BMW S1000RR

Once you enter a bike in the Superbike or Supersport class, by its very nature, you have to keep up. Even if you're right at the sharp end. BMW's gadget-packed S1000RR has hardly struggled for sales since its launch. The original model's crankshaft was revised to make the engine more reliable, but other than that, it's stayed put. In last year's sales charts, its second year, the S1000RR trounced all but Honda's Fireblade. That's some going.

When it was first launched, it caught the opposition more than napping, they were in a deep sleep. I'm sure the established marques were wary but I can't imagine they were prepared to see their faithful buyers forming a queue at their local BMW dealership; a marque long associated with clichés featuring pipes, slippers and Sam Brownes.

I would have thought it would be hard to get BMW to tweak a font in their sales brochure, let alone build a Superbike. To this day, I can't imagine how hard it must have been to persuade the head honchos at BMW to back the project.

If you bought one of the original bikes, I'm keen to know what you were riding before and why you made the switch. Was it the 185bhp at the rear wheel, was it brand snobbery, was it the traction control and ABS?

I took the original bike to the Moroccan border and back in a week, 3,200 miles through all weathers. But mostly rain. What most appealed to me about the original S1000RR were the gadgets; traction control and ABS, you can keep your power modes. When it's 1-degree outside, you're being pelted with slushy rain, you're knackered and you've got 80 miles to get to the warmth of a hotel, ABS and traction control make a slog a cinch.

I'm glad BMW built the S1000RR because it's helped revitalize the class and introduce a word I think most people were afraid to mention: safety.