Motorcycle Notes
BMW has always represented the business mans motorcycle to me. A refined, tame ride not lending itself to impracticality or bad manners but BMW has begun to write another chapter in their book with the K1200R Sport. Very little is engineered the same on the BMW’s as with other bikes. With Duolever front and the Paralever rear suspension, EVO/ ABS brakes (complete with steel braided lines for additional bite) and a fifty-five degree 1157cc engine the bike stands apart from anything else. The engine stats are equally impressive. It has 96lbs. Ft. torque at 8,250rpm and 161hp at 10,250rpm. The bikes numbers promise a lot. Then there are the gadgets. Starting with the heated handgrips. It has two setting the first is hot and the second could only be defined as first-degree burn. Oh, but I like them this morning. While little else is warm on me my hands remain toasty and content, and until I see the fog clear the handgrips stay on. There are three suspension adjustments you can choose from; Comfort, Tour and Sport. Additionally, you can choose for either one or two riders for a combination of six settings total. Lovely. The new K1200R Sport although not as badly behaved as some street fighters made by other European bike manufacturers, is now a hell of a competitor. It still has the BMW composure for around town or doing the daily commute, but something has changed. I feel like acting badly when I ride this thing. As I stated, BMW is claiming 160+ hp and a top speed somewhere in the neighborhood of 160mph. Those are damn near the numbers of top sport bikes being produced within the last year from Japan. Has BMW decided to start competing in a completely new arena? Competing with the likes of Japanese superbikes? I left my house at 9am and jumped on the freeway, heading north. It was early enough that the freeways hadn’t filled up so I begun to open the throttle and see what she had. Two things happened as I goosed it. First I squeezed off a ton of speed in a matter of a heart beat. Secondly, I found myself smiling, the kind of smile you get when you realize you found a whole lot of fun that isn’t exactly legal. The same smile you might get when you realize to late the cop in oncoming traffic has just seen you speeding down the street and he can’t turn around in time to figure out which back alley you just disappeared into, or the same kind of smile you might get when you out maneuver a police helicopter off the freeway and onto city streets. Purely speculative of course but you get the idea. I got off the freeway North of the Benicia/ Richmond bridge and decided to find myself a country road that could really test the Duolever front and the Paralever rear suspension. Once there I began to get familiar with the bike and see what this suspension was all about. I had set the suspension to sport and began to increase my speed. The bike was a little difficult going into and coming out of tight low speed corners. But this was only at very slow speeds and could easily be overcome with a little planning. Applying a little rear brake made dropping into corners just fine and the fuel injection as with most injected bikes took some adjusting to when coming out of corners. It felt a bit hard when intitially opening the throttle upon exiting corners. With adjustments noted and corrections made the pace began to pick up. As the speed increased the suspension managed to keep me feeling confident. The bike was encouraging me and I wanted to do more with it. I turned off the main road and found a narrow farm road complete with horrible, uneven pavement and at times an unclear division of the oncoming traffic lane. This is what I needed to get this thing unsettled, to find the limitations of the suspension to prove to myself that this BMW wasn’t as badass as it boasted to be. Everything is right, blind corners, tight twisties and unfamiliar roads, excellent. As I find myself going faster, leaning lower, giggling and my pulse accelerating the bike I am noticing, is unfazed. The bikes fully capable of everything I am throwing at it. This isn’t making me happy at all. I always imagined the BMW’s to be more pretentious then actually competent. What else can I do? I find quick elevation changes that drop me into small valleys and shoot me right back up onto crest, then dive into sharp turns. The bike excels and hasn’t even broken a sweat. OK, let’s do this. Mirror check, no flashing lights and I am familiar with this stretch of road for the next few miles. No turn outs, driveways, intersections or bluffs where anyone or thing can hide. It’s go time. So I get on it and the bike responds very well. I am actually so comfortable with the suspension that I am able to push this bike to a level I’ve always reserved for bikes I’m much more familiar with. The roads open up and I find myself on an onramp to 101 South. Before I know it I am back on the freeway heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Man that was fun, but now something’s changed about my riding composure. I want to keep up the ruckus behavior. I enter San Francisco and the uncivil disobedience continues. As I come off the bridge I lane split through the weekend warriors and tourist entering into San Francisco. Now it is later in the day and the traffic has thickened and I can’t find enough space to open up the 1200. The bike is reminding me more of a street fighter now anyway so I try riding it like one. Wheelies, check, swerving side to side between cars, check, braking hard (very hard in fact), scaring the crap out of the tourist, check. This bike is doing it all. The suspension is taking care of everything and leaving me with very little to cope with. This allows me with nothing to do but ride. I like this suspension, it seems to be taking care of the road beneath me and not delivering it through to my hands and rear end. I guess it could be viewed as less communication to the rider but it could also be viewed as less distraction for the rider as well. Allowing for the rider to think less of how to cope and just being able to just get on with it. If I can find fault anywhere it would be the inability to do stoppies due to the ABS. Damn you ABS! Actually, I can’t even find fault with that. I did some ABS testing of my own and found it to be equally impressive. Once you get used to the noise of the rapid fire on again off again mechanical braking noise it is really amazing to see just how fast the bike can stop you. I would try to guesstimate a braking end point, grab a fist full of brakes and found myself stopping far sooner then I would have thought. This combined with the lack of front-end dive thanks to the suspension and you have the potential to launch yourself right over the handlebars, if one so desired. Now I am not a full racer nor do I claim to be. Saying that, I can imagine that track guys could push this thing to its limitations much easier then I can on the streets. But for anything on the road this bike is tremendous. Brakes are strong, suspension is agile and the engine is powerful, delivering gobs of speed in an effortless delivery from any RPM over 3 grand. As with most Euro bikes the price tag is steep and I would imagine difficult to justify for many of our readers. For those of you that are able to afford this you are in for a treat. BMW’s stepping up to the plate and has done their homework.

