The years and miles have piled up on our 2008 BMW K1200GT (and me too!), time to upgrade the venerable ’08 K bike with another K bike - a 2019 BMW K1600GT Sport to be exact! Our ‘08KGT was our bike of choice for long, overnight rides, and after our first week with the new K16GTS, it’s obvious this is going to be one sweet long haul bike. She’s got plenty storage, lots of room and tons of grunt to haul the two of us around with all our stuff tucked away.
Wanda liked the GT Sport with its Black Storm Metalic/Glacier Silver Metallic Sport paint job the minute she saw her at Iron Horse’s Open House in early December 2018. She liked her so well we bought her the next month. We had plans to pick her up on the 2nd of January but a snow storm of epic proportions (hey, for us it was epic) kept us inside and later had us shoveling snow off the front driveway. Wow! A true snow day. Finally on the 4th of January, after a couple of days of good weather, we rode up to Iron Horse on the ’08 KGT to pick up our new Beemer.
The weather on the 4th was promised to be good and per the weather predictors it was to be good for the next three days. The plan was to pick up the new bike on the 4th and ride her home. Then leave for Gila Bend on the 8th with a ride-about back to Tucson on the 9th to have the initial 600 mile service on the morning of the 10th. Everything went as planned…except the rain that came on the 9th. The north side of Tucson got quite the rain, even flooded two of the rooms at the Best Western where we spent the night. The ride-about went well, even with the rain, and the 600 mile service was a few bucks less than we planned. All was good with the new bike. We nicknamed her “BB” - she’s Big and Beautiful.
Riding impressions: First off this is a big motorcycle. I can feel the extra weight from our past KGT, the K16 is about 100 pounds more. Even so she is quite nimble when moving. I’m not a racer or a peg scraper, though I think someone with a bit more nerve could definitely keep up with some of the faster guys. There’s lots of usable power right off idle. I find I’m riding around at 2,500 in 6th, easily accelerating up to passing speeds when needed. I may be wrong, but I think first and second gear will pull so hard the traction control just might intervene.
The ergos are almost identical to the ’08 GT. The reach of the handle bars and pegs fits me at 6 feet tall with a 32 inch inseam and about 185 pounds. Wanda has plenty of room between us and her peg reach suits her just as well. We both have no problem getting on or off, and putting the bike up on the center stand is WAY easier than the ’08 K12GT - WAY easier. In the future I may replace the spongy foot pegs though. My boots seem to squirm around on them more than I like. There are OEM “H” pegs I’ll look into.
The shift-assist Pro works well, maybe just a tad better than our 2016 R1200RS LC. The shifts between 1st and 2nd are about the same…abrupt if you’re not really on it. So far we have stayed in Road mode. I do plan to put her in Dynamic mode to see the difference (Right!) but when in the Dynamic throttle mode the computer also puts the shocks into Dynamic mode. The Dynamic shock mode on the ’16 R12RS almost jarred a couple of my teeth out. Any bump was too big. We’ll see how the K16 does it.
The side bags are big and with the partially formed BMW bag liners will hold plenty of stuff. The tank bag will hold all our standard stuff, but the map case, or whatever BMW calls it, won’t hold a map of any size. I may get over not having a full map view on the top of the tank bag thanks to the Navigator VI mounted on the dash! Then there’s the seat…we made our Russell Day-Long Saddle appointment as soon as we could…enough said.
This is our first bike with a GPS and an aerial…and with active lights, and reverse, and remote locking cases, etc., etc. And then there’s the “Magic Wheel” with a plethora of options and menus. Almost too much to look at, it’ll take some time to know how to find this and that. My first attempt to reset Trip 1 went sideways…it should have gone right sideways, not left sideways.
Gas mileage has been in the high 30s for an average of about 38 over the first 800 miles. With a 7 gallon tank even at 35 mpg we’ll go farther on a single tank than we did on our past K12GT. Several of our standard gas stops when heading out of town will change as we learn just how far we can go on a tank full. We monitor fuel mileage and the bike’s calculated miles per gallon were very close to the actual calculated mpg. The Nav VI though showed about 2 to 3 miles per hour less than the speedometer. That seems about the norm on all our bikes.
