BMW K1200R - Sport

Typical, the best spring since the end of the ice ace and I ended up on my back for two weeks - and not in a good "honeymoon" way. To top off the misery, I had a shiny new BMW K1200R Sport (or Arse Port as it's known in the office) gathering dust in the shed, taunting my temporary disability. The German sense of humour has always been dark.
I've had an operation on my perennially dodgy ankle, so while my stiches weeped, all i could do is look at the AC Schnitzer website(top German tuners), scour BMW forums and dream of summer trips away with the big Beemer.
Prior to going under the knife, U'd put bearly 1,000 miles(1600 Km) on the best German missile since the V1. That was enough to learn that, if you wind the 1,157 cc motor up to 10,000rpm it's as scary as a doodlebug homing in on your East End house 60 years ago. Yes, I'm new to this BMW stewardship, and I'm finding old prejudices hard to banish, so expect plenty more war, lederhosen and strudel references over the bext few months. Well, they started it.


My initial weeks of testing the Arse Port,sorry, R Sport, have been great, but I remain puzzled over its actualt existence. I still don't know why it ever emerged from the Bavarian Motor Works, what with it being the middle brother of the fully faired K1200S hyper tourer and the avant-garde naked K1200R muscle bike. The half fairing of the R Sport gives The machine its own little niche, but its existence seems to lie solely in BMW's Teutonic quest to have a thousanddifferent bikes in their range by 2010. The German firm are rattling new bikes out like Messerschmitt 109s in the 1938(see, told you) and the R Sport seems superfluous given the similarities between it and its brothers. But what the hell, for my 140 mile daily round trip, it's right out my 'strasse', aping the flexibility and comfort on the Triumph Speed Triple I ran last year.
So far, I've gone far out of the commuting comfort zone - although the BMW's ability has tempted me to come off the M4 one junction early to sample some of Berkshire's bumpy B-roads. Here, the Beemer's idiosyncratic suspension seems to want a little adjustment and isn't as refined as the motr that powers it. SUporting decent Bridgestone BT-014 rubber (now majorly squared off) the fron suspension doesn't seem to be making the most of it, feeling a little distant as you start to push, while the suspension's stroke at the rear, particulary copression, can upset the machine on the roads tha I greew up on.

But this all gives me somthing to work on, and having spent a fair amount of time on the R Sport's brothers, I feel confident that, with some tweaking here and there, it could be this year's perfect all-rounder.