2027 BMW F450 GS Unveiled at EICMA
2027 BMW F450 GS Unveiled at EICMA
New 420cc twin, lightweight chassis, and innovative centrifugal clutch for BMW’s latest GS.
by
November 4, 2025
When BMW showed the Concept F 450 GS a year ago it was immediately clear that a production version would follow and that was all but confirmed when design images of the showroom version leaked back in August. Now the real thing has been launched at the EICMA show in Italy and it looks nearly identical to the Concept that caused a significant stir in the ADV world.
It’s an important bike, both for BMW and the market as a whole. Generations of boxer-engined, R-series GS adventure bikes have dominated the adventure bike scene for decades, during which time they’ve transformed from a niche market offering to a massive mainstream success story, but recent years have seen a shift in the market as riders in affluent markets have started turning toward smaller-engined machines just as increasingly wealthy young customers in emerging markets have started to step up from cheap singles toward midsize twins. BMW needed to plug an obvious hole in its range between the single-cylinder G 310 GS and the F 800 GS, and that’s where the F 450 GS steps up to the plate.
There’s more novelty in the transmission with the top version of the bike, the F 450 GS Trophy (the only variant sold in the US market) gets an innovative clutch system, dubbed ERC (Easy Ride Clutch). It’s designed to give a riding experience like Honda’s latest E-Clutch models, eliminating the need to worry about disengaging the clutch when you come to a halt as well as extinguishing the risk of stalling when pulling away, but it operates on a different basis. Where Honda’s E-Clutch uses an electronic brain to tell an actuator when to engage or disengage an otherwise-normal clutch, the BMW system uses a centrifugal clutch that automatically disengages when revs drop to idle. We’ve seen centrifugal clutches on bikes before—notably twist-and-go scooters as well as Honda’s old Hondamatic machines and MV Agusta’s SCS-equipped models—but the F 450 GS brings the idea into the modern mainstream. Notably, the ERC system doesn’t disengage the clutch on the overrun, so there’s conventional engine-braking, and it also has a normal clutch lever on the left bar so you can always override it if you want to rev the engine and slip the clutch for a faster launch or while performing low-speed maneuvers.
A clutch that deals with starts and stops on its own isn’t much help if you still need it during gearshifts, and to that end the GS Trophy version of the F 450 GS also has a standard-fit bidirectional quickshifter, so you can completely ignore the lever on the left-hand bar if you want.
The bike gets four riding modes (Rain, Road, Enduro, and Enduro Pro), each tweaking the ABS Pro and the Dynamic Traction Control (both lean-sensitive systems) as well as the engine-braking levels and wheelie control. In Enduro Pro, the wheelie control and rear wheel ABS are deactivated entirely.
The brakes use a four-pot Brembo front caliper on a single 310mm disc on the front while a ByBre rear caliper on a 240mm rotor handles the rear, both with cornering ABS Pro as standard. There’s a large, 6.5-inch TFT dashboard with phone connectivity as standard. Elements exclusive to the GS Trophy version include blue-and-white paintwork, hand guards, the adjustable sport suspension, a white-painted frame, and an aluminum engine guard. It also gets heated grips, adjustable hand levers, and both the gear shifter and rear brake pedal can be moved to suit standing or seated riding positions.
There is some bad news though. While European sales are due to start in spring 2026, the F 450 GS isn’t heading to the US until either Q4 of 2026 or Q1 of 2027 as a ‘27 model. With a year or more to go, prices won’t be announced until much closer to that on-sale date.
The delayed US availability will give buyers an extra year to save up for the super high premium price.
There is that
Not quite what I was hoping for. 17″ wheels? I was hoping for something that could compete with the KTM 390 Adventure or that sized motorcycles. Reckon’ I’ll keep my 390 for now