Insuring New Vehicle

[st13phil]

With the VFR you can feel the front end (I come from a diet of sports bikes) With the BMW you just have faith in the front end.

I know what you mean about the relative "feel" of the duolever and telelever front ends: they feel quite remote until you get used to what they're telling you, because they feel so alien. I must confess that from an engineering point of view they are more elegant than regular tele-forks, with the major advantage that they (largely) isolate the suspension and steering forces, so inherently they should be better. When I first tried telelever - 25+ years ago, on an original oil-head R1100RS - I found it quite unnerving until I managed to reprogram my senses. Once I'd done that I found I could push much harder and with more confidence on surfaces that were less than ideal, and when you see the confidence that people are used to riding with it have, you realise that it actually works much better than your initial, years of "normal forks", riding experience suggests.

My Norfolk riding buddy (Mr Brundle) has never found a bike he prefers more than the 1600GT for his national and pan European solo trips and I can certainly see why

Mr B is obviously a very discerning motorcyclist

 

[Mactech]

I know what you mean about the relative "feel" of the duolever and telelever front ends: they feel quite remote until you get used to what they're telling you, because they feel so alien. I must confess that from an engineering point of view they are more elegant than regular tele-forks, with the major advantage that they (largely) isolate the suspension and steering forces, so inherently they should be better. When I first tried telelever - 25+ years ago, on an original oil-head R1100RS - I found it quite unnerving until I managed to reprogram my senses. Once I'd done that I found I could push much harder and with more confidence on surfaces that were less than ideal, and when you see the confidence that people are used to riding with it have, you realise that it actually works much better than your initial, years of "normal forks", riding experience suggests.Mr B is obviously a very discerning motorcyclist

Yes, I agree. Forks are not an elegant solution to the engineering problem, but because I'm 50 years in to riding them and only a couple of hours on a Telelever they still feel alien to me. It's a bit like a 911....just wrong to start with but with 50 years of development can still be made to do the business.
I remember developing some linear bearing struts for Supertouring cars back in the 90's after we measured that 60% of the bump damping was coming from friction in the McPherson struts when the cars were pulling a modest 2.2G around Church at Thruxton. Far from ideal!
I'm sure you will enjoy the new bike

 

[Deletedmember130310]

I loved the ESA on my BMW K1300s - a fantastic bike but hideously expensive to maintain....I could almost ride it as an automatic, or rather stick in 5th or 6th gear all day. The slightest twist of the throttle and it was off. On more than one occasion I was grateful for the traction control. Luggage capacity, with a tank bag, side panniers and a tail pack wasn't much less than my R172 with the roof down; the only downside was SWMBO didn't enjoy long rides.

 

[st13phil]

Well, I've done around 250 miles on it so far and it's epic

Nice weather this weekend too, so more miles coming up

 

[Deletedmember130310]

Wow, now I have stop looking at it.
No, I can’t.
Fantastic piece of kit.

No problems with the riding position giving you cramp or stiff knees?

 

[st13phil]

No problems with the riding position giving you cramp or stiff knees?

Nope. We spent around 4hrs on it last Saturday afternoon and were both fine.

When we did the test ride on one last year I thought the riding position (bars, seat, pegs) was almost identical to my 1300 Pan-European and we could spend all day on that, so I was pretty sure this one would be ok