Buell XB12Ss vs. BMW K1200R

I had an interesting opportunity today, thanks to the great folks over at the Manhattan BMW dealership. They were kind enough to let me test ride one of their BMW K1200R naked bikes. Of course I rode over my trusty Buell XB12Ss, and thus began my in-depth side-by-side comparison of the two machines.

Now just to set the record straight before I start - I'm biased, I really like my Buell, and it would take a real masterpiece to uproot my opinion of my bike (I'm sure it will happen eventually though). But at the same time, back when I was shopping for bikes, the K12R was the top competition, and I truly felt that I was going to buy one.


First impressions of the BMW K1200R
The bike is big. It's certainly a lot longer than the Buell, but not necessarily any wider. The handlebars seem perhaps a bit bigger, and the grips are definitely a lot skinnier/slimmer on the BMW. The bike is also downright ugly, but I like my bikes that way... after all, the Buell is a love-it or hate-it kind of look. So too the K12R. Now this is where the magazine editors usually go on for paragraphs about how the bike looks, yadda yadda but I'm a real person and I just care about how the bike *rides*.

Engine revving
The K12R engine, when revved, sounds a lot like a high pitched bumble bee. It's not unlike a lot of inline 4 engines from the Japanese, but the engine never really reaches the high-pitched whining we all know and hate in a Japanese liter bike. Now from the start, the engine revs say a lot to me about the nature of the bike. This bike is not going to get you heard in New York City. In fact, despite my craziest attempts to rev the enginge on the K12R, I could never get it loud enough to make the casual passerby glance over. That's a lie. When the engine was almost red lining, it made this nasty garbling sound, and someone looked to make sure I wasn't going to explode. This is a huge downside for me, since I count on my Buell's loud engine to act as an immediate on-command horn to disperse would-be jaywalkers, and to announce my presence to straying cabbies.

Off the line and low speed riding
Buell officially has me spoiled with it's torque. I don't care how many horsepower more the BMW has than my Buell - the fact is plain and simple: the BMW is a weaker bike (the K12R has something like 160hp while the Buell has around 100hp). This is odd, since BMW markets the heck out of the K12R, stating it as the world's most powerful naked bike. From a numbers perspective, that may be true - but here's my problem with it: for day to day riding around the city - or anything besides a race track - the BMW doesn't really come into it's own until you're racing the engine up in the 8000-10000 rpms. This is simply unrealistic to expect for every single street light and stop sign in Manhattan. There's no way I'm going to sit there revving the engine for a constant 9000 rpms until the light turns green. Furthermore, it's unrealistic to think I'm going to spend all day riding in 1st gear. Imagine this: you're riding along in 1st gear at 40 mph and a cab starts to cut you off. You squeeze the clutch and hit the front brakes. The cab changes its mind and veres away again, but there's a grocery truck bearing down your tail. What do you do? Now you have to rev the engine back to 8000-10000 rpms, ease the clutch back out and pray you've got the right rpms for 1st or 2nd gear. Otherwise, you'll be jerking all over the place - not too safe. That's my gripe with the K12R's power - it's located up on the upper rev registers so high it's nearly impractical for all but straight line and constant speeds of 80-100mph. Off the line, the K12R is sluggish like most other bikes - a symptom of its low torque line/curve and rather heavy weight no doubt. I had a chance to test myself on a number of stoplights, with the same effect each time. Starting from idle was a slow, painful start, while revving first-then easing out the clutch resulted in a jerky, uncontrollable jolt. All in all, not impressed with the low-rev power.

Cruising speeds
Cruising in the city is technically limited to something like 30mph, but I've found that to keep out of trouble and remain in control, you tend to oscillate speeds somewhere between 25 and 45 with bursts that bring you up to around 55mph. This is precisely where the Buell's engine is optimized around 2nd gear for real gut-wrenching emergency-room type acceleration and 3rd gear for average-soul riding. And it's precisely where the BMW is just blah. Here, the BMW rides much like almost every other bike I've ridden - Ducati Monster to Speed Triple to Honda CBR: there's nothing spectacular going on. When you hammer the throttle, you tend to get a relatively whimperish response until the rpms climb into the high register sweet zone (notice a theme here?). This means that for average city riding, you're riding crippled. When an emergency comes, you're dealing with eye-to-mind-to-hand reaction time plus engine reaction time as it coils up to its power zone. I've never experienced this on my Buell. On the XB12, when I twist the throttle at crusing speeds, there's immediate power. In fact, the entire engine is there behind me, in it's sweet spot / power band /whatever you want to call it. The Buell feels like a serious power tool.

