Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1142434
2020 BMW S 1000 RR RIDE REVIEW P88 (Top to bottom) Carbon fiber wheels. On a production motorcycle? Oh. Yes. There are over 200 German horses lurking in that motor. Inside the short-stroke engine sits a claimed 207 hp at 13,500 rpm with torque claimed to be 83.3 lb-ft, and the motor now revs 400 rpm higher thanks to a 4mm shorter stroke, conrods that are 10 percent lighter and the addition of BMW's ShiftCam technology that de- buted on the 2019 R 1250 GS. ShiftCam combines both variable valve timing and differential valve lift, all in the same package. The mechanism works with the new cam profiles and valve timing, and helps deliver a claimed 73 lb-ft from 5500 rpm all the way to the new 14,600 rpm limiter. As before, the S 1000 RR gets an up- and-down quickshifter/autoblipper for the six-speed gearbox, enabling you to bang down the gears and have the revs matched perfectly by the ECU. On the chassis side, there's a further two-pound weight savings, with the geometry much more nose-focused at 53.8/46.2 percent front to rear. Weight is the enemy of acceleration and in total, the S 1000 RR has dropped a very handy (claimed) 24.3 pounds to measure 434.3 pounds with a full 4.4 gallon gas tank, ready to ride. In creating the 2020 BMW S 1000 RR, the men and women of Munich were tasked with one defining goal—to be one second faster around any track in the world that had seen an S 1000 RR in action before. That's a lofty goal—especially as it's incredibly difficult to define without the same test rider/weather/bike/tire setup—but suffice it to say the engineers went out of their way to make this thing as fast as humanly pos- sible, while still playing within the rules of the class- defining four-cylinder superbike regulation of 1000cc (no big-bore RSV4 1100/Panigale V4 S beater coming from BMW this time around). Everything (well, almost everything) is new on the Beemer. Less than five percent of parts have been carried over from the 2018 model, and that's lumped in with an all-new electronics system that's about as ad- justable as any motorcycle carrying a license plate that has gone before it. Welcome to the digital age 2.0.