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/713106
VOL. 53 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 9, 2016 P75 missing as standard, which ap- parently includes the gear-select indicator that's a must-have feature for a bike this torquey. I often found myself searching for a non-existent seventh gear, because with no way of know- ing how many revs the engine was turning, and the fact that the droning exhaust note is un- changed irrespective of the revs, I couldn't tell what gear the BMW was in, having lost track while shifting up. It's a must-have op- tion, but inevitably there's a wide range of other accessories, from a titanium Akrapovic silencer to a windscreen, or heated grips, a headlamp grill, sump guard and a choice of luggage that includes a 4.4-gallon tank bag, and 10.5-gallon tail pack. NOT DUCATI Unlike the cheaper, less potent and frankly less substantial Ducati Scrambler with which it shares the moniker of the moment but not much else, the new BMW's fueling is beautifully mapped all through the rev range in each ratio of its six-speed gearbox, without any of the Ital- ian bike's snatchy pickup from a closed throttle in the bottom two gears. That many ratios is pretty superfluous for something this torquey, and I often found myself sitting in fourth gear for mile after mile as I hustled the Scrambler through the switchback scenery of the Bavarian Alps, surfing to be cool, but it has to run and be able to be ridden hard, and Roland does that marvelouslyt, of course. Anyway, so the Concept 90 was the teaser bike for the R nineT which then came next, but as we created the production R nineT, already of course we had lots of ideas about how we can make other models using the same platform. It's like a can- vas where you can paint different variations on the same theme, and that from the beginning was the original idea of this Custom concept for BMW. I told my guys, look, this bike is a lifestyle model, an expres- sion of your mindset, it's a canvas for you to draw on and then make what- ever you want that's based on it. This meant several people did their own thing in developing that platform, so in the early phase there were already many, many different sketches of bikes taken from the R nineT, it was always the idea not to have just one model run- ning down this platform's assembly line, but several. At the same time as we did the R nineT we did 10 different derivations from that core model, and the Scrambler was a very obvi- ous choice to bring to mar- ket first. That's because ev- erybody loves Scramblers, and it's a very naturally minimalistic interpretation of the canvas represented by the R nineT. It's surpris- ing how amazingly easy it is to change the char- acter and the nature of a bike quite radically just by adding or removing a very small number of parts. You can just put stuff on or take it away, and the bike changes completely, and in the case of the Scram- bler, it was more a case of removing stuff rather than adding very much. Does that mean you can sell it for a lower price? Yes, it does, and that was another reason to pick the Scrambler to do next, because we know the R nineT is relatively high- priced. But that's because it's a high-end bike with top level components, and I believe many people don't need these. In fact, quite the opposite, they actually want to have a non-performance bike, be- cause if you want a high- performance model there are plenty of options in the BMW range, but there are also lots of people who want to get away from all that technology, they want a cool style above all else, in a lower-performance package. So we must try to provide that. So the new Scrambler then is an answer to this desire for a bike that has the key essentials and nothing more, presented in an accessible way to be practical yet pleasurable. Yes, I think that sums it up quite well, plus it's a canvas where you have a lot of options as a cus- tomer to personalize it how you like. This man's design pen has been responsible for some of BMW's best and most profitable motorcycles.