Bones
Your Humble Scribe
Several people have asked me for my $.02 on my 2014 BMW R1200RT. Not surprisingly, I have been accumulating my thoughts since I picked up my slightly used RT on November 1. Now that my driveway is solid ice, I decided to take time to organize those thoughts.
Rewind to November 2002. I bought the first 2003 ST1300 delivered to a customer in New England. It’s a great bike, the motor in particular, and the people I’ve met via this machine have become some of my closest friends. Of course every machine involves tradeoffs and the ST's mass has been my one ongoing complaint about that bike for the past 12 years.
Lightness has been an RT advantage for years. When I started reading comments among moto journalists that the new liquid cooled motor was smooth, and complaints from more than a few BMW boxer traditionalists that the new motor lacked “character” (which I interpreted to mean it was smooth), I was intrigued. Since Honda still has no public plans regarding a replacement or even a refreshing for the ST1300, I started giving the BMW consideration. Fair warning about BMW’s generous demo ride policy: I took an hour-long demo ride on an RT and was convinced within a few miles. Test ride one at your peril!
Weight
The RT is 125 pounds lighter than an ST. For a short, boney guy like me, that’s a huge benefit. The bike’s weight advantage is apparent when I lift it off the side stand. It’s easy to maneuver at low speed. The center of gravity feels low. I can move it around the garage without having to sit on it and walk it around. It goes up on the center stand way easier than the ST. Overall, it’s beautifully balanced. On the twisty roads I prefer, I’m finding the RT is a lot more playful than the ST. I can’t wait to get the RT down to my Aunt Muriel’s neck of the woods in western North Carolina.
Motor
I have never bought into the notion that machines have “soul” but I do think they are distinguishable by certain characteristics. The smoothness of the ST’s V4 is one such characteristic. The RT's 2-cylinder mill has more discernable power pulses than a V4 but the new liquid-cooled boxer is not coarse or vibey. One characteristic the V4 and boxer share is lots of useable torque down low, so there’s no need to rev when you’re motivated to go. Just roll on and hang on.
This wet-head is a huge improvement over all of the oil-cooled 1150 and 1200 Beemers I've ridden (including one I rode back-to-back with my RT a couple weeks ago). The paint-shaker vibes and agricultural feel of the 1150 and 1200 oil heads is history. I’m really liking this motor. I’m trying to think of a word for the sound the motor makes when munching miles. The ST kind of says “weeeeeee.” The RT seems to say “thrrrrrr” like the rapid trilling “r” we learned in Spanish class.
Suspension
My RT has electronic adjustments for preload (set with the bike on and at full stop), for on the fly shock soft/normal/hard settings, plus on the fly rain/normal/dynamic settings for the traction control system (also impacting throttle sensitivity and ABS involvement). BMW front ends provide a different feedback sensation than conventional forks, which is taking some getting used to. I’ve previously described it as kind of vague, like electric power steering in a car. The bike handles beautifully so I think that funky front end will become my friend with time and experience.
I’ve mentioned to some people I’ve seen in person that the RT tracks like a laser. It impressed me so much that while riding on MA 67, a gently curving 2-lane along the Quaboag River, I set the cruise control, took my hands off the bars and rode several miles steering the bike with my body (knees, mostly). I could have tied a necktie, eaten a sandwich and conducted an orchestra.
Brakes
I’ll be keeping an even closer eye on who’s behind me because there won’t be many vehicles on the road that can stop shorter. The new RT has some of the hardest hitting brakes I have ever felt, and there’s not much dive due to the geometry of the front end. The hand lever links the front and rear brakes with the bike’s computer managing how they are proportioned. The foot pedal is rear brake only. I like that setup. Antilock, of course.
Misc Features
The RT’s features and integration are unlike anything I've experienced in a motor vehicle (4 wheels or 2), except for blueSTormer’s K1600GT, which is similarly equipped. The GPS, the Bluetooth in the helmet (I sprung for a new Schuberth C3 Pro), the vast array of information available using simple menus and the wonder wheel multi-controller…it’s all well-conceived and executed. The heated grips and seats have been great, especially since I picked up this bike in November.
The cruise control is spot on. Cruise is something I’ve wanted on a bike for years and I’ve settled for mechanical throttle locks until now.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I think this bike is a looker. It’s like the ST has been going to the gym and found a better tailor.
To my eye the RT is a tad nose-heavy design wise, in stock form, but adding a BMW top case balances out the look. I had the top case painted to match. For some reason, BMW delivers all RT top cases in one color, Aluminum White. BMW calls my bike color Quartz Blue although it looks like silver to most people.
