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/127838
l I I I l I "~ " -~ , ;\'lt~, ~'(,. , 1998 BMW K1200RS n two wheels as well as four, BMW does things differently, Among volume car man- By Alan Cathcart Photos by Emilio Jimenez (Left) BMW's K1200RS goes like no other Beemer ever - the new Super Brick pumps out a claimed 130 bhp, (Below) Inlets under the headlight are ram-air intakes well one of them is, the other is just for symmetry, The K1200RS is the first BMW with ram air. (Below left) Controls are typical BMW, which is to say confusing for the German-bike first-timer, but natural enough once you're accustomed. uJacturers they are alone in having stayed faithflli to the enhanced handling characteristics offered by rear-wheel drive, scorning the corner-cutting cost savings of frontwheel drive, So long the only bike manufacturer to offer shaft drive at all, let alone to equip its entire range, BMW has also traditionally stood for a unique engine configuration - whether Boxer horizontal twin or Brkk in-line four - as well as constalltly pioneering the application of leading-edge technology to motorcycle use, from electrollic fuel injection to catalyst exhausts, ABS brakes to Telelever wishbone front suspension, single-sided swingarms to plug-in diagnostic systems, all of which they were the first to iJ1troduce on street bikes, BMW engineers have never traditionally paid much attention to what the rest of the bike world is doing, preferring instead to folJow their OWll well-defined sellse of what's right and wrong, However, just once in a while they tear up the template and start over again, just as they did back in 1992 witb the 8-valve R1100-series Boxer twin that replaced the rooted-in-time push-rod models, After 13 years of K-modeJ production, during which over 200,000 threeand four-cylinder bikes have been produced, now they've effectively done the same with the ultimate version of the Flying Brick, the new K1200RS four. Launched at last October's Cologne Show, and now in production in fullpower 130-bhp guise (six weeks later than the politically-correct 100-hp version sold in its native Germany and side-kick French markets), the new K12 sets a whole series of two-wheeled absolutes for BMW. It has the largest-capacity motor ever fitted to a BMW motorcycle, is the first with ram-air induction, the first with an alumillum chassis, the first with a six-speed gearbox, the first to deliver over 100 bhp, the first with twin three-way exhaust catalysts, and the first K-model to be fitted with Telelever front sllspension. All this adds up to the fastest BMW ever made, the quickest-accelerating and - at 11,950 pounds in Britain - the most expensive. In short, this is BMW's benchmark bike: the Absolute Brick. A whole day of riding a fu II-power version of the K1200 in a variety of Spanish road conditions - through Barcelona traffic for starters, then out onto the aulopisln for a freeway blast up into the mountains of Calalunya as a main course, followed by a dessert of twisting B-roads - delivered some unexpected conclusions at odds with one's expectations after reading the model's spec sheet. Six hundred thirty pounds gassed up, ready to go - where are the outriggers? A 61.2-inch wheelbase - does it come with reverse gear? Longstroke motor - bound to be all midrange torque, no appetite for revs. Still no counterbalancer in the lay-down motor, so