more stable than the Honda when
leaned over while driving through the
corners. Steering feels much lighter with
the Beemer, .while it takes a fair amount
of muscle to get the Honda leaned over
into the turns. Neith.er bike really has a
giant advantage over the other when it
comes to cornering, they just feel a little
different. That's all.
Our testers couldn't agree on much
when it came to the overall ride of the
two bikes. One liked the Honda better,
the other the BMW, but both riders clid
agree they liked the BMW's Telelever
front suspension better than the
Honda's 41= conventional cartr1dge
fork (the '96 model has bigger 43mm
forks). The Honda seemed slightly
underdamped and would float a little
over the bigger bumps, while the
Beemer's central spring-strut anq coilspring design front end just felt perfect.
Both front ends soaked up the smaller
road imperfections with ease. Most of
our in-house clisputing involved the rear
suspensions. Basically, the back ends
work well on both bikes, but our testers
couldn't agree on which bike they felt
was actually better - the Beemer's single-shock Paralever system or the
Honda's more traclitional single, sidemounted-shock swingarm system. The
Honda features more rear shock
adjustability, offering 5-w