The fairing pockets are useful but I wish they were as big as the ST pockets. They lock along with the central locking system that also locks the pannier and top case, using the key fob or a button on the bars.
I won’t stop turning my head to see what’s behind me before changing lanes, but the mirrors provide a good view aft and are positioned so I’m not looking at my hands.
I love the side facing tire valves cast into the rims. Very convenient. The cold pressure reading on the bike’s TPM matches my old fashioned Milton gauge.
The dash is far enough forward that I don’t need reading glasses to see that various readouts. Yea! I prefer analog gauges and the RT has both analog speedo and tach. I’d like larger numbers on both. The menus are very legible. The breadth and depth of information available approaches ridiculous. Eyes on the road!
Air flow management is stellar. With the shield all the way down I get a nice smooth blast into my helmet. It gets quieter as I raise the shield and I can still look over and be in a very quiet pocket of still air. There’s no noticeable backpressure. An interesting way to gauge this is that when wearing a heated jacket my back doesn’t get hotter than my chest, which was always the case with my ST which has significant back pressure no matter which windshield I’ve had on it. Not sure how the RT’s air flow works for someone considerably taller than I am as the rider would be sitting higher in the saddle and the shield would have to go up farther, making it more vertical which messes with smooth air flow.
I’m finding the standard seat very comfortable. Mine is heated (5 settings via the wonder wheel). The pillion also gets bun warmers (hi/lo on a seat mounted switch). I have the standard seat set on the lower of two settings. The bike is not as tall as the last R1200RT I rode, which had me on tippy-toes at full stop. The seat is narrower up front so the reach to the ground is less. On a test ride I realized the available low seat is lower because so much padding is removed. The seat pan is the same. It felt very hard and also increased the bend in my knees more than I liked. No thanks. I’m securely on the balls of my feet with the standard seat and low setting.
There’s no more dry clutch. It’s very smooth although the engagement range is narrower than the ST, which I understand is the nature of a slipper clutch and BMW wet clutches in general. The transmission is so snick-snick smooth it feels positively Japanese. And guess what I learned? It is Japanese! However, it has a decidedly percussive “k-thunk” going into first from neutral. A little throttle blip helps that.
The recovery stroke after shifting is a bit longer than the ST so I have to lower my left foot more to prepare the RT for the next upshift. That’s similar to my Versys, so just a matter of training muscle memory. The shift assist feature allows for instant, throttle-on clutchless upshifts and throttle-off clutchless downshifts. For 1[SUP]st[/SUP] to 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] and 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] to 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] upshifts you really have to be accelerating hard. It works with less thrust shifting to 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]/4[SUP]th[/SUP]/5[SUP]th[/SUP]/6[SUP]th[/SUP]. The bike blips the throttle automatically and with a bit of practice I’m finding it works well. Light speed comes quickly! One advantage over Honda’s dual clutch system is that BMW retains a clutch, which makes slow speed maneuvers easier than I found with Honda’s setup on the VFR1200F DCT which requires throttle and rear brake only (no clutch to feather) for slow speed maneuvers.
Hill assist is the same concept as the hill hugger on Subarus, for those who remember. Stop on to a hill, squeeze the brake lever and you feel the brake engage and it holds you on the incline even when you release the brake lever. When you give it throttle to pull away, it disengages. Note that you need to give it more throttle than usual to overcome the braking and you have to pay attention so you don’t end up with a whiskey throttle launch. A skill set I learned decades ago (using the rear brake to hold the bike on an incline while throttling away from a stop) makes this feature unnecessary and I haven’t actually found a need for it. I suppose an awkwardly angled uphill intersection may be waiting for me out there and if one appears the bike has a feature that can help address the circumstances, but I could live without it.
Some of you may have been around a campfire when I’ve stirred the pot regarding traditional BMW turn signals which employ three separate switches (left, right, cancel). I always figured German engineering should come up with something simpler. This RT has a conventional one-switch, three-function turn signal. BMW traditionalists grit their teeth while others say “finally…”
Music anyone? There’s Sirius Satellite radio, FM, an Aux port for your iPod/iPhone/MP3 player and my favorite, a USB port where you put a memory stick with all your tunes on it. Simple, small, no battery and it doesn’t interfere with your phone. Stick it there and after you run through 3000 songs, start over or put on some new ones.
