Sorry people, we had been ignoring the blog updates for a last couple of days... But we have a good excuse. We were at the BMW Rallly. Michael already talked about the Rally a little on his previous post. With more than 6100 International participants, the Rally was a huge success. As Michael mentioned, we gave up some of our sleep time and got up real early on Saturday morning and signed up for test ride. I got a K1300S, Michael got an S1000RR and Walter got an R1200 GSA... The new bikes were awesome, had lots of fun... In the afternoon there was GSA Anti-concourse... Walter got the 3rd place with his 1990 R100 GS, we are proud of him. Ofcourse there was some more of the yummy beer drinking... We left the Rally real early on Sunday morning, had a beautiful breakfast at the House of Pancakes and after 320 miles we arrived to Poulsbo, Washington. We are staying with John's old friend and colliuge Dave Smith. Dave used to work for Mitchell International in San Diego. He is very kind to open his doors to us, we thank him dearly. Here is some more Rally pictures.... EA.
Just because I can... my thoughts on the S1000RR. A supremely crafted peice of machinery. Now, to be fair, I am baised and generally do NOT ride crotch rockets. That said, OMFG! That thing hauls some serious ass! Besides the supreme engine that redlines at a BMW nutty level of 14000 RPM, 193 horsepower (181 at the wheel, STOCK!), the transmission is the thing that dreams are made of. Granted, there's a huge amount of electronic control and engineering going on in there, but! that thing rolls through gears like an Avalanche down a mountain!! You simply wrap the throttle to full tilt, wait for the little red "SHIFT NOW MORON!" light to go, and tap that shift lever up. Oh yeah, and hang on or you're going to get left WAAAAAY behind. Notice how i didn't say, grab some clutch or blip the throttle. That's right, FULL throttle, Clutchless shifting at redline. Smooth as glass pouring out of a volcano. Utterly amazing. Downshifts are almost as good... you have to blip the clutch (leave that throttle where you want it) and it does all the magic for you. Makes slow guys like me look good. On the straights anyway.. curves still take some skill. I think I know what I want for my birthday....
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