High speeds
What high speeds? This is New York City. Ok, so the BMW dealership let me take the BMW out onto the West side highway from the 50's to the 92nd street exit. I finally got to experience the BMW's engine as it was built... somewhere around 4th gear or 5th gear and 80mph. There, it felt a bit more powerful. In practical terms, I felt it was directly comparable to the power band of the Buell at the same speed. In fact, I couldn't tell the difference, except that at that speed the XB12 would be blowing out my ears and letting cars around me know to move away. The BMW was silent as death, and I felt like I snuck up on drivers - again not too safe. But really, no complaints here at these speeds. I have to say that I felt conflicted: it was like the engine was just starting warm up, yet it was screaming and dare I say a bit hesitant to climb higher. I definitely wasn't willing to go faster, since hitting a pothole on 9A would be a guarenteed wipe out, and yet I didn't feel comfortable going faster since the engine felt a little reluctant. Again, I'm used to a very forgiving and responsive Buell V-twin.

Handling / steering
Miserable miserable miserable. I had read a lot about this, so let me just clear it up: it's all true. I'm not going to blame the long wheel base like most people. There's something more - maybe it's the vertical center of balance being still too high or too far behind the driver. For some reason, the bike's "center/middle" feels like it's about two feet behind you. When you turn, it's like turning a pick pick-up truck into a parking spot - you need to be aware of the truck bed behind you and make sure you don't clip the cars parked next to you. To be fair, this is something that can be learned and adapted to, but when I ride the XB12, the center is directly underneath me, and so I steer the bike, and move myself, with one flowing motion - I literally (cheesy, I know) feel "one" with the Buell - and it all has something to do with the center of gravity / length / wheel based / turning radius / je ne sais qua. I guess the practical translation of my observations here really is that lane splitting is impossible with the K12R. I tried it several times, but found myself pulling back and stopping, because I was uncomfortable with the rate at which I could turn to avoid a stray car, opening door, or narrowing channel between a bus and neighboring cars.

Braking
This category should come first, since it's almost more important than acceleration in many instances. Most people would agree. Most people would also never complain about the K12R's brakes - but then they haven't ridden the XB12's massive front brake. Here, the two bikes are probably most similar - both brakes can be controlled comfortably with one finger, leaving the other 4 to manipulate the throttle for more advanced clutch-throttle-brake interactions. Yet somehow, on every BMW I've ever ridden, the brakes always grab too hard initially. There's a huge difference in my opinion between strong brakes and grabbing brakes. Strong brakes reliably apply an increasing amount of stopping power to the wheel with constant increments of pressure (the Buell has these). Gripping brakes, on the other hand, are strong very early in the squeeze, and then only slowly apply more pressure beyond the initial surge (the K12R has these). In practical Manhattan terms, this means you're more likely on the K12R to slow down faster than the cab in back of you. On the Buell, deceleration is an art; a balancing act between you and the cab in front of you and the bus in back of you.


Nit picks
I know a lot of bikes do this, but it's a thing about the BMW that annoyed me the instant I got on - the control dashboard and dials are stationary / attached to the body of the bike. On the Buell, the dashboard is connected to the front fork, so that when you turn the front wheel, the dashboard turns as well. This works great for navigating traffic at slow speeds (where you anti-counter steer, or steer normally), since you turn your head in the direction of the turn, and can easily look down. On the K12R, I found myself glancing into a turn, wanting to confirm my revs and speed, and having to cock my head back to a now artificial center line. Though minor, this feature on the Buell is one less thing to do, and more time focused on the road.

I didn't experience this directly, but I know since I researched extensively before buying my bike: the BMW electrical system is *not* user friendly whatsoever. This means that the life-saving rear brake LED flashers I've installed on my Buell would be impossible on the K12R (because of something about the finnickiness of the BMW's resistance-sensing system - if it detects above average resistance on the circuitry, it shuts down or fails to start). I would never, and will never ride a motorcycle for extended periods of time through NYC without additional LED bar flashers connected to the brake light circuit. I've been told on many occassions (by friendly cabbies) that these lights on my XB12 are the only thing that prevented a rear end collision.

Finally, those handlebars I mentioned earlier definitely start to irritate me - I know the theory likely has something to do with the finessed touch and controls, but trust me when I say nothing about the K12R handling have anything to do with finesse. By comparison, the stocky grips on the Buell are legitimate, and hard to miss. I've never slipped grip ever on the Buell, and yet because of my large hands, I found myself over gripping the BMW constantly.