Our first long multiday ride will be to Laughlin, NV for the SEAT (BMW MOA Chartered Club 213) ride through Death Valley in January. We will do a nice loop around Arizona’s west coast and some of California’s east coast on our way there and back. Looking forward to bonding with our new Beemer!
Wanda liked the GT Sport with its Black Storm Metalic/Glacier Silver Metallic Sport paint job the minute she saw her at Iron Horse’s Open House in early December 2018. She liked her so well we bought her the next month. We had plans to pick her up on the 2nd of January but a snow storm of epic proportions (hey, for us it was epic) kept us inside and later had us shoveling snow off the front driveway. Wow! A true snow day. Finally on the 4th of January, after a couple of days of good weather, we rode up to Iron Horse on the ’08 KGT to pick up our new Beemer.
The weather on the 4th was promised to be good and per the weather predictors it was to be good for the next three days. The plan was to pick up the new bike on the 4th and ride her home. Then leave for Gila Bend on the 8th with a ride-about back to Tucson on the 9th to have the initial 600 mile service on the morning of the 10th. Everything went as planned…except the rain that came on the 9th. The north side of Tucson got quite the rain, even flooded two of the rooms at the Best Western where we spent the night. The ride-about went well, even with the rain, and the 600 mile service was a few bucks less than we planned. All was good with the new bike. We nicknamed her “BB” - she’s Big and Beautiful.
Riding impressions: First off this is a big motorcycle. I can feel the extra weight from our past KGT, the K16 is about 100 pounds more. Even so she is quite nimble when moving. I’m not a racer or a peg scraper, though I think someone with a bit more nerve could definitely keep up with some of the faster guys. There’s lots of usable power right off idle. I find I’m riding around at 2,500 in 6th, easily accelerating up to passing speeds when needed. I may be wrong, but I think first and second gear will pull so hard the traction control just might intervene.
The ergos are almost identical to the ’08 GT. The reach of the handle bars and pegs fits me at 6 feet tall with a 32 inch inseam and about 185 pounds. Wanda has plenty of room between us and her peg reach suits her just as well. We both have no problem getting on or off, and putting the bike up on the center stand is WAY easier than the ’08 K12GT - WAY easier. In the future I may replace the spongy foot pegs though. My boots seem to squirm around on them more than I like. There are OEM “H” pegs I’ll look into.
The shift-assist Pro works well, maybe just a tad better than our 2016 R1200RS LC. The shifts between 1st and 2nd are about the same…abrupt if you’re not really on it. So far we have stayed in Road mode. I do plan to put her in Dynamic mode to see the difference (Right!) but when in the Dynamic throttle mode the computer also puts the shocks into Dynamic mode. The Dynamic shock mode on the ’16 R12RS almost jarred a couple of my teeth out. Any bump was too big. We’ll see how the K16 does it.
The side bags are big and with the partially formed BMW bag liners will hold plenty of stuff. The tank bag will hold all our standard stuff, but the map case, or whatever BMW calls it, won’t hold a map of any size. I may get over not having a full map view on the top of the tank bag thanks to the Navigator VI mounted on the dash! Then there’s the seat…we made our Russell Day-Long Saddle appointment as soon as we could…enough said.
This is our first bike with a GPS and an aerial…and with active lights, and reverse, and remote locking cases, etc., etc. And then there’s the “Magic Wheel” with a plethora of options and menus. Almost too much to look at, it’ll take some time to know how to find this and that. My first attempt to reset Trip 1 went sideways…it should have gone right sideways, not left sideways.
Gas mileage has been in the high 30s for an average of about 38 over the first 800 miles. With a 7 gallon tank even at 35 mpg we’ll go farther on a single tank than we did on our past K12GT. Several of our standard gas stops when heading out of town will change as we learn just how far we can go on a tank full. We monitor fuel mileage and the bike’s calculated miles per gallon were very close to the actual calculated mpg. The Nav VI though showed about 2 to 3 miles per hour less than the speedometer. That seems about the norm on all our bikes.
Our first long multiday ride will be to Laughlin, NV for the SEAT (BMW MOA Chartered Club 213) ride through Death Valley in January. We will do a nice loop around Arizona’s west coast and some of California’s east coast on our way there and back. Looking forward to bonding with our new Beemer!