BMW has always represented the business mans motorcycle to me. A refined, tame ride not lending itself to impracticality or bad manners but BMW has begun to write another chapter in their book with the K1200R Sport.

Very little is engineered the same on the BMW’s as with other bikes. With Duolever front and the Paralever rear suspension, EVO/ ABS brakes (complete with steel braided lines for additional bite) and a fifty-five degree 1157cc engine the bike stands apart from anything else. The engine stats are equally impressive. It has 96lbs. Ft. torque at 8,250rpm and 161hp at 10,250rpm. The bikes numbers promise a lot. Then there are the gadgets. Starting with the heated handgrips. It has two setting the first is hot and the second could only be defined as first-degree burn. Oh, but I like them this morning. While little else is warm on me my hands remain toasty and content, and until I see the fog clear the handgrips stay on. There are three suspension adjustments you can choose from; Comfort, Tour and Sport. Additionally, you can choose for either one or two riders for a combination of six settings total. Lovely.

The new K1200R Sport although not as badly behaved as some street fighters made by other European bike manufacturers, is now a hell of a competitor. It still has the BMW composure for around town or doing the daily commute, but something has changed. I feel like acting badly when I ride this thing. As I stated, BMW is claiming 160+ hp and a top speed somewhere in the neighborhood of 160mph.

Those are damn near the numbers of top sport bikes being produced within the last year from Japan. Has BMW decided to start competing in a completely new arena? Competing with the likes of Japanese superbikes?

I left my house at 9am and jumped on the freeway, heading north. It was early enough that the freeways hadn’t filled up so I begun to open the throttle and see what she had. Two things happened as I goosed it. First I squeezed off a ton of speed in a matter of a heart beat. Secondly, I found myself smiling, the kind of smile you get when you realize you found a whole lot of fun that isn’t exactly legal. The same smile you might get when you realize to late the cop in oncoming traffic has just seen you speeding down the street and he can’t turn around in time to figure out which back alley you just disappeared into, or the same kind of smile you might get when you out maneuver a police helicopter off the freeway and onto city streets. Purely speculative of course but you get the idea. I got off the freeway North of the Benicia/ Richmond bridge and decided to find myself a country road that could really test the Duolever front and the Paralever rear suspension. Once there I began to get familiar with the bike and see what this suspension was all about. I had set the suspension to sport and began to increase my speed.

