Boog
Traveling Story Teller
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2013
- Messages
- 8,501
- Location
- Dumfries, Virginia
- Ride
- 2014 R3T, RAMAIR, Full Viking Dual exhaust
Brahma needed to go in for a constant high idle check. He has had this since early winter and after the 30K mile check in January, I thought it had been corrected but nope. Anyway, MOD gave me a 2014 R1220RT as my loner.
The motor-mags have this bike as the best Touring Bike for 2014 and 2015 even though it is not classified as a touring specific bike. I have one gripe that says they are wrong; any bike classified as a touring bike has to be comfortable for 10-12 hours days in my book and this one won’t quite make that I’m afraid. But I will say it is one hell of a dang good commuter.
For starters, I picked it up on a cold day. The heated grips are far better than the ones I tried on the 2008 R1200GS I rode in January. And the heated seat AWESOME! This bike has satellite radio and I can hear it at freeway speeds even with my full-face helmet. The dash board is easy to navigate once you get the hang of it and it has cruise control. The brakes are Brembo and seem pretty darn good. It has decent power and shifting hard into second will lift the front tire pretty effortlessly.
The bags are all big enough to hold my full face helmet and are auto locked and unlocked by both a button on the grips and a key fob.
Sensors tell you the tire pressure and the ambient temperature and more thing than a guy like me care to know about. But switching suspension firmness on the fly is pretty cool. I like keeping it hard myself. And the ride modes are cool too but I keep this one in Road.
Now about that riding whining I started with; The bike tilts me forward just enough that my weight is on my hands. Not like a full on sport bike mind you, but just enough that I start to feel it about 30 minutes into the ride. The pegs are in a goo location for my 5’ 9” frame and the wind protection is great on my legs. The front wind screen moves up and down as one likes and is easy to find the sweet spot. On the freeway, I find it likes to ride between 75 and 80 MPH nicely and can still take on passing duties from there. The engine seems quite good for this duty. The mirrors however are not up to snuff as they vibrate so much they are unusable at speed. And they are way too low for my liking.
It does like to be thrashed in the twisties though and it handles them with ease. Engine braking is great and I hardly need to use the brakes. Slow speed maneuvering is pretty darn good too with very tight turns at walking speed a breeze.
The real question is would I own one of these? I think so since it is a great commuter. However, I would not trade off the R3T for it. And my next bike will most likely be a 2WD Ural. With that said, this is a nice bike over all and my complaints are really not that big of a deal as the handle bars can be changed to meet my personal requirements if I needed to.
The motor-mags have this bike as the best Touring Bike for 2014 and 2015 even though it is not classified as a touring specific bike. I have one gripe that says they are wrong; any bike classified as a touring bike has to be comfortable for 10-12 hours days in my book and this one won’t quite make that I’m afraid. But I will say it is one hell of a dang good commuter.
For starters, I picked it up on a cold day. The heated grips are far better than the ones I tried on the 2008 R1200GS I rode in January. And the heated seat AWESOME! This bike has satellite radio and I can hear it at freeway speeds even with my full-face helmet. The dash board is easy to navigate once you get the hang of it and it has cruise control. The brakes are Brembo and seem pretty darn good. It has decent power and shifting hard into second will lift the front tire pretty effortlessly.
The bags are all big enough to hold my full face helmet and are auto locked and unlocked by both a button on the grips and a key fob.
Sensors tell you the tire pressure and the ambient temperature and more thing than a guy like me care to know about. But switching suspension firmness on the fly is pretty cool. I like keeping it hard myself. And the ride modes are cool too but I keep this one in Road.
Now about that riding whining I started with; The bike tilts me forward just enough that my weight is on my hands. Not like a full on sport bike mind you, but just enough that I start to feel it about 30 minutes into the ride. The pegs are in a goo location for my 5’ 9” frame and the wind protection is great on my legs. The front wind screen moves up and down as one likes and is easy to find the sweet spot. On the freeway, I find it likes to ride between 75 and 80 MPH nicely and can still take on passing duties from there. The engine seems quite good for this duty. The mirrors however are not up to snuff as they vibrate so much they are unusable at speed. And they are way too low for my liking.
It does like to be thrashed in the twisties though and it handles them with ease. Engine braking is great and I hardly need to use the brakes. Slow speed maneuvering is pretty darn good too with very tight turns at walking speed a breeze.
The real question is would I own one of these? I think so since it is a great commuter. However, I would not trade off the R3T for it. And my next bike will most likely be a 2WD Ural. With that said, this is a nice bike over all and my complaints are really not that big of a deal as the handle bars can be changed to meet my personal requirements if I needed to.
