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BMW's Too top heavy for older riders?

lupinblue said:
...If I could stand going back to a dirty old chain drive...
Click to expand...

I have an aversion to dirty old chains myself having been spoiled by the elegant, simple, clean, zero-maintenance, power-transfer efficient, quiet & lightweight BELT DRIVE on my former F800GT. Ask a hundred F800GT/ST owners what role the belt drive played in their purchase decision and I think you will find it's a significant factor:

55703.jpg

When I looked at the working 3D model of the inner workings of a BMW shaft drive as on my wethead at a local shop I was struck by just how clunky, heavy, complex etc the thing is by comparison. My dreamcycle is the BMW T1000GT which of course will have belt drive!
 
I have been to 110 mph that is FAST enough! Once on one of the first goldwing, 1973 or 74. The second time on a 04 R1150R, 2006.
 
I ran my '05 FJR to an indicated 140mph once...

...ONCE!

It was fun but I've since learned that I am not, in fact, immortal and thus I adopted safer riding practices. 8-D
 
Took the 07 1200GT to 135mph once, several more times at 115-120 [ rather tame ]. The GT at 135 was only using 75-77% to red line and had lots of throttle left. It was listed at 150mph top end, and it had every bit of that left in throttle in 2019 with 23K on the motor. I was chasing a Ducati at the time who'd gone by me like I was standing still doing 75mph.

The 2012 r1200GS has seen 110 fully loaded with 95#'s of gear. IIRC, that was around 2K less than red line.
 
To give you a different perspective of your speed convert into feet per second. The actual figure is 1.46 fps per mph, but to make it easier to calculate on the fly best to round it up to 1.5 which is 1 and 1/2 times your indicated speed. So 80 mph become 120 fps and at the 160 we are talking about is 240 fps.
 
I Have a Yamaha R1 that has seen 160 MPH a couple times, verified with a GPS, still had 6th gear to go. My Harley baggers didn't stay stock very long, I can't stand that wimpy stock v-twin, and have had all of them to 125 MPH, or a bit more. My 2005 Harley would go into a weave/wobble at 105 MPH but I would ride through it and it would come out of it by 110. Ry RT has seen 120 a couple times.
 
junkjohn said:
This has gone from to top heavy to who can go the fastest.
Click to expand...

Makes sense really. I recall reading something long ago about the effective weight of a Sportster that is doing 60 MPH is somewhere around ten pounds. I'm sure I have the numbers wrong, but point is that if you think your bike is too heavy then you need to go faster. Applying this to moving a K1600 around a garage may be difficult.
 
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