Well the time has come. I remember last year or even early this year I kept saying this bike was perfect for me and I would probably keep it forever. I guess forever was a lot shorter than I thought. Today I traded in my trusty R1100S, aboard which I have shared many travels and adventures. I will miss it greatly.
However, recently every time I ride the S I get a horrible carpel tunnel pain in my wrist and any ride longer than a couple hours makes it hard for me to open and close my hand for the next couple days. That, coupled with the fact that my knees get to aching when I ride it, meant it was in the words of a co-worker "time to embrace my age" and get a more "age appropriate bike." I don't fully agree with that as I am still a punk and I like to ride briskly. My body does not like my sport-tour bike. I decided I should start thinking about a more tour-sport type of bike.
I went to my local dealer Max BMW and arranged for some test rides. I took out a R1200GS first since I had been kind of wanting one for a while. It had a big wide bar for good leverage in the turns and it was light, plus you can take it off road. It also had nice power. I liked it, but I didn't really love it. I have no idea why. Everyone likes them. It just didn't get my blood going.
Next I took out the R1200RT which I have actually always found not very attractive. As soon as I got on it I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it into gear. Then I realized the position where my feet normally go on the S is the rear passenger pegs on the RT. Thats how different the peg position is. I was actually trying to click into gear using front peg. Once I figured that out, off I went. I was surprised at how light it felt while maneuvering around the parking lot. Then out on the open road I went. The acceleration was good, better than I thought, although it does have more power than the S and more torque too. The real test would be in the turns where I like to ride most and I was expecting it to be a pig. You know what? It wasn't. It handled well and even the first time out I probably rode it pretty close to how I would ride the S. The brakes are awesome. After my test ride I spoke with the sales manager and we discussed some numbers. So I left. A few days later I was thinking about the bike again so I went back for a second test ride. Now that I was familiar with the bike I liked it even a little more. So this time I worked out a semi-deal but I still left. We negotiated back and forth through email and phone on trade-in value, price of the bike, accessories. In the end I got what I wanted for my bike, I didn't get a ton off the bike, but I did get all the accessories I wanted. I tried getting a Rally suit too but there weren't having any of that. You have to ask though right? Part of the deal was that I would keep all of the upgrades and accessories off of my current S.
I've spent the last number of days taking all the upgrades off. It has been odd. At first I was excited. Then as I started taking the goodies off the S I started getting a little sad because I had so much fun on it, including the Nova Scotia trip. Now that its time to get the RT, I am excited again. Hopefully I will get a lot of riding in on it and make lots of new memories with it.
1 comment:
What a beauty, and almost the same color as my 03 K12RS. Hope to ride with you sometime. I hang out over on bmwst.com.
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