Why do I love riding a BMW K1200R?
Past the duck pond, up the hill and around the bend, the hard pull of the turbine-like engine reminds me of one of the reasons I always loved this bike. On-throttle, it flows through the corner with an uncanny grace. Under my helmet, I break into a smile. It’s funny. Bikes are so individual-with sounds and smells and looks that are unique.
When did the BMW K1200RS come out?
BMW sold the RS between 1996 and 2004, when it was replacedby the far better K1200 S, which used a conventional transverse engine layout and Duolever front end. We’d always recommend the later bike, but if you come across a well-priced RS, and don’t mind a big beastie, it still makes a solid heavyweight tourer with a load of grunt.
Is the BMW K1200 RS a Supersport bike?
But it’s true – the Munich firm really did class this 285kg, 130bhp behemoth as a supersports machine, despite being 50bhp down and 100kg up on the cutting edge of the time. Fans of track-ready performance looked elsewhere of course, but if you ignored BMW’s category error, the big K1200 RS was actually quite an impressive fast tourer.
Where is the white line on a BMW K1200R?
I hug the white line near the shoulder through the long sweeping right-hander-the one where cars are always drifting across the centerline. And then a few quick miles and suddenly there’s Panorama appearing on the left, a small, obscure ribbon of black emerging out of the woods.
Past the duck pond, up the hill and around the bend, the hard pull of the turbine-like engine reminds me of one of the reasons I always loved this bike. On-throttle, it flows through the corner with an uncanny grace. Under my helmet, I break into a smile. It’s funny. Bikes are so individual-with sounds and smells and looks that are unique.
BMW sold the RS between 1996 and 2004, when it was replacedby the far better K1200 S, which used a conventional transverse engine layout and Duolever front end. We’d always recommend the later bike, but if you come across a well-priced RS, and don’t mind a big beastie, it still makes a solid heavyweight tourer with a load of grunt.
But it’s true – the Munich firm really did class this 285kg, 130bhp behemoth as a supersports machine, despite being 50bhp down and 100kg up on the cutting edge of the time. Fans of track-ready performance looked elsewhere of course, but if you ignored BMW’s category error, the big K1200 RS was actually quite an impressive fast tourer.
I hug the white line near the shoulder through the long sweeping right-hander-the one where cars are always drifting across the centerline. And then a few quick miles and suddenly there’s Panorama appearing on the left, a small, obscure ribbon of black emerging out of the woods.