I had a time getting the various side panels back on my '14 RT after installing a crash bar and some auxiliary lights. There are fragile little tabs and nibs that don’t want to stay in the grommets. The BMW service manager walked me through removal on the phone, but getting the side panel to line up without angling it and breaking off the tabs requires someone with arms that are much thinner and perhaps twice as long as a standard adult human being. I read (studied) the owner manual and there’s nothing I could see that I was missing. I finally managed to get things aligned using my own skinny arms and a push bar I made from chopsticks. PITA! I’m looking forward to not removing those panels for a while.
Rewind to last spring. I was interested enough in the new RT that I was planning a demo ride to coincide with my birthday in June, and then BMW issued a worldwide "do not ride" order due to a problem with a rear shock component. What a pisser. You may know that it took the better part of 3 months for the replacement shocks to arrive. It was quite a black eye for BMW. Despite some artfully-crafted, cover-your-*** customer communications, I have to give them credit. If you didn't want to wait for the fix, BMW would buy back your bike for the price you paid or give you that full price toward another BMW model. If you didn't mind waiting, they'd give you $2500 for the inconvenience once your bike was fixed. I've learned that owners who endured the wait also got a 6-month warranty extension.
Some people sold their RT's back to BMW, which put the new rear shocks on and offered the repaired bikes for sale, used. After I took a demo ride and decided this was the bike for me, I was lucky enough to find one of those buy back bikes, with every factory option, only 3k miles and in the color I preferred, so I bought it. BMW got to absorb the 30% depreciation hit for a bike sold six months earlier.
To summarize, as an integrated package, the liquid-cooled RT is best motorcycle I've ever ridden. I've ridden a K1600GT as well and the 6-cylinder motor is incredible, but that bike weighs even more than an ST and it's taller than an RT so it never made my short list. For your short, boney, humble scribe, the RT is the better machine. The new boxer isn't a V4 but it is greatly improved over earlier boxers. It comes in a beautifully integrated package that is remarkably lighter than the ST1300, has low end torque for powering our corners like the ST, and has all the modern features that Honda doesn't seem interested in adding to the ST. I think it's a lot like what the ST could be if Honda cared about the model.
The ST is smoother. The RT is lighter, faster, better handling, better braking, better equipped, better integrated, and more comfortable. Will the RT be as reliable as a Honda? I’m not holding my breath but not worrying either. Time will tell.
My wife said, "You only live once, go for it" and I know better than to argue when she offers logic like that. I have an RT in the garage and an ST for sale. I am keeping the Versys, so the adventure bike bug is still satisfied...for now anyway.
Rewind to November 2002. I bought the first 2003 ST1300 delivered to a customer in New England. It’s a great bike, the motor in particular, and the people I’ve met via this machine have become some of my closest friends. Of course every machine involves tradeoffs and the ST's mass has been my one ongoing complaint about that bike for the past 12 years.
Lightness has been an RT advantage for years. When I started reading comments among moto journalists that the new liquid cooled motor was smooth, and complaints from more than a few BMW boxer traditionalists that the new motor lacked “character” (which I interpreted to mean it was smooth), I was intrigued. Since Honda still has no public plans regarding a replacement or even a refreshing for the ST1300, I started giving the BMW consideration. Fair warning about BMW’s generous demo ride policy: I took an hour-long demo ride on an RT and was convinced within a few miles. Test ride one at your peril!
Weight
The RT is 125 pounds lighter than an ST. For a short, boney guy like me, that’s a huge benefit. The bike’s weight advantage is apparent when I lift it off the side stand. It’s easy to maneuver at low speed. The center of gravity feels low. I can move it around the garage without having to sit on it and walk it around. It goes up on the center stand way easier than the ST. Overall, it’s beautifully balanced. On the twisty roads I prefer, I’m finding the RT is a lot more playful than the ST. I can’t wait to get the RT down to my Aunt Muriel’s neck of the woods in western North Carolina.
Motor
I have never bought into the notion that machines have “soul” but I do think they are distinguishable by certain characteristics. The smoothness of the ST’s V4 is one such characteristic. The RT's 2-cylinder mill has more discernable power pulses than a V4 but the new liquid-cooled boxer is not coarse or vibey. One characteristic the V4 and boxer share is lots of useable torque down low, so there’s no need to rev when you’re motivated to go. Just roll on and hang on.
This wet-head is a huge improvement over all of the oil-cooled 1150 and 1200 Beemers I've ridden (including one I rode back-to-back with my RT a couple weeks ago). The paint-shaker vibes and agricultural feel of the 1150 and 1200 oil heads is history. I’m really liking this motor. I’m trying to think of a word for the sound the motor makes when munching miles. The ST kind of says “weeeeeee.” The RT seems to say “thrrrrrr” like the rapid trilling “r” we learned in Spanish class.
