New R18 Transcontinental

[Rich]

My wife and I were walking around the Sturgis rally today and happened upon BMW's display of the R18's in their various states of dress. From bare bones to full dressed tourers, they were drawing a nice share of people coming by to take a look and ask questions of the folks running the display. When I asked about pricing, the dressed out unit in black is around $26,000, plus whatever a dealer tacks on.

The bikes looks sharp! With a weight of 974# for the full dressed bike, it is way too much bike for me to handle, but if you are wrestling a heavyweight Harley Davidson or Honda Goldwing around these will fit the bill as a replacement. They look cool, they sound cool, and they will be coming to dealers near you in September.

[mikefmoto]

My wife and I were walking around the Sturgis rally today and happened upon BMW's display of the R18's in their various states of dress. From bare bones to full dressed tourers, they were drawing a nice share of people coming by to take a look and ask questions of the folks running the display. When I asked about pricing, the dressed out unit in black is around $26,000, plus whatever a dealer tacks on.

The bikes looks sharp! With a weight of 974# for the full dressed bike, it is way too much bike for me to handle, but if you are wrestling a heavyweight Harley Davidson or Honda Goldwing around these will fit the bill as a replacement. They look cool, they sound cool, and they will be coming to dealers near you in September.

I have a HD Road Glide Limited (fully dressed version). I have been waiting for the Transcontinental. Unfortunately, the TC is 9inches longer, wheelbase is 4inches longer and it's heavier. Plus the HD doesn't require valve checks and the fairing is frame mounted.

I would be concerned about low speed tight handling, which HD has perfected.

So, I'm a bit disappointed with the BMW offering, I was really excited since I am a BMW guy, having other BMWs in my stable.

I look forward to seeing it in person.


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[PGlaves]

I have a HD Road Glide Limited (fully dressed version). I have been waiting for the Transcontinental. Unfortunately, the TC is 9inches longer, wheelbase is 4inches longer and it's heavier. Plus the HD doesn't require valve checks and the fairing is frame mounted.

I would be concerned about low speed tight handling, which HD has perfected.

So, I'm a bit disappointed with the BMW offering, I was really excited since I am a BMW guy, having other BMWs in my stable.

I look forward to seeing it in person.


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I think I would ride it before being too sure how it will handle.

[ponch1]

I have a HD Road Glide Limited (fully dressed version). I have been waiting for the Transcontinental. Unfortunately, the TC is 9inches longer, wheelbase is 4inches longer and it's heavier. Plus the HD doesn't require valve checks and the fairing is frame mounted.

I would be concerned about low speed tight handling, which HD has perfected.

So, I'm a bit disappointed with the BMW offering, I was really excited since I am a BMW guy, having other BMWs in my stable.

I look forward to seeing it in person.


Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

BMW changed the triple clamps to be like HDs, the fork tubes are behind the steering stem. it's not like the first R18s. It also has more suspension travel out back. Yes the wheel base is 2.7" longer, but the weight isn't much different. the RG Limited is 932 and the BMW is 941.

[sntkirkham]

The bikes looks sharp! With a weight of 974# for the full dressed bike, it is way too much bike for me to handle, but if you are wrestling a heavyweight Harley Davidson or Honda Goldwing around these will fit the bill as a replacement. They look cool, they sound cool, and they will be coming to dealers near you in September.

Surprisingly it handles better than you think. I went from a K1600GT to the transcontinental. The TC is lighter feeling than the GT even thought the TC is 200lbs heavier.

[ponch1]

Surprisingly it handles better than you think. I went from a K1600GT to the transcontinental. The TC is lighter feeling than the GT even thought the TC is 200lbs heavier.

Have you had any clutch slippage?

[Lee]

Have you had any clutch slippage?

Are there reports of clutch slippage?

[sntkirkham]

I cannot be certain, but it looks like it has foot pegs rather than floor-boards. A true bagger must have floor-boards, or so I am told. If needed I imagine Touratech will fill the void.

The Bagger comes with floorboards for rider and pegs for passenger. The Transcontinental has floorboards for both. Most of the pics that you see on the BMW website are the European models that have only pegs on the bagger.

[ponch1]

Are there reports of clutch slippage?

Yeah, in the video/article by Morgan Gales of Motorcyclist Magazine he talks about it briefly.

[sntkirkham]

Have you had any clutch slippage?

Yes. I was getting some yesterday while trying to find my way around a small town with a lot of 4 way stops. It didn't like the repeated stop and go and started to slip, but only in first gear. I also got the engine overheating once while in that constant stop and go.

[ponch1]

Yes. I was getting some yesterday while trying to find my way around a small town with a lot of 4 way stops. It didn't like the repeated stop and go and started to slip, but only in first gear. I also got the engine overheating once while in that constant stop and go.

