Touratech-USA
If you saw the Washington or Utah Backcountry Discovery Route DVDs available exclusively from the folks at Touratech-USA, you’ve seen the company’s yellow and black F800GS.
The BMW is upgraded with all the Touratech goodies (check a video out of the build here), which helps expand the adventure bike’s versatility even further.
But when the boys got a call from a friend about riding in the sand dunes, a thought quickly popped into the head of Touratech-USA’s General Manager Paul Guillien.
Touratech-USA says Guillien “is known to have some crazy ideas from time to time… and every once in a while they become a reality. While reading an email from a friend who was planning a dirt bike trip to the dunes, Paul, half jokingly said ‘I’d like to come to the dunes with you guys, but only if I can ride our BMW F800GS with a paddle tire!'”
Yes, you heard that correctly – a paddle tire on an F800GS.
Guillien contacted the folks at Scat-Trak Tires, a maker of paddle tires, but found out the company doesn’t make 17-inch paddle tires. But it wasn’t over…Scat-Trak Tires asked Guillien to send them a 17-inch tires, and the company created what just may be the first-ever 17-inch paddle tire.
Attached above is part one of “Operation Paddle Tire,” a video produced by Curbsyde Productions, which highlights this unusual idea that became reality.
And stay tuned for Part II, when Score 500 winner and Dakar finisher Jonah Street hits the dunes aboard the paddle-tire equipped F800GS.
