I've just been out in the pouring rain and 2.5 C, 2 up on the new BMW 1200. The following are my observations comparing it to my 1200 Sport T. I'm 6ft 2 and couldn't put both feet flat on the floor as I can on the Mutley, which surprised me. All suspension was set up for rider plus pillion. (I can with Ohlins set for 2 up on mine). I did notice how narrow the BMW seat was which can be tilted fore and aft as well as up/down a bit. Pillion seat has 2 lateral positions. The controls are much lighter than the Mutley with the throttle very very smooth; gearbox a joy as well. No hunting for neutral at the lights. The dash I found a tad confusing as it's a mix of steam dials and lcd. Therefore the speedo is not easy to read due to it's compromised small size, the numbers (mph) are too close together to read at a quick glance - more so with rain drops all over them. Again, the Mutleys is much clearer. As for the ride; over very bumpy roads at 30/40 mph the ride is very good as I'd hoped. No different to my bike. The same ride quality continued upto 70 mph. Slipper clutch ditto. Power modes no more or less than mine given a 20 or so h.p. gap. Comfort for both of us was the same as the Mut. My only niggles were the dash too cluttered to read and no inner fairing cubby hole for change/gum/credit card. Still love my Mut but was interesting to see/note what the Germans have done!
One other thing that was worse on the BMW was the heated grips. Highest setting on the BMW felt cooler than level 2 on the Mutley! Plus the silly little icon on the BMW dash was too small to see clearly to let you know what setting the h/grips were at. Having just come back from Luton today I'm glad the Mutleys grips are toasty.
Could have been curious about the new GS1200 but as the've stuck with the ancient analogue speedo and also after reading BIKE magazine's road test I,ve no interest in it!!
The display screen is programmable to put all sorts of items from the menu on display e.g. If you want RANGE (Miles To Empty) and SPEED ( as numbers) you can set it up to show that as normal and scroll thru' for anything else you might want to take a quick look at. If you're referring to the Bike mag. crash, you wont take my word for it I know but on test of the new GS I deliberately tried to get into trouble by aiming at all sorts of pot holes/ruts/other road and track debris and there is no hint of anything other than it being a very stable and advanced piece of kit. BMW have, however carried out a mod to the top of the front suspension units on all production machines and also modified their software to ensure that the extreme off road enduro settings completely changed back to the road based settings when they were selected which would have been bleeding dangerous if they hadn't. To select the full on Enduro settings you have to insert a special coded plug into the system to get them and you are warned that this is really for those who are expert/professional standard off road riders and is not for use on the road and gets the bike into territory the Multi should never get (if the rider has any sense) since it is primarily road biased. Whether any of this was as a result of the Bike crash I don't know but at least it shows BMW reacting to known faults prior to bikes getting on sale. As bikes get more complex electronically it is increasingly possible for riders to get caught out by not being in the ride mode they thought they were compared to the days when bikes had no possibility of push button changes to the way the bike reacts to rider input, but hey, give me the choice any day. I love all this technology but not everyone does. Ducati, as you know, had many faults on the bike launched and delivered to the public and didn't cover themselves with roses by ignoring most of them. I know a very experienced dealer who recently crashed at a Japanese dealer launch test and broke his leg but there has been nothing in the press about it. Maybe it's a case of expecting better from German machinery. I'm a Ducati and BMW fan and try to take an objective view on comparisons of the 2 bikes and will say the Multi is a credit to Ducati but let's not diss another bike which is at least as good by getting too blinkered.
