Joined
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29 Posts
Howdy all,
Well, I picked up my new-to-me 2010 R1200R this past weekend. With just a hair over 1400 miles on the clock, this beauty was barely broken in and a sweetheart of a deal! Since we had a bit of a reprieve from winter Sunday, I was able to get out for a couple hours to add a few miles (sadly just over 50 - too many chores to take care of). Anyway, I did some riding in town, a short bit on country roads, and a little longer jaunt on the highway. Thought I'd share my first impressions. Please keep in mind that up to this point, I've been a cruiser guy and my other bike is a 2011 HD Ultra Limited.
Likes:
• This thing is torquey and FAST!! Like “holy cow!” fast!! I was going thru the gears pretty quick a few times and I could feel and see the forks extend every time a made a transition to a higher gear. I think it’d be very easy to get the front wheel up – not that I’m gonna try any time soon.
0 to 60 mph (70, 80,...) happens as quick as thought. HUGE grin on my face as I type this and think back on my short ride...
• Handling is absolutely marvelous. No effort at all is required to throw it into a corner – simply dip your shoulder and you’re there. Of course, with the roads here still covered in cinders (winter is slowly departing), I wasn’t doing anything remotely aggressive – quite the contrary. Once spring is fully upon us here, I'm sure I'm just going to be blown away with how well this scoot tracks.
• Brakes – they are a bit touchy but not overly so. I expected this and was trying to be very careful modulating them. Still, I found myself being pretty heavy-handed/footed at first. Toward the end of the ride on Sunday, my braking was smoothing out though. I'll need to spend a bit of time practicing my panic stops so I know what I can get away with here.
• Riding position – much, much more comfy than I’d have imagined. I only did 50 miles; but, I was completely comfortable. No back or wrist pain and I didn’t even think about my shoulders (the reach to the bars on my Harley sometimes causes a bit of discomfort there). I am still getting used to the mid-set pegs though. I’m just glad I haven’t popped my shins on the cylinder heads yet. ;-)
Dislikes:
• The mirrors vibrate pretty bad at highway speed. This makes it hard to make out any real detail. I already found a potential “fix” in the Wunderlich mirror extenders (anyone have experience with these?) At $40 U.S. they're worth a shot I think; so, I’ll probably try that. Worst case is, I’ll swap the stock mirrors out for something better. Suggestions are welcome!
• Turn signal switches. The configuration is similar to HD. On the Harley though, the turn signal self-cancel works VERY well. On the rare occasion when you do need to cancel a signal, you just push on the switch again. On the BMW they are also *supposed* to be self-canceling (right?); but, that doesn’t work very well at all - at least on my bike. Anyway, the cancel switch on the right bar is very narrow and crammed just above the right turn signal. For the most part, I had to look down to hit it. I was also hitting the cancel switch occasionally when trying to nail the right signal. Likewise, the left signal is so close to the horn it’s easy to hit it instead of the left signal (which I did once or twice). I just think they could improve this layout a bit. There's room.
Those are really the only things I didn't “like” so far (and these are extremely minor). The mirror issue, I’ll correct, the turn signals... Meh - I’ll get used to them over time. Otherwise, the only mods I have in mind are cylinder head guards and a more functional wind screen. My R12R came with the small sport shield - which did a better job than I thought it would. Still, I can see this bike eating up a lot of miles and I’d like a bit more still air when I’m cruising on the highway. ;-)
Overall - and by far - my feeling is: This bike is absolutely AWESOME! Did I mention it was quick?! I think it’s gonna be an awful lot of fun!
Thanks for letting a newbie ramble!
--Mike
Well, I picked up my new-to-me 2010 R1200R this past weekend. With just a hair over 1400 miles on the clock, this beauty was barely broken in and a sweetheart of a deal! Since we had a bit of a reprieve from winter Sunday, I was able to get out for a couple hours to add a few miles (sadly just over 50 - too many chores to take care of). Anyway, I did some riding in town, a short bit on country roads, and a little longer jaunt on the highway. Thought I'd share my first impressions. Please keep in mind that up to this point, I've been a cruiser guy and my other bike is a 2011 HD Ultra Limited.
Likes:
• This thing is torquey and FAST!! Like “holy cow!” fast!! I was going thru the gears pretty quick a few times and I could feel and see the forks extend every time a made a transition to a higher gear. I think it’d be very easy to get the front wheel up – not that I’m gonna try any time soon.
0 to 60 mph (70, 80,...) happens as quick as thought. HUGE grin on my face as I type this and think back on my short ride... • Handling is absolutely marvelous. No effort at all is required to throw it into a corner – simply dip your shoulder and you’re there. Of course, with the roads here still covered in cinders (winter is slowly departing), I wasn’t doing anything remotely aggressive – quite the contrary. Once spring is fully upon us here, I'm sure I'm just going to be blown away with how well this scoot tracks.
• Brakes – they are a bit touchy but not overly so. I expected this and was trying to be very careful modulating them. Still, I found myself being pretty heavy-handed/footed at first. Toward the end of the ride on Sunday, my braking was smoothing out though. I'll need to spend a bit of time practicing my panic stops so I know what I can get away with here.
• Riding position – much, much more comfy than I’d have imagined. I only did 50 miles; but, I was completely comfortable. No back or wrist pain and I didn’t even think about my shoulders (the reach to the bars on my Harley sometimes causes a bit of discomfort there). I am still getting used to the mid-set pegs though. I’m just glad I haven’t popped my shins on the cylinder heads yet. ;-)
Dislikes:
• The mirrors vibrate pretty bad at highway speed. This makes it hard to make out any real detail. I already found a potential “fix” in the Wunderlich mirror extenders (anyone have experience with these?) At $40 U.S. they're worth a shot I think; so, I’ll probably try that. Worst case is, I’ll swap the stock mirrors out for something better. Suggestions are welcome!
• Turn signal switches. The configuration is similar to HD. On the Harley though, the turn signal self-cancel works VERY well. On the rare occasion when you do need to cancel a signal, you just push on the switch again. On the BMW they are also *supposed* to be self-canceling (right?); but, that doesn’t work very well at all - at least on my bike. Anyway, the cancel switch on the right bar is very narrow and crammed just above the right turn signal. For the most part, I had to look down to hit it. I was also hitting the cancel switch occasionally when trying to nail the right signal. Likewise, the left signal is so close to the horn it’s easy to hit it instead of the left signal (which I did once or twice). I just think they could improve this layout a bit. There's room.
Those are really the only things I didn't “like” so far (and these are extremely minor). The mirror issue, I’ll correct, the turn signals... Meh - I’ll get used to them over time. Otherwise, the only mods I have in mind are cylinder head guards and a more functional wind screen. My R12R came with the small sport shield - which did a better job than I thought it would. Still, I can see this bike eating up a lot of miles and I’d like a bit more still air when I’m cruising on the highway. ;-)
Overall - and by far - my feeling is: This bike is absolutely AWESOME! Did I mention it was quick?! I think it’s gonna be an awful lot of fun!
Thanks for letting a newbie ramble!
--Mike
