If you build, they will buy

[WildWilly]

Dear BMW: The only boxer motor is now a 1200. Build a smaller & lighter boxer for your seasoned riders. Something like this. (Thanks to Will for the pic)
Sincerely,
A senior citizen on a diet

[notacop]

Ah, the R650LS or the R45. I had two of the 65LS. Put 217,000 miles on one and the other was a short lived parts bike. I got a consistent 46 mpg on it and rode several 1375 miles days on it.
A friend just recently bought a relatively low mileage one for $2500.
It was a great bike.
When the 850R came out it wasn't as good as the 1100R. It had a terrible vibration throughout the range the 1100 never had.
Do you really thing folks want a smaller Boxer? Seems everything made is always desired to be bigger?

[WildWilly]

I know one person who would buy one. If they can get the weight of the R12200RT close to 600lbs, imagine what they could do with a 500. The average age of motorcyclists is skyrocketing and some of us seasoned citizens need to lose some weight.

[Maccam26]

Heck I'm only 39 but at 155lbs I prefer small nimble bikes as opposed to 800lb gorillas too


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[notacop]

Specs on the R65 say it was 456 pounds. I never weighed mine.
The 800St and my Wee Strom 650 both showed 490 pounds on the local commercial scale.
That was befor i farkled them.

[TelemarkTumalo]

I've never weighed my ST, but the owner's manual says 401 lbs dry, and 450 lbs fueled. It feels lighter than that to me. My 1200 GSA is declared as 578 lbs. fully fueled. Yep, I would agree. I've never benched 578 lbs and never plan to. Another reason to keep taking riding classes.

[notacop]

I do believe the numbers the manufactures produce are skewed to impress. Bikes weigh less and make more power then what motomag results seem to be.
Is that Fake News?
I weighed both of my bikes with the same top box on them with a full gas tank.
I weighed the Wee Stom on one of the Oregon highway weigh scales fully loaded. right at 750 pounds. I weighed 150 at the time and figured the travel load, camping gear and all the crap was 100 pounds of necessities.

[Daboo]

A little bit of a bunny trail... Sorry...sort of.

Years ago, there were several word processing programs. Microsoft Word. WordPerfect, Lotus Ami and a few others. Magazine reviewers had one criteria for which program came out as the top word processing program, and it didn't involve which program was easier to use (call it "rideability"). It was simply that they made a table listing every "feature" that each program had. The one with the most "features", came out on top. That of course, influenced sales...and now you have the defacto standard of Microsoft's Word as the sole survivor. I now have Word 2016 on my laptop. My needs for word processing were satisfied very well by Word 97 and Word 2.0. The extra "features" are never used by me.

I see the same thing in the motorcycle industry. Ratings are given often based primarily on the amount of horsepower the bike has...which drives engine size and weight. Can I get the bike to do a wheelie at 70 mph? Or more...by just rolling on the throttle? The new Kawasaki is rummored to be coming out with a super-charged engine. Do I really need 300 hp...even in a two-ton vehicle, let alone a two-wheeled vehicle that weighs an eighth of that? Oh yeah...bring it ON!!! Who cares if the speed limit is only 60 mph.

The extra features of the word processing programs remind me of the long list of things we just have to have on motorcycles to make them able to tour on. I'll pick on the BMW RT, only because BMW puts more "features" on its bikes than most manufacturers do...but the others are trying to catch up. Sort of like the battle between word processing programs. The BMW Bill has the photo of would tour across the country. Maybe not as nicely as the new bikes today, but it did okay. It was light. It had few "features", but like Word 97, it did what you wanted it to do. The "rideability" was great...and riders were passionate about motorcycling back then. Not so much now.

Do I really need "Dynamic ESA"? Ride Modes Pro? Hill Start Control? Headlight Pro? An audio system with speakers in the dash? All those things do make the bike nicer to ride...but they also increase weight and complexity. (They also increase cost and the potential for failure.)

But...if you're in the business of selling your motorcycles and getting reviewers to list your motorcycle at the top...you'd better have all the "features"...and more than the other manufacturer has. Otherwise, you'll be an also-ran like WordPerfect or Lotus Ami.


Chris

[guidoveloce]

Specs on the R65 say it was 456 pounds. I never weighed mine.
The 800St and my Wee Strom 650 both showed 490 pounds on the local commercial scale.
That was befor i farkled them.

It's not only the weight that we have to consider, the dimension can make the difference. The Guzzi V7 and the Triumph T100 weight a lot, less than 200 kg of course, but they are not really light, anyway many aged riders prefer these bikes instead of some newer (modern looking) ones because they are small, the saddle is not so high and even if their weight is considerable they are very maneuverable. A new R45/65 could be a valid alternative to these bikes.

[TelemarkTumalo]

....But...if you're in the business of selling your motorcycles and getting reviewers to list your motorcycle at the top...you'd better have all the "features"...and more than the other manufacturer has. ....Chris

I had a nice conversation with Rainer Helmke at BMW in Portland. He said that they order almost all of their new bikes with all of the bells and whistles, because the base models sit on the showroom floor, as customers come in and order around those to get a fully optioned bike. I have to admit that I love electronic cruise control, and the "wonder wheel" on my 1200 GSA is a fantastic feature for controlling lights and the GPS. Having loaded my bike to the gills on a few cross country trips, that hill start feature sounds like a good idea too!

[WildWilly]

I too love cruise and a push button windshield. I wonder how many who scoff at the frills still have only a landline phone.

[guidoveloce]

I like to play with all electronic devices that you can find on a bike or on a car... it's the best way to distract from the driving.

[Richard230]

I too love cruise and a push button windshield. I wonder how many who scoff at the frills still have only a landline phone.

Me. I also read the newspaper, instead of the internet, to get my daily news information.

[WildWilly]

Damn technology always lets me down.

[steve n rose]

Maybe some car makers are starting to see sense. There's a few new cars on the market now that have gone back to knobs for the Stereo and the HVAC.

Have they finally worked out that it's not so intuitive to work regularly used things from a touch pad in the centre of the dash and you have to take your eyes off the road?

[AutoXer-1]

It's not only the weight that we have to consider, the dimension can make the difference. The Guzzi V7 and the Triumph T100 weight a lot, less than 200 kg of course, but they are not really light, anyway many aged riders prefer these bikes instead of some newer (modern looking) ones because they are small, the saddle is not so high and even if their weight is considerable they are very maneuverable. A new R45/65 could be a valid alternative to these bikes.

I definitely agree that dimension make a big difference. As the owner of a 472-pound (wet) F800GT and a 496-pound Triumph Bonneville I assure you to me the Bonnie feels just as light and maneuverable as the BMW. I flat fit it better, and she and I work really well together. Yes, the BMW does things I need (comfortably carry two-up with hard luggage for touring - that's why I own it) and has lots of fancy technology (the Triumph doesn't have ABS or even a tach), but if I didn't need those two-up touring things I'd only have one bike ... and it isn't the BMW.