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/1542352
F or the past quarter-century and until veD/ recently, Bllw's bikes had an image problem perfor- mancewise - evef since the Ger- man brand's Rennsport race ly shrinking from the top down, rather than growinS from the bottom up with new, younger converts. As a company that for many year5 had focused on a worthy but unexciting product line of functional bikes predominantly aimed at the touring rider, and appealing primarily to older buyers - albeit consistently boasting avant-Earde technologr such as EFl, ABS, Paralever, Telelever, etc. - the brand's motorcycle range sat ill at ease with the seductively sporting allure of its four-wheeled models. But ever since the turn of the mrllenni- um, BMW's engineers have been hard at work developing a series of new models aimed at repositioning the motorcycle mnge along more sportinS lines. The result has been a slew of new bikes - as many as five a year - clothed in fresh new styling courtesy ofdesign director David Robb and his team, and boasting that vital extra inSre- dient that its bikes had really shied away from since BI4W opted out of the horse- power race 30 years ago: performance. Though there was already precedence for this policy back an 1997 with the R|200RS (which was the fir3t Bl'4W to be speed-limited to 155 mph, and whose chas- sis was developed in coniunction with Bimota), the process of making two- wheeled BMWs exciting first really began to bear fruit back in 2004 with the debut ofthe best-selling Rl200GS. The K 1200 hyperbike family then followed in its different versions. But two years a8o, after ridinS the born- again R|200GS along South Africa's Garden Route. I wrote that "you can't help but look forward to the day this all-new R1200 development of BI4W's trademark flat-twin engine layout appears in its other Boxer models, as it surely will over the coming Nvo years, The Rl200S sponbike will be especially worth wahinS for..." Well, that was then and this is now and right on cue, Nvo years later, comes that bike's debut. And it's a more closely tar- geted version of the Boxer family than its go-anylvhere multipurpose maxi-enduro sister that's not only the most powerful twin-cylinder Bl''1W motorcycle ever made, but the lightest Boxer of the mod- ern era as well. Delivering a claimed 122 horsepower at 8250 rpm, along with 83 foot-pounds of torque at 6800 rpm (up from the 98 hp/70 ft.-lb. of its Rl l00S predecessor introduced back in 1998) and wei8hin8 in at 418 pounds dry (29 pounds less than the R-Eleven), Bl'4W's new sports Boxer is the company's first true twin- cylinder performance package bearing motors stopped powering crews to a succes- sion of World Sidecar ChampionshiPs, and Helmut Daehne lax ground holes in the rock- er covers of his R90S Eoxer's cylinders around the lsle of Man in the 1970s en route to victory in the ProdLrction TT. But now things are llnalt changing. And with the debut of the new R 1 2006 UberBoxer, it s yesterday once more, but in a very rnodern way. For BMW has spent what little has yet passed of rhe 2lst cenrury seeking to rein- vent itself on two wheels, in recognition of the fact that its more mature tlvo-wheeled customer base (compared to its fellow- European and Japanese rivals) was gradual- I 24 APRrL 19,2006 . CYCLE NEWS -D h ru1200s 4 't / @ / v - il\ ,/ rru,iBiir a I \ A q 7d i-! I / \ \ tr ) t ) -; ,t \ ,/ \trl . , I l 7 ' t(', \- L. \l f t -. \ I :l ) t \ 't \ \ a. I -...- \ I ) L \ I .] \ b-= \r I I ln. 1 t{, Boxer trrin that's at home By Aux Crrxcmt PHoTos iY BiIW AG D D