BMW M 1000 R ON THE ROAD...
In the case of the BMW, rather than easing into 1000 words waxing lyrical about how amazing the M 1000 R was on the immaculate, breath-taking roads in the Eiffel region, I want to start just 10 miles from home, right at the end of the trip. The BMW has just switched itself into limp mode and the dashboard has lit up like a Christmas tree... I’ve now got an absolute maximum top speed of 60mph on a bike that just won’t rev or pull. It’s dark, I’m a bit emotional, and did I mention that I’ve just spent the last threeand-a-half hours riding in rain and spray, the likes of which I don’t ever think I’ve ridden in during my 35 years of motorcycling? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve ridden in heavy rain and storms before, feeling each raindrop smashing into my hands, legs and chest with genuine force, such is their volume and quantity, but I’ve never ridden in such wet conditions for such a sustained amount of time – and, inevitably, the BMW had enough as the water eventually found its way into some part of the electronics where it wasn’t welcome, and that was that.
Except it wasn’t. Despite clearly not in the best of health, and the message on the dashboard making it very clear that the bike’s ECU was not happy with me, the Beemer found a way to keep going – and also keep the heated grips warm so I could maintain my grip on it and guide us both to the sanctuary of my garage, which now felt much further away than it actually was. More rain, more floods, and more spray on top of the already flooded electrics, but still it soldiered on, clearly wounded by Mother Nature until there we were, back in my garage, both soaked to our very cores, but both in one piece.
Up to that moment in time, I had developed a strong sense of appreciation and respect for the M 1000 R, but I hadn’t really warmed to it, if I’m honest. However, right then, standing next to the steaming BMW, I fell in love, and felt bad for switching the light off and locking it away in my garage all on its own with a poorly ECU. I didn’t want to leave it, not just because of the trauma we’d suffered, but because I wish I’d got to know this side of the bike before the trip started, not right at the very end. When the chips were down, it was unbelievably practical and dependable.
Great comfort, best tank range, easiest cruise control, heated grips, easy access rider modes, and even a ‘naughty button’ that just switches everything off and lets 207bhp melt
your brain uninterrupted. BMW knows what you want and it’s made the M 1000 R – like all of its other bikes – with you at the forefront... whether it’s being able to switch off all the rider aids with one press of one button, compared to about six presses of two buttons on the other bikes, or continuing to drag itself along at 60mph, defying the will of its own ECU and weather conditions. I admit to arguably developing this new-found appreciation for the Beemer too late, but at least through the adversity, I did get to have that lightbulb moment.
You see, me and the Beemer didn’t get off to the best of starts, in so much that the first time I rode it was on the motorway through Belgium, which is tedious at the best of times, but at 130kph, the engine is spinning at exactly 6000rpm, the exact point in the rev range where the engine produces its greatest vibrations through the handlebars. Luckily, unlike many others, I tend not to suffer from numb hands in those kinds of scenarios. However, the same
can’t be said for the bar end mounted mirrors. They would convert any light source behind you – specifically headlights – from dots to massive ringshaped light sources that literally make everything else in the mirror impossible to see, which is a shame because the view in the mirrors at a standstill do actually show a great deal of what’s behind you. For about 200 miles, literally every mile or so, whenever I’d check my mirrors to see what was behind me, I would just swear aloud at the BMW, then curse the engine for its vibration. Then, when we had to slow down for fuel stops, I’d shake my head in disbelief at how it was possible to make such a vague quickshifter these days; somehow, BMW had managed it. That was how the whole of day one went for me – being frustrated by the BMW.
Day two and things looked up. With a morning out and about with Dale setting a brisk pace on the amazing roads around the Nürburgring, we were actually riding on roads with corners and elevations rather than just peeling miles off on a motorway, and the BMW started to reveal its true character – playful, agile and very competent. In short, it was a lot of fun thanks in part to the new variable
valve-timed, split-personality
engine. Think Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde smooth... grunty and with a nice throttle connection at low rpm to punch you out of the corners, then some serious fireworks in the top half of the revs to make the horizon move very quickly towards you.
