K1200S

[fjtwelve]

And just to an oy those more anal than I am we saw 93001 yesterday. My excuse is 93000 kicked up on the last roundabout before the tunnel and when I stopped to fill up being in a bit of a hurry it had clicked another mile.

[DouglasM]

And just to an oy those more anal than I am we saw 93001 yesterday. My excuse is 93000 kicked up on the last roundabout before the tunnel and when I stopped to fill up being in a bit of a hurry it had clicked another mile.

Impressive 

[S BMW]

😀 superb must say I do miss those older BMer orange on/off  a solid type no mess,no second glances, no fumbling job done switches.

[Phmode]

Why?

Does your accelerator/brake foot also have to cope with an inconvenient, weird and counter-intuitive right-turn indicator and cancel mechanism at the same time as controlling the engine revs and braking effort when you drive a car?

I wonder why that is?

Millions of Japanese and other European bike riders strangely have absolutely no problems at all with the convenient, tiny, fiddly, squishy, grey'ish and very intuitive controls on their bikes.

Who looks down at their switches before they use them? So why do the indicator and horn buttons need to be orange? There is a reason for the kill switch and hazard button being highlighted, but really, orange indicator switches...

[Costas]

I think fabulous beats excellent. Still an excellent report, thanks.

[fjtwelve]

A couple of other notes I forgot as I was being hassled by security to leave the office last night.

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. The S1000 shifter is better up and down but as I said above you are rarely at a constant speed.

Compared with my K the throttle action on both bikes is very light, maybe my cables need lubricating

The mirrors on both bikes 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. Not that you need to see what's behind you on the RR...

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

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.....

[fjtwelve]

Why?

Does your accelerator/brake foot also have to cope with an inconvenient, weird and counter-intuitive right-turn indicator and cancel mechanism at the same time as controlling the engine revs and braking effort when you drive a car?

I wonder why that is?

Millions of Japanese and other European bike riders strangely have absolutely no problems at all with the convenient, tiny, fiddly, squishy, grey'ish and very intuitive controls on their bikes.

Who looks down at their switches before they use them? So why do the indicator and horn buttons need to be orange? There is a reason for the kill switch and hazard button being highlighted, but really, orange indicator switches...

After riding 3 totally different bikes, and driving the Q5, on both sides of the road in about 4 countries in the space of 2 days I'm surprised I didn't lose control of one of them at some point. Having spent 30 years using the left thumb for indicators it took me about 2 years to learn how go BMW, just in time for BMW to go Jap. Story of my life...

[Phmode]

Bit like the grief of trying to use the indicators on a right hand drive Euro car after decades in British and Japanese ones. (Despite this, I find driving on the right to be my 'natural' side and have no problems in Europe or US but have nearly killed myself or others at Heathrow and Dover by keeping on driving on the right when coming home, the one-way system from Heathrow's long-term car park was a particular nightmare, especially at night with little traffic around.)

The 'old' convention was that the indicators were always on the opposite side of the wheel to the gear change so you could do both at once, indicate and change down for a junction etc.

Japanese cars, being right hand drive didn't need modifying for the UK market but played hell with the odd European who kept flashing the wipers on the approach to junctions because the makers only moved the whole column from right to left so the indicators were now on the same side of the wheel as the gear lever, although I think Honda did swing the cluster over on some models.

Us Brits got the same problem with Euro cars where again, the makers only moved the whole cluster from left to right and this is still the way it is today, those whose native country drives on the right get better ergonomics in Euro cars than those who have to have the cars modified.

[richtea]

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?

Not really. Phone-based navigation is as good if not better than satnav, in my limited experience (Google v Garmin).
Google live traffic is almost sub-minute live, as is the re-routing. The Garmin seems to lag by 10-20 minutes.

However, you do relinquish your private data for those lovely maps on Android, Apple, etc. Such is the price of 'free'.

[Matt]

Can't decide which I prefer at the moment. Am using TomTom most days lately, even though it currently tells me there's never a route home (road closed for roadworks and it isn't that clever to realise it's residential).
It also takes me down flipping single track gravel filled roads to get to a random pub!

Haven't got a clamp for the phone on bike, but it gets used in car... anyway this convo goes on for ever. I like rum.

[raesewell]

You need to change the settings on your Tomtom Matt. Do you have it paired to your phone for data?

[richtea]

Haven't got a clamp for the phone on bike, but it gets used in car... anyway this convo goes on for ever. I like rum.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ram-Mounts-RAM-HOL-UN7BU-Universal-smartphone-black/dp/B0055PH0XA/ref=sr_1_2

Mildly ugly, but does the job up to er, xxx mph, and good value. Looks like it shouldn't hold on as tight as it does, but it's v good.

[Matt]

Ta Rich. Might try it!

Rae: yeah Bluetooth hotspot is why it gets the traffic updates.

The single track was still a road and could just as easily happen with Google maps I suppose.

[raesewell]

I have an X-Grip but it interfered with the buttons on my S8.

Matt, set the Tomtom to avoid unpaved roads on all journeys.

[richtea]

I have an X-Grip but it interfered with the buttons on my S8.

Make him an offer, Matt.