"newton" (newton)
03/17/2015 at 10:00 • Filed to: RENNWelt museum collection
2
2|
"newton" (newton)
03/17/2015 at 10:00 • Filed to: RENNWelt museum collection | 2
| 2 |
[This post is a part of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! series.]
Outside of enthusiasts and history buffs, few may know BMW built motorcycles before they built cars. Despite their success in cars, BMW has built some of the best and most technologically revolutionary motorcycles in the industry. Present-day BMW motorcycles are built under their brand Motorrad and all of them roll off the assembly line in Berlin.
cornerslide
> newton
03/17/2015 at 10:49 |
|
Great post. Thanks. Quite a trasition for BMW. They've gone from upper echelon eccentric to revolutionizing the "mainstream". All the while holding onto design elements no other company would go near.
BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast.
> newton
03/17/2015 at 11:27 |
|
Amazing photographs. Thank you for posting.
As a BMW motorcycle fan, I like these bikes... although I can't say I like the trend that S1000RR has started.
BMW successfully built a very similar bike to Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Honda. 1000cc Inline-4, telescopic forks, chain drive, all the usual traits. And they BEAT that competition.
Unfortunately, I think they may be becoming victims of their own success.
Since S1000RR, new bikes have been getting less unique. R-NineT lost the Telelever front suspension that R-bikes have had since the oil-head engines replaced the air-head engines.
Now, the new water-cooled boxer R-bikes have lost the innovative front suspensions, also. R1200GS, R1200R, and R1200RS water-cooled bikes all have standard telescopic forks, not tele lever, and certainly not a revision of Duolever, that BMW waited for Norman Hossack's patent to expire, before they used on the K-series bikes.
They should give Hossack credit for the design premise, and utilize the next generation of that design across their lineup.
If I wanted a bike with compromised telescopic forks... EVERY other brand offers that. BMW used to be all about the BEST, no compromise engineering. Not following the crowd and doing something because it is more affordable due to traditional use. Parallelogram double-jointed, low-maintenance shaft-drive (yet to implement CV joints, though...) air/oil cooled engines with cylinder heads in the airflow, and horizontally opposed for balance and inertia cancellation, and innovative front suspension designs.
They have been innovating since 1923... I hope they aren't just caving to industry-wide tradition on things like front suspension design, and deference to I4 engines and ubiquitous chain drive.