Absolutely Richard, but from memory you have never owned a 12.
And I do not recall you owning an 07/08 1200 Brian which was a quantum leap from the heap of junk that was the 04/05/06 that BMW palmed off on the public,I test ride a 1000 mile 06 demonstrator from Clark’s on the Lickies and was complete rubbish.
Fast forward too 08 by which time I was moving pressbikes for MCN collected a blue and silver version from Vines who in those days ran the press fleet and it wasn’t needed straightaway so took it home for a couple of days..... an absolute world away and hence me buying my R Sport which in fairness needed a clutch mod but has non of the traits listed here.
You are quite right Chris, but those who have only had later 12’s/13’s missed and maybe never paid attention to the early bikes, whereas those of us who had early bikes paid a huge amount of attention to the later 12’s and 13’s, often with envy.
I read Kevin's disparaging road test report of the K12 (now lost to posterity as his original website was closed as it was too difficult for Caroline to maintain) about 3 weeks after I took mine home and even at that stage I was glad that he slagged it off because I was convinced I had forgotten how to ride.
The rest as they say...
You are fairly unique in that you were in at the beginning and with an inside line on the industry.
