Testing, testing: 2012 BMW S1000RR

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Parent Category: Nurburgring

Category: Motorcycles

Created on Friday, 20 July 2012 08:09

Last Updated on Friday, 20 July 2012 12:28

Published on Friday, 20 July 2012 08:42

Written by Dale

As followers of the BTG Facebook and twitter feed know, this week we've got our hands on a brand-new BMW S1000RR. It's being used for a number of purposes; filming a safety guide for first-time 'ring visitors, starring in a little road test video of it's own (like the VRod). And last, but not least, feeding the sportsbike gremlin that lives in the back of my brain...

It's five years since I swung my leg over a fast bike, and one manufacturer in particular has really changed their top-end product in that half-decade. The last BMW sportsbike that I rode had shaft-drive and a funny-front end. And while the latest S1000RR above does still have factory-fitted heated grips (really!), everything else on the bike is really quite unbelievably 'normal'. Maybe 'normal' is an understatement. It's conventionally awesome. It's tall and narrow, like a haughty Italian MV or Ducati. It's firmly-suspended too, ready for the racetrack. But maybe not the Nordschleife, some fettling will be required. Which is fine, because the stock suspension has a level of adjustment that I've not seen before.

The brakes are fabulous too (with ABS that's actually good), and the engine? Well, the engine is crazy. Fruit-loop, bat-poop mental. At low speeds it's all light and revvy, with weird echoes and high-frequency vibrations that make you think somebody hollowed out the crank and made the pistons out of recycled soup tins. But the faster you spin it the more it sounds like some sort of MotoGP bike. While the exhaust seems mild enough, the airbox bellowing is mind-splitting at times.

And the power? This is power that I've not experienced since I last rode a factory 1000cc superbike in 2006. Even my old piped-and-mapped GSX-R1000K7 can't hold a candle to the top-end ferocity of this beast...

So keep your eyes on the BTG Facebook, twitter, youtube and even FlickR feeds. Andy's done a lap or two already, and I'm sure he'll be doing some more over the next week as well as bringing you his own thoughts on this very modern sportsbike...

Action photos kindly supplied by Jörg of ring-bilder.de. You can also check out his facebook page here.

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