Suspension
My RT has electronic adjustments for preload (set with the bike on and at full stop), for on the fly shock soft/normal/hard settings, plus on the fly rain/normal/dynamic settings for the traction control system (also impacting throttle sensitivity and ABS involvement). BMW front ends provide a different feedback sensation than conventional forks, which is taking some getting used to. I’ve previously described it as kind of vague, like electric power steering in a car. The bike handles beautifully so I think that funky front end will become my friend with time and experience.
I’ve mentioned to some people I’ve seen in person that the RT tracks like a laser. It impressed me so much that while riding on MA 67, a gently curving 2-lane along the Quaboag River, I set the cruise control, took my hands off the bars and rode several miles steering the bike with my body (knees, mostly). I could have tied a necktie, eaten a sandwich and conducted an orchestra.
Brakes
I’ll be keeping an even closer eye on who’s behind me because there won’t be many vehicles on the road that can stop shorter. The new RT has some of the hardest hitting brakes I have ever felt, and there’s not much dive due to the geometry of the front end. The hand lever links the front and rear brakes with the bike’s computer managing how they are proportioned. The foot pedal is rear brake only. I like that setup. Antilock, of course.
Misc Features
The RT’s features and integration are unlike anything I've experienced in a motor vehicle (4 wheels or 2), except for blueSTormer’s K1600GT, which is similarly equipped. The GPS, the Bluetooth in the helmet (I sprung for a new Schuberth C3 Pro), the vast array of information available using simple menus and the wonder wheel multi-controller…it’s all well-conceived and executed. The heated grips and seats have been great, especially since I picked up this bike in November.
The cruise control is spot on. Cruise is something I’ve wanted on a bike for years and I’ve settled for mechanical throttle locks until now.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I think this bike is a looker. It’s like the ST has been going to the gym and found a better tailor.
To my eye the RT is a tad nose-heavy design wise, in stock form, but adding a BMW top case balances out the look. I had the top case painted to match. For some reason, BMW delivers all RT top cases in one color, Aluminum White. BMW calls my bike color Quartz Blue although it looks like silver to most people.
The fairing pockets are useful but I wish they were as big as the ST pockets. They lock along with the central locking system that also locks the pannier and top case, using the key fob or a button on the bars.
I won’t stop turning my head to see what’s behind me before changing lanes, but the mirrors provide a good view aft and are positioned so I’m not looking at my hands.
I love the side facing tire valves cast into the rims. Very convenient. The cold pressure reading on the bike’s TPM matches my old fashioned Milton gauge.
The dash is far enough forward that I don’t need reading glasses to see that various readouts. Yea! I prefer analog gauges and the RT has both analog speedo and tach. I’d like larger numbers on both. The menus are very legible. The breadth and depth of information available approaches ridiculous. Eyes on the road!
Air flow management is stellar. With the shield all the way down I get a nice smooth blast into my helmet. It gets quieter as I raise the shield and I can still look over and be in a very quiet pocket of still air. There’s no noticeable backpressure. An interesting way to gauge this is that when wearing a heated jacket my back doesn’t get hotter than my chest, which was always the case with my ST which has significant back pressure no matter which windshield I’ve had on it. Not sure how the RT’s air flow works for someone considerably taller than I am as the rider would be sitting higher in the saddle and the shield would have to go up farther, making it more vertical which messes with smooth air flow.
I’m finding the standard seat very comfortable. Mine is heated (5 settings via the wonder wheel). The pillion also gets bun warmers (hi/lo on a seat mounted switch). I have the standard seat set on the lower of two settings. The bike is not as tall as the last R1200RT I rode, which had me on tippy-toes at full stop. The seat is narrower up front so the reach to the ground is less. On a test ride I realized the available low seat is lower because so much padding is removed. The seat pan is the same. It felt very hard and also increased the bend in my knees more than I liked. No thanks. I’m securely on the balls of my feet with the standard seat and low setting.
There’s no more dry clutch. It’s very smooth although the engagement range is narrower than the ST, which I understand is the nature of a slipper clutch and BMW wet clutches in general. The transmission is so snick-snick smooth it feels positively Japanese. And guess what I learned? It is Japanese! However, it has a decidedly percussive “k-thunk” going into first from neutral. A little throttle blip helps that.
