And so to the R1250RS Sport.
That's Austin Yellow to you sir, none of this mustard thank you. Judging from the website and the value on the day insurance, it appears to have been a base model with lots of accessories. Its easy enough to swing a leg over, bit lower than the 1250GS I had a while back. Side stand irritatingly under the NS cylinder but I was getting used to groping for it after a couple of hours. LH switchgear as all standard in the RS and GS range. I find the Japanese style indicator button annoyingly small, I'm sure my old jap bike buttons were bigger. It would be nice if the array of buttons was backlit as thumbing the right button in the dark is difficult, I suppose you would learn eventually. The dash screen is nice although some of the font is pretty small, too small to take in in a glance, but the important stuff is clear enough. I like the rev counter display, and it gradually moves the red line up the range as the engine warms up.
Having fiddled about with everything I finally got out of the drive. Instant drive from the engine like the 1250GS , very easy and smooth to ride straight away. First junction nearly disappeared over the bars, the fork dive is dramatic, I do forget how little the K moves. The brakes are really good, very light to operate and powerful, reinforcing there is something not quite right with my K brakes. It was in road mode when I got it but as with the GS I did not like it, and it was into Dynamic very quickly. Gave it the beans out of town and boy does it pull hard from very low down, a real shove up the backside in all gears. Overtaking is easy enough in roll on without shifting gears. However I sometimes got this weird feeling of surging/galloping which could be the active suspension. Generally smooth without any noticeable vibration anywhere in the rev range that I can remember. Cornering is fine but different to the K but quickly got used to it. Chucking it about on the B3306 at relatively low speeds was easy enough. Coming back up the A30 at speed I found the windscreen worked better in the low position and gave good protection well into 3 figures. Whether the protection in the wet is better then the old R1200RS was is difficult to say. The headlight is much better than the old one. I was very comfortable, the seat is nice, and the bars are a bit higher than the K and narrower than the GS, just comfortable, tank is easy to grip and slide around. The dash was saying 55mpg when I got home, and I had not been riding for economy.
The R1250 had shift assist which worked well all the way up the box if you were accelerating, but not so well down the box or if you were just changing up or down at more or less constant speed. I'm getting reasonably handy at clutchless shifts up and down the box on my K now, the shift assist is quicker when accelerating hard but otherwise I wouldn't miss it.
Compared with my K the throttle action is very light, maybe my cables need lubricating
The mirrors were pretty poor, style victims. Even though the RS are very slightly wider than the K, like 20mm, I struggled to adjust to see more than my arms, and when I could see behind they are slightly too small I think.
The exhaust on the R1250 is an ugly lump. It never got in the way and you can hear it, but if there was an aftermarket one out there that had the same effect as the Akra on mine it would be first on my shopping list. The Akra option from BMW makes no difference to the power output apparently, just lighter and different sound. Whilst talking about looks the new bodywork is better than the old, and its growing on me, not too Transformer/scifi - ish like some of the bikes out there at the moment. The bike is fairly slim, apart of course from the bleedin' great pots sticking out at the sides
The ability to bluetooth the dash to a phone app sounds interesting, but I don't know how it works. My test bike was prepped for a satnav, but if you have your phone do you need a sat nav?
The RS had the fitting for the panniers on, neat and not very obtrusive, didn't get in the way
Definite contender for a K replacement, but the model list and options definitely bears some investigation, its bloody complicated, but the other models come in less garish colours. The price of buying a new bike is a killer when you can get a second-hand K13 for 50-60% of the price though. As for other replacement options, I met a guy on the Chunnel who reckoned while the 1290GT was very good, it vibrated a lot. He was with his mate on a Sprint for a quick tour of the Benelux and had an older RT at home for commuting, but not a boxer fan and did not like GSs. Thus having been around the houses he rides a Tiger 1200. Another bloke had a ZX10 and was on his way back from a week in the Alps. They all looked fine in my mirrors.....
