From maineam2 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 10:20:48 2020 From: maineam2 at gmail.com (Nik Rende) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 10:20:48 -0400 Subject: BMW Demo Dayz Message-ID: Greetings folks! This past weekend my wife and I went to Portsmouth to visit her brother for the weekend.? He's self employed and has been working from home since "the troubles" began so we felt comfortable paying him a visit, as was he.? He rides an 18 R1250R.? The other motive for the visit was the new NH liquor store on the rotary!? :)? OK. It was the BMW demo truck at MAX, the liquor store was just a side benefit. I was interested in giving the R18 a go.? I wasn't disappointed. In person it's quite imposing and quite beautiful.? Yes, a large bike, the jugs contain 900ish CC's of displacement each!? But the styling cues of the R5 are there and BMW didn't forget too many details.? It's a simple bike.? No handlebar wheel controlling 6000 features of the riding experience.? A simple single speedo with a small LED screen with a few options. The seat was very un-BMW-like comfortable.? The seating position for me was great.? I was flat foot on a BMW for the first time, I'm 5'6".? My brother-in-law also rode one, he's 6'1" and found it tight, he occasionally struggled to get his feet properly positioned for the brake or shifter.? I found only two surprises with the R18.? It's a heavy bike.? Getting it off the side stand was the first.? But once centered, it felt fine.? We pulled out of the dealership and less than a mile down the road we hit a light. We were making a right.? As I approached the turn and started the lean, the bike's weight showed up again.? I negotiated that turn, now with more knowledge that made the rest of them a non-issue. The R18 engine lives up to the reports.? In 6th gear at 1100 rpm, a roll-on unleashed gobs of torque.? The ride leader suggested that shifting take place in the 2700-3000 rpm range as the engine tends to get vibratey.? He was right.? But it wasn't an issue for me. Overall I enjoyed the ride.? No, it's not an R5.? It's not a tossable curve carving machine.? It wasn't designed to be.? But for what it IS designed to be, it excels.? The engine sound was very BMW-like.? No fake lumpy idle a la the 1200 C.? The exhaust note was pleasingly BMW, I dare say that the Luftmeisters on my R100 are louder and more throaty.? I never felt like I was on a Harley.? In the picture above, you catch a glimpse of the R18 my brother-in-law road to my left.? It was one outfitted with some custom bits that BMW has commissioned.? A set of Vance and Hines pipes did give it more of an audible presence but it was STILL not Harley-offensive.? If I had a space $20k, I could be interested in having one.? The one MAX got alloted?? Already sold. For the record, BMW and MAX handled this event well all things considered.? The BMW team was all masked up, they sanitized the bikes when the returned in preparation for the next group and almost everyone in attendance (MAX staff included) was masked up. Nik Maine A/M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: R18A.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 477613 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: R18B.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 299796 bytes Desc: not available URL: