Please help with ESA on 2008 R1200 GS

[Dirt-road]

Hi people great forum you got going here hope to learn allot. I recently bought myself a 2008 R1200GS Adventure. I am battling to understand how the ESA button works.

I have gone through the manual but still cant seem to get the hang of it. How do I select on road when I am riding on tarred roads and how do I select off road when I am riding off road?

Also how do I go about setting up the suspension with the luggage or two persons etc. Every time a change something I seem to change it again once I go back in again. How long am i supposed to hold in the buttons to change certain stuff longer or shorter for certain stuff?

What is the best sort of settings for tarred road and off road and what does the different ESA selections do?

Thanks for the help

[marc]

Go to this link: Rider's Manual

Select the manual for your bike. I believe it is version 0313... Follow the instructions to be sure you get the correct manual. Open the manual and look at about page 65. It's in the Table of Contents under the Operation category. That will tell you how to change the settings.

As to when you change the settings... use the setting that feels best for whatever it is you are doing. That's the whole purpose... to allow you to get a better ride (better = what feels good) at the push of some buttons.

Even with manual settings using measurements the initial settings are just to get you close. The final settings are always tweaked to what feels good for current road conditions. There is no hard and fast rule saying this setting is used for tarmac, that setting for dirt, etc. If the dirt road is very smooth, hard packed yet soft dirt you might not want to use a "dirt" setting. If the tarmac is rough and full of potholes you might not want to use a tarmac setting. Use whatever setting feels right for the road you are currently on.