bikes were 500-600 pound behemoths that I had no desire to load up and try taking off-road and their only sub-400 pound adventure bike was really a misnamed street bike whose wheels and suspension where designed for rough roads, not off-road. For the first time in almost 40 years, I started looking outside BMW; I came close to buying a Husqvarna 701 and very close to buying a Honda CRF300 Rally. A friend who had the 701 convinced me against going that direction. Most of the reviews on the CRF300 said it was a dirt bike that was OK on the road, but not so much for the distances I was envisioning. On the other hand, most of the reviews of the G310GS said it was a street bike that was meh off-road, but those reviews came with an interesting caveat, the G310GS could be upgraded to be a real sub-400 lbs GS.
So, that's what I've done, I've created a very comfortable, light, nimble GS that, a couple weeks ago, the lead instructor at the BMW Rider Academy said was "killing it" during their Two-Day Adventure Course. Yes, the R1250GSs and GSAs where doing the same drills, but my G310GS did them with an ease that only comes with being 150-200 pounds lighter than the 1250s, especially for someone who is 62 and planning to ride until I'm 84. As far as I'm concerned, this is what BMW should have produced when they built the G310GS, but didn't because it would eat into sales of their more profitable behemoth GSs. So, that's my answer to your "Why?" But, I'm only six weeks into this adventure and if it works, great; if it doesn't, I'll sell it and try something else while filing away the new memories it's given me.
Sorry if I've bored anyone, but you did ask. Smile side up, everyone! 😃
www.g310rforum.com