That's concerning considering it's a dry clutch and not easily serviced.

[sntkirkham]

That's concerning considering it's a dry clutch and not easily serviced.

In the article, mentioned earlier, it say that BMW fixed this on the r18 and classic. I bet this will be fixed as well but the first batch were already made or at least mostly finished in order to ship out on time.

Another thing that might be changed in the future is the availability of the Adaptive Cruise Control(ACC). The rarity of microchips has thrown the availability of ACC in to a state of flux. The owner of the dealership told me that all of the first batch will have ACC but the future orders were likely to not have it.

[ponch1]

In the article, mentioned earlier, it say that BMW fixed this on the r18 and classic. I bet this will be fixed as well but the first batch were already made or at least mostly finished in order to ship out on time.

Another thing that might be changed in the future is the availability of the Adaptive Cruise Control(ACC). The rarity of microchips has thrown the availability of ACC in to a state of flux. The owner of the dealership told me that all of the first batch will have ACC but the future orders were likely to not have it.

It's kind of bizarre that they tune it out. The only thing I can think of is reducing power/torque. The thing is, maybe the setup should have been more stout to begin with. I mean, HDs don't do this AFAIK and they're in the same kind of power/torque range.

[senseamidmadness]

It's kind of bizarre that they tune it out. The only thing I can think of is reducing power/torque. The thing is, maybe the setup should have been more stout to begin with. I mean, HDs don't do this AFAIK and they're in the same kind of power/torque range.

Harley-Davidsons, at least the Big Twins, run multi-plate wet clutches vaguely similar to most other motorcycles. So they can take a decent amount more slipping and heat and abuse before having issues...in theory, anyway. In practice, there was a recall of 238,000 Harley-Davidsons just a few years ago for a factory clutch issue.
I think their design of having a totally separate casing and oil just for the primary chain and clutch is stupid and needlessly complicated, but that's a rant I won't get into.

I'm no automotive engineer, but I have one theory based on my limited knowledge that could be fixed without reducing power or torque on the R18.
With a big dry single-plate clutch like the R18, one cause of slipping like sntkirkham described could be poor manufacturing or material choice for the friction disc. Possibly a bad batch from a supplier or something like that. A poorly manufactured or improperly compounded friction material on the disc could have an insufficient coefficient of friction when it gets too hot, such as in a stop-and-go scenario with a very heavy bike that has a great big torquey engine. The friction material on dry clutch discs is typically sintered, just like brake pads, and if one big batch from a BMW supplier wasn't quite made right it could definitely cause slipping when hot and go away after the clutch has had a chance to cool down a bit.

If it is a manufacturing issue that ends after they've used up all the bad friction discs at the factory, then I bet we'll see either a recall or a TSB advising a warranty replacement in a year or two when enough R18 owners complain.


Unrelated, but that Transcontinental model shown in the pictures earlier in the thread is...honestly beautiful. I'm genuinely surprised at how good it looks in that purple paint option. I'd never want to own one, since I'm too small to be comfortable with huge heavy touring machines, but it is very pretty.

[ponch1]

Harley-Davidsons, at least the Big Twins, run multi-plate wet clutches vaguely similar to most other motorcycles. So they can take a decent amount more slipping and heat and abuse before having issues...in theory, anyway. In practice, there was a recall of 238,000 Harley-Davidsons just a few years ago for a factory clutch issue.
I think their design of having a totally separate casing and oil just for the primary chain and clutch is stupid and needlessly complicated, but that's a rant I won't get into.

I'm no automotive engineer, but I have one theory based on my limited knowledge that could be fixed without reducing power or torque on the R18.
With a big dry single-plate clutch like the R18, one cause of slipping like sntkirkham described could be poor manufacturing or material choice for the friction disc. Possibly a bad batch from a supplier or something like that. A poorly manufactured or improperly compounded friction material on the disc could have an insufficient coefficient of friction when it gets too hot, such as in a stop-and-go scenario with a very heavy bike that has a great big torquey engine. The friction material on dry clutch discs is typically sintered, just like brake pads, and if one big batch from a BMW supplier wasn't quite made right it could definitely cause slipping when hot and go away after the clutch has had a chance to cool down a bit.

If it is a manufacturing issue that ends after they've used up all the bad friction discs at the factory, then I bet we'll see either a recall or a TSB advising a warranty replacement in a year or two when enough R18 owners complain.


Unrelated, but that Transcontinental model shown in the pictures earlier in the thread is...honestly beautiful. I'm genuinely surprised at how good it looks in that purple paint option. I'd never want to own one, since I'm too small to be comfortable with huge heavy touring machines, but it is very pretty.

It could be bad materials, but they BMW would know that I think. Getting them to act on it is another problem altogether.