EXCWSIVE 200 AMAZING MILES ON HONDA'SV~s + VFR1200F ...

184BHP
WHY DID BMW DO IT?
In January 2005, at the launch the R1200RT, ex-BMW
Motorrad boss Dr Herbert Diess told a small group of
journalists that BMW were changing. His bosses had
decided they needed to sell more bikes and increase
their market share. Dr Diess told us BMW needed to
bring the brand values of their cars to their bikes: quality,
luxury, technology and - specifically - performance. The
inference was clear and Bike reported it in the R1200RT
launch report: 'In short, BMW want to build sportsbikes.'
This may only be five years ago, but how quickly we
forget that BMW in 2005 were not like BMW in 2010.
While their cars had long been associated with quality,
luxury, technology and performance, their bikes could
only tick one, maybe two, of those boxes.
BMW were at the cutting edge of something but
it wasn't performance and it wasn't technology, the
quality didn't extend to their gearboxes and the luxury
amounted to heated grips, big fairings and decent tank
ranges. While the Japanese built bikes people wanted,
BMW built bikes they thought people should want.
Their particular brand of 'we're right, the rest of the
world is wrong' was exemplified by their use of
unconventional indicator switchgear. It was this kind
of design obstinacy that put people off buying BMWs
when they went for a ten-minute test ride.
Five years later, BMW are a very different company,
with the S1000RR reflecting the strengths of BMW cars.
And it even has push-to-cancel indicators on the left bar.
Not reinventing the
wheel has allowed
BMW to leapfrog rivals
184BHP
HOW DID BMW DO IT?
By choosing to build a Japanese-style 16 valve, watercooled
in line four housed in a conventional twin spar
aluminium frame, BMW selected a design with a clear,
linear development history. Thus it was easier to play
catch up - or leapfrog - when designing their own
engine, rather than expend a lot of development time
and cost pursuing a new direction (as, perhaps, Aprilia
have with their V4-powered RSV4). BMW could study a
very obvious Japanese development cycle - anyone
familiar with the recent history ofGSX-Rs, ZX-10Rs, R1s
D 'The Suzuki GSX-Rl000KS was the
best litre sportsbike - and it still is. It
is the bike we used as a benchmark'
and Blades would have no trouble predicting future
power increases with a fair degree ofaccuracy - and
pitch their engine's spec a few years ahead of its rivals.
BMW acknowledge as much: 'The principle of
combining a straight-four power unit with an aluminium
bridge frame has been consistently developed and has
become the dominating technical concept, particularly
in the supers ports segment. The reason, quite simply, is
that a motorcycle of this kind offers significant benefits
in terms of riding dynamics, long-distance endurance
and straightforward production.'
This is backed up by BMW's Stefan Zeit, project
leader for the S1000RR, who recently spoke to Bike
about the role the opposition litre sportsbikes played
in the development of the S1000RR.
'We tested the competition: he said. 'I was
particularly impressed by the Fireblade. But I don't
understand why Yamaha have used the crossplane
crank in a road bike. I feel it is not a nice engine to use.'
But Zeit reserved his greatest praise not for a current
sportsbike, but a five-year-old model: 'Early, while we
were developing the S1000RR,at the time the Suzuki
GSX-R1000K5 (see p 116) was the best litre sportsbikeand
I think it still is. It is the bike we used as a benchmark
for the S1000RR; we bought ten of them and pulled
them apart. In engineering terms it is so light. and so
simple. I cannot understand why Suzuki went away
from this design and made the K7 and the K9.'
At the recent Milan show, when the S1000RR was
debuted to the public for the first time, BMW staff were
amused by the sight of Japanese gentlemen with tape
measures noting down various dimensions of the bike.
'We also had a lot of questions from Aprilia too, about
our traction control system!' noted Zeit with a smile.
Zeit added. 'We know, for certain, that all the
Japanese manufacturers have advanced traction
control systems on a shelf, ready to be used. But they
have not used them. It seems very strange.'
One thing's for sure: expect a Japanese response in
2011. Traction-controlled, 200bhp Blade, anyone?
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