The recovery stroke after shifting is a bit longer than the ST so I have to lower my left foot more to prepare the RT for the next upshift. That’s similar to my Versys, so just a matter of training muscle memory. The shift assist feature allows for instant, throttle-on clutchless upshifts and throttle-off clutchless downshifts. For 1[SUP]st[/SUP] to 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] and 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] to 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] upshifts you really have to be accelerating hard. It works with less thrust shifting to 3[SUP]rd[/SUP]/4[SUP]th[/SUP]/5[SUP]th[/SUP]/6[SUP]th[/SUP]. The bike blips the throttle automatically and with a bit of practice I’m finding it works well. Light speed comes quickly! One advantage over Honda’s dual clutch system is that BMW retains a clutch, which makes slow speed maneuvers easier than I found with Honda’s setup on the VFR1200F DCT which requires throttle and rear brake only (no clutch to feather) for slow speed maneuvers.
Hill assist is the same concept as the hill hugger on Subarus, for those who remember. Stop on to a hill, squeeze the brake lever and you feel the brake engage and it holds you on the incline even when you release the brake lever. When you give it throttle to pull away, it disengages. Note that you need to give it more throttle than usual to overcome the braking and you have to pay attention so you don’t end up with a whiskey throttle launch. A skill set I learned decades ago (using the rear brake to hold the bike on an incline while throttling away from a stop) makes this feature unnecessary and I haven’t actually found a need for it. I suppose an awkwardly angled uphill intersection may be waiting for me out there and if one appears the bike has a feature that can help address the circumstances, but I could live without it.
Some of you may have been around a campfire when I’ve stirred the pot regarding traditional BMW turn signals which employ three separate switches (left, right, cancel). I always figured German engineering should come up with something simpler. This RT has a conventional one-switch, three-function turn signal. BMW traditionalists grit their teeth while others say “finally…”
Music anyone? There’s Sirius Satellite radio, FM, an Aux port for your iPod/iPhone/MP3 player and my favorite, a USB port where you put a memory stick with all your tunes on it. Simple, small, no battery and it doesn’t interfere with your phone. Stick it there and after you run through 3000 songs, start over or put on some new ones.
I had a time getting the various side panels back on my '14 RT after installing a crash bar and some auxiliary lights. There are fragile little tabs and nibs that don’t want to stay in the grommets. The BMW service manager walked me through removal on the phone, but getting the side panel to line up without angling it and breaking off the tabs requires someone with arms that are much thinner and perhaps twice as long as a standard adult human being. I read (studied) the owner manual and there’s nothing I could see that I was missing. I finally managed to get things aligned using my own skinny arms and a push bar I made from chopsticks. PITA! I’m looking forward to not removing those panels for a while.
Rewind to last spring. I was interested enough in the new RT that I was planning a demo ride to coincide with my birthday in June, and then BMW issued a worldwide "do not ride" order due to a problem with a rear shock component. What a pisser. You may know that it took the better part of 3 months for the replacement shocks to arrive. It was quite a black eye for BMW. Despite some artfully-crafted, cover-your-*** customer communications, I have to give them credit. If you didn't want to wait for the fix, BMW would buy back your bike for the price you paid or give you that full price toward another BMW model. If you didn't mind waiting, they'd give you $2500 for the inconvenience once your bike was fixed. I've learned that owners who endured the wait also got a 6-month warranty extension.
Some people sold their RT's back to BMW, which put the new rear shocks on and offered the repaired bikes for sale, used. After I took a demo ride and decided this was the bike for me, I was lucky enough to find one of those buy back bikes, with every factory option, only 3k miles and in the color I preferred, so I bought it. BMW got to absorb the 30% depreciation hit for a bike sold six months earlier.
To summarize, as an integrated package, the liquid-cooled RT is best motorcycle I've ever ridden. I've ridden a K1600GT as well and the 6-cylinder motor is incredible, but that bike weighs even more than an ST and it's taller than an RT so it never made my short list. For your short, boney, humble scribe, the RT is the better machine. The new boxer isn't a V4 but it is greatly improved over earlier boxers. It comes in a beautifully integrated package that is remarkably lighter than the ST1300, has low end torque for powering our corners like the ST, and has all the modern features that Honda doesn't seem interested in adding to the ST. I think it's a lot like what the ST could be if Honda cared about the model.
The ST is smoother. The RT is lighter, faster, better handling, better braking, better equipped, better integrated, and more comfortable. Will the RT be as reliable as a Honda? I’m not holding my breath but not worrying either. Time will tell.
My wife said, "You only live once, go for it" and I know better than to argue when she offers logic like that. I have an RT in the garage and an ST for sale. I am keeping the Versys, so the adventure bike bug is still satisfied...for now anyway.
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