BMW Bikes

BMW wants us to know their new R1200S is very much a sports bike. But by whose reckoning? Theirs or ours? Sporting all-sorts go to the Alps to find out. And not a race track in sight...

There's more to motorcycling than sports bikes, but here in the UK the sales charts of new machines
continue to be topped by sports-focused tools. Everyone's got one, from Aprilia to Yamaha and, for the most part, they sell bucket loads. Sports bikes have another use too: people race them, and success on the track is intrinsic to sales of that particular firm's models - not just the ones seen winning races on the telly.
Except most of us don't ride on race tracks most of the time, and while many of us may buy sports bikes to live out fantasies of Rossi-esque superstardom on sunny Sunday mornings before lunch, the reality is we actually want our sports bikes to be much more than one-trick wonders.
A bit of practicality here and some usability there goes a long way. What we're looking for is a, er, 'real world' sports bike, if such a thing exists. So here's BMW's new R1200S. Launched earlier this year, on road and track, to an, 'It's a sports bike!' fanfare, the 1200S is the long awaited replacement for the R1100S. In line with the revamp dished out to the R1200GS and RT, the S gets the lighter, punchier, 1170cc Boxer motor, a 13-kilo loss in weight and nearly funky new styling to go with the £8955 price tag for the basic bike.
But once again BMW is choosing to carve its own niche; the R1200S is a sports bike within the context of BMW's penchant for doing things its own way. Wander over to the firm's website and you'll find them stamping their feet, proclaiming, 'Sport, sport, sport!'. 'Yeah, right,' scoffs the Fireblade/GSX-R/R1/
ZX-10R massive, 'course it is...' But look closer and you'll see where BMW is coming from: 'Sporty like no other flat twin before it... ', 'Moving in the direction of sporty riding... '. A candidate for racing success the R1200S may not be, but as far as BMW's range of Boxer twins go, this is very much a sports bike.
Had we been of the mind we could, cynically and irrelevantly, have rocked up at a racetrack with an R1200S, a Blade, an R1 and the rest, had Mackenzie wazz round for a few laps on each, then laughed and pointed at the BMW. Too easy, too obvious and missing the point entirely.
Instead