Boxerworks.com

Zombie Master wrote:It's a lifestyle accouterment, nothing else.

True. I felt that way with the r80gs as with every new bike since then.
I have owned airheads for nearly 35 years. Since they aren't making em anymore it is normal to lust after the new stuff . Just like the buxom Starbucks barista width green hair, a nose ring and a tongue piercing that is flirtatiously flicked at me when I order a bland latte with a dollop of whip cream... Nice For a spin...but I got better waiting for me with a larger promise.

Ridercam wrote:
True. I felt that way with the r80gs as with every new bike since then.

I have to disagree with you. The R80GS was a purposeful utilitarian machine. A real BMW. The fact that the GS line of motorcycles has been BMW's best seller, and insured its survival is unimportant to me. The new "Scrambler" is just an attempt to copy machines like Triumph's scrambler, which also has no credible off road technology. Posers machine. IMO BMW has lost it way, and is just aping what it sees. The R nine T is a perfect example, where BMW produces their version of a Moto Guzzi's Grisso. BMW makes high performance in-line four cylinder sport bikes that copy Japanese bike to a T. IMO this is sad.

Zombie Master wrote:

Ridercam wrote: BMW makes high performance in-line four cylinder sport bikes that copy Japanese bike to a T. IMO this is sad.

Not that it's a bike I want, but this is not quite true. They didn't just copy the Japanese, they surpassed them.

So, what you call "copying," one could just as well refer to as "beating them at their own game."

It's a lifestyle accoutrement (what non-Super Cub/bike-of-burden isn't?), but the tires look plausibly appropriate to my home-state's (Michigan's) deteriorating post-industrial infrastructure.

For me a "Scrambler" has to be able to be used as such and for me that means when your knobbies loose traction on the 35 degree yellow clay logging road you can pull in the clutch and flick the thing around in one go and ride back down. For me and YMMVthat means less mass, basically as light as possible . This one doesn't qualify, it's pretty but that's it.

Major Softie wrote:

Zombie Master wrote:

Ridercam wrote: BMW makes high performance in-line four cylinder sport bikes that copy Japanese bike to a T. IMO this is sad.

Not that it's a bike I want, but this is not quite true. They didn't just copy the Japanese, they surpassed them.

So, what you call "copying," one could just as well refer to as "beating them at their own game."

I think the new Yamaha R1 is a better bike.

Zombie Master wrote:
I think the new Yamaha R1 is a better bike.

Could be - "new" would matter. When the BMW came out, it upped the ante. Now, of course, the other manufacturers are answering.

What BMW and some of the other Euro bikes still do much better is the parental controls. With multi level traction control, wheelie control, stoppie control and lean angle sensitive ABS, a ordinary hack like myself can ride a 1000SSR much faster and safer than an R1 in real world conditions.

Garnet wrote:What BMW and some of the other Euro bikes still do much better is the parental controls. With multi level traction control, wheelie control, stoppie control and lean angle sensitive ABS, a ordinary hack like myself can ride a 1000SSR much faster and safer than an R1 in real world conditions.

Incorrect. The new R1 surpasses the Euro bikes in transparency of parental controls. You will actually have "delusions of adequacy." In quotes, because of a comment I once made to a drummer.