Well, that was interesting...

[kevin_stevens]

Got a loaner demo bike from my BMW dealer today after my K13S got laid up awaiting parts.





They sent me out on this thing after dark. I barely got the radio turned down, never mind figured out the rest of the cockpit controls!



So very, very much not my bike. Nice engine, though!

KeS

[coronadozx]

that looks complicated ... i just wanna ride to escape, not get another headache from more techno gadgets.

[kevin_stevens]

Originally Posted by coronadozx

I just wanna ride to escape

Ironically, I believe that song was playing at some point on the ride home.

KeS

[Elgix6]

That would be a nice bike for a cross country ride.

[kevin_stevens]

My idea of a nice bike for a cross country ride would be a different BMW 6-series.

KeS

[Kazairl]

Wow. It's awfully nice of the dealership to hand you a $25k motorcycle for a loaner!

[kevin_stevens]

Originally Posted by Kazairl

Wow. It's awfully nice of the dealership to hand you a $25k motorcycle for a loaner!

They could have fixed the new $16K motorcycle I bought last week.

I highly recommend dealing with BMW rather than most Japanese dealers if they have a product that fits your needs. The experience is vastly superior IMHO.

KeS

[rgbeard]

Originally Posted by kevin_stevens

They could have fixed the new $16K motorcycle I bought last week.

I highly recommend dealing with BMW rather than most Japanese dealers if they have a product that fits your needs. The experience is vastly superior IMHO.

KeS

I understand that when dealing with new vehicles the dealership experience plays a large role. I've never purchased a new vehicle before so I'm really not one to talk about that too much.

But what I can say is that the dealership experience from the J4 is much different than that of BMW or (sigh...) Harley Davidson.

[KodiakRS]

Test rode one of these the other week.

The radio off switch is by your left knee. The guy who test rode it before me spent almost the entire test ride trying to figure that out. Other things I noticed:

-Coming from a mutlistrada (tall and light-ish), the GTL felt super low and incredibly heavy. It was almost like driving a car.

-I used to think that my mutli had too many electronic goodies but oh boy was I wrong. This thing has every widget under the sun.

-Despite it's heaviness it was well balanced and handled well for a motorcycle roughly the size of an oil tanker. My guess is you'd run out of cornering clearance pretty quickly though.

-The engine is SMOOOOTH and has enough grunt to be entertaining even though it has so much weight it has to propel.

-The clutch was strange. It would pulse and move while you were slipping it. Going from fully engaged to disengaged only required about %20 of the lever movement.

Overall it wasn't really my cup of tea, but none the less impressive. If I wanted to ride in the IBR it would be on my shortlist choice of mounts.

[USAFgsxr750again]

sometimes i wonder about some of those dealerships. good example.... my brother (who used to ride BMW) and i went over to his local BMW dealer. he was on his LT and i was on my VFR. i walk in... i get the Hi treatment and that's it. he walks in and they are all over him. Sir, how are you doing? would you like some coffee, water, etc. would you like to test ride a new bike....etc... I'm like WTF???? it's obvious we rode in at the same time and were chatting. whatever.... guess they don't want my money.

[busarider54]

That looks like one complicated cockpit.