BMW Demo Day - S1000RR test ride

Yesterday over the lunch hour I headed down to our local BMW motorcycle dealer, Wildwood Sports, to participate in a demo day ride on the S1000RR superbike. I'd been booked to ride this model in the demo ride last year too, but the bike ended up not being available as it had been crashed on a demo in Calgary :-(

No such bad luck this year as the double-R arrived intact and ready to go.

BMW had brought a wide selection of bikes for riders to try out. It cost $30 to participate in the demo ride but this money was donated to charity. The dealership provided sandwiches and donuts which was nice as I didn't have time to get lunch otherwise!

The weather started cloudy, which was concerning to me since I'd only brought a dark tinted visor for my helmet, but soon the clouds parted and the weather was bright and sunny for the ride.

This was "my" ride... a 2013 S1000RR in "Granite Grey Metallic Matt". A gorgeous bike with a spec sheet to match: 193bhp pushing only 203kg wet weight...

I don't have a very broad experience of liter sportbikes (modern ones I mean; I don't really count my Ducati 900SS/SP or the old GSX-R1100) but riding this bike blew me away. Great power everywhere in the rev range, telekinetic handling, and even "reasonable" comfort although the seat pad got pretty firm after an hour's riding.

Of course, being a factory demo ride, the opportunities to stretch the performance envelope are necessarily limited, especially with road traffic, semi-trailers and "Farmer Palmer" pootling along at 80km/h in a 90-limit... but the one time I got to twist the throttle a bit the bike responded ferociously but perfectly controllably. Nobody "needs" this much motorcycle for the street but my response to those who say "it's dangerous" is always the same... it takes a rider to twist the throttle and the bike only goes as fast as the rider makes it. Personally I would rarely ever use even one-tenth of the performance this bike offers but WOW, it sure was fun.
  

Later, talking to the dealer principal, I found out that this machine was still in its break-in period and was subject to a special rev-limiter at 9,000rpm or so. I wouldn't have known as I never took it over 8 grand or thereabouts, still more than enough to see 1XX km/h on the digital speedo ;-)
   

Cockpit is tidy and functional as you'd expect a high-end BMW to be.

Some nice detailing here - I like the styling of the stubby exhaust canister and the neat alloy pegs. Some vibration is transmitted through the pegs but it didn't seem particularly intrusive.

Monster radial calipers give massive braking power. Will stand you on your ear if you're not careful!
 

I personally quite like the asymmetrical headlight styling treatment, although I recognize it might not be to everyone's taste. Distinctive, though, yes?

Thanks to Wildwood and BMW for an enjoyable noontime ride. The S1000RR is a sublime machine and I would love to own one. The ante in this game, however, is not insignificant (~$17K and change), and I don't think that I would ride this bike enough for that to make sense. Come a lottery win, though, the double-R would be the liter-bike I'd choose to own for sure - albeit probably in the white/blue/red "Motorsport" colour scheme ;-)