It’s worth at this point to stress that it’s this area of the revs that we felt that the S 10000 R was lacking in last year, and I’m not talking about the headline numbers of 207bhp versus 163bhp. Using all the revs in the lower gears is impossible anyway, and in the upper gears you’re going far too fast on the road. It’s that 7000-10,000rpm space that the extra firepower is most welcome, and the M 1000 R has much more usable fizz in that space than the S 1000 R. Even later on that evening on the Nordshliefe, there was only a handful of places where the M 1000 R could really stretch its legs, but it’s that third quarter of the rev range where you can dip into on the road from time to time that the M 1000 R is so much more alive than the S 1000 R, regardless of the peak power difference.
On day three, Dale took us in a different direction, to a more mountainous area with roads with a lot of switchback hairpins, demanding a different style of riding – much more stop/start, so lots of work for the brakes and forks, a good chance for the very low-speed handling to shine and nowhere for the low rpm throttle connection to hide. In terms of agility, given that the M 1000 R is an S 1000 R with a fast engine, and the S 1000 R set the third best time at Blyton Racetrack, only (just) bettered by the vastly higherpowered and higher specification Ducati Streetfighter SP and Aprilia Tuono V4 Factory, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the
M 1000 R can properly boogie in the bends. It’s very happy being thrown onto its side at 10mph in an uphill hairpin as it is at the top end of third gear, which is motoring. It’s also in its element being picked back up and thrown over onto its other side, but for all the brilliance of the chassis, it’s not without the odd annoyance, predictably electronicallyderived. The combination of dozens of slow first gear hairpins and a spirited pace meant that the approach to each one involved some fairly heavy, sustained braking that, at the very last part of the braking phase, just when you release the lever after tipping in, the bike
would feel like it was running on, or wide just for a moment. Once you notice it, you can’t un-notice it, and my feeling is that it’s one of two things. The butterfly valves in the throttle bodies are being kept too far open as part of the engine braking maps, so the space between when you release the brake lever and touch the throttle to transfer weight to the rear, it feels like it’s accelerating very slightly, because… it is. Or it’s the front forks, which, during the heavy braking, will have been fully loaded with all the weight of the bike for a lengthy amount of time, and so due to being actively damped will have had their damping rates increased a lot to support the bike. Then, when the brake is released, there could be a moment where you expect the forks to react by extending again, but they just don’t respond as quickly while the electronic damping reopens, meaning the forks stay compressed and the bike harder to turn. Either way, it’s definitely there and just at the point when you want to roll the bike up to an apex at low speed, it just doesn’t do quite what you expect it to.
Last year we said that the only thing the BMW needed to join the party was more power, and by using its engine with shift cam technology in the S 1000 R chassis, it has kept the best bits of the S 1000 R, specifically its agility and low-end power delivery, which is more plentiful, usable and therefore more useful on the road than the likes of the Ducati’s low end power. But, as well as that, when the solenoid switches over the cam lobes at the required moment, the M 1000 R also delivers Streetfighter levels of firepower.
After about 600 miles in three days on the BMW, the only things I have to say against it on the road are that the mirrors are terrible above 6000rpm, the quickshifter is too vague, and there’s a strange sensation in the turn in after heavy braking, so you know it’s got to be good. It can be whatever you want it to be on the road... docile plodder, mile-muncher, headbanger, knee-slider destroyer... and it will get you home even when it itself is having the mother and father of all brain farts. You can make your own mind up as to whether it looks special enough for nearly £20k or if there’s enough trick touches on it to justify the M badge, but all I can tell you is that as a road bike, it is a proper weapon. And, in case you were wondering… The morning after the night before, I went to the garage to look it over and see if there was any obvious reason why it understandably struggled in the three-hour deluge and went into limp mode, but there was no need, because it fixed itself overnight. Evidently, once it had dried out, it was happy to reset itself and carry on as though nothing had happened, so no need for a trip to the local dealer... just get back on and ride some more!