The bike was a little difficult going into and coming out of tight low speed corners. But this was only at very slow speeds and could easily be overcome with a little planning. Applying a little rear brake made dropping into corners just fine and the fuel injection as with most injected bikes took some adjusting to when coming out of corners. It felt a bit hard when intitially opening the throttle upon exiting corners. With adjustments noted and corrections made the pace began to pick up. As the speed increased the suspension managed to keep me feeling confident. The bike was encouraging me and I wanted to do more with it. I turned off the main road and found a narrow farm road complete with horrible, uneven pavement and at times an unclear division of the oncoming traffic lane. This is what I needed to get this thing unsettled, to find the limitations of the suspension to prove to myself that this BMW wasn’t as badass as it boasted to be. Everything is right, blind corners, tight twisties and unfamiliar roads, excellent. As I find myself going faster, leaning lower, giggling and my pulse accelerating the bike I am noticing, is unfazed. The bikes fully capable of everything I am throwing at it. This isn’t making me happy at all. I always imagined the BMW’s to be more pretentious then actually competent. What else can I do? I find quick elevation changes that drop me into small valleys and shoot me right back up onto crest, then dive into sharp turns. The bike excels and hasn’t even broken a sweat. OK, let’s do this. Mirror check, no flashing lights and I am familiar with this stretch of road for the next few miles. No turn outs, driveways, intersections or bluffs where anyone or thing can hide. It’s go time. So I get on it and the bike responds very well. I am actually so comfortable with the suspension that I am able to push this bike to a level I’ve always reserved for bikes I’m much more familiar with. The roads open up and I find myself on an onramp to 101 South. Before I know it I am back on the freeway heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge. Man that was fun, but now something’s changed about my riding composure. I want to keep up the ruckus behavior. I enter San Francisco and the uncivil disobedience continues. As I come off the bridge I lane split through the weekend warriors and tourist entering into San Francisco. Now it is later in the day and the traffic has thickened and I can’t find enough space to open up the 1200. The bike is reminding me more of a street fighter now anyway so I try riding it like one. Wheelies, check, swerving side to side between cars, check, braking hard (very hard in fact), scaring the crap out of the tourist, check. This bike is doing it all. The suspension is taking care of everything and leaving me with very little to cope with. This allows me with nothing to do but ride. I like this suspension, it seems to be taking care of the road beneath me and not delivering it through to my hands and rear end. I guess it could be viewed as less communication to the rider but it could also be viewed as less distraction for the rider as well. Allowing for the rider to think less of how to cope and just being able to just get on with it.

If I can find fault anywhere it would be the inability to do stoppies due to the ABS. Damn you ABS! Actually, I can’t even find fault with that. I did some ABS testing of my own and found it to be equally impressive. Once you get used to the noise of the rapid fire on again off again mechanical braking noise it is really amazing to see just how fast the bike can stop you. I would try to guesstimate a braking end point, grab a fist full of brakes and found myself stopping far sooner then I would have thought. This combined with the lack of front-end dive thanks to the suspension and you have the potential to launch yourself right over the handlebars, if one so desired.

Now I am not a full racer nor do I claim to be. Saying that, I can imagine that track guys could push this thing to its limitations much easier then I can on the streets. But for anything on the road this bike is tremendous. Brakes are strong, suspension is agile and the engine is powerful, delivering gobs of speed in an effortless delivery from any RPM over 3 grand. As with most Euro bikes the price tag is steep and I would imagine difficult to justify for many of our readers. For those of you that are able to afford this you are in for a treat. BMW’s stepping up to the plate and has done their homework.

03/19/10 at 11:18am
Theme: Cavalcade