By Richie Lazaro

I was having a conversation with Jake Swann of the (MSF) Motorcycle Safety Foundation when he brought up the topic of organizing another track event. And I’ve got to tell you; I’m a sucker for track days! Being on the track, riding your bike where there are no obstacles on the road unlike the streets of Manila where you expect to see a dog on the next bend, or a slippery patch of oil on the asphalt, or worse the Schumacher wannabes driving down the opposite lane taking a late apex on a dilapidated jeep/bus/truck or what have you. None of those my friends are found on a track. It’s much safer since everyone else is going in one direction and you’re in a totally controlled environment.

While discussing my role in this, Jake dropped me a bomb, when he said “Richie we have one small problem, you can’t use any of your bikes” “WHAT!?!?” I replied. He interrupted me by saying that the reason I couldn’t bring any of my bikes was that I was required to be riding a BMW. And you know what happened next, my eyes lit up just like the proverbial Christmas tree.

Let me get this straight I said, I get to use a BMW? And Jake says “Yes you get to marshal riding a BMW”. Cool I’m in! I didn’t even bother to ask how much I was going to get paid.

So Friday, the day before the actual BMW track day we did our preparations at BRC, we did an ocular of the track, checking for dirt or sand as patches of tarmac were just recently paved, after all of this we went in to pit late. At the pits I got my second surprise. There were 6 test bikes for us to ride. They were the F650GS, F650CS, R1150R, R1100S Boxer Cup Replica, R1200C Montauk, and the R1200CL.

First Impressions
I have to admit, I’m no bike journo, and I’m definitely not a certified bike tester, and I don’t even claim to be fast on the track. My personal preference leans more towards sport bikes, so no, this article isn’t as objective as most people would probably like it to be, so just see it as a young sportbike rider’s impressions!

Looking at this bunch of bikes there were definitely no full-on sports bikes in the lineup. In defense of BMW, one owner was quick to point out, that these bikes weren’t meant to be your typical crotch rockets. He said “They’re meant to bring you from point A to B in comfort and style, and they’ll start each and every time you push the button.” I couldn’t argue with that.

F650 GS
The first bike in the lineup was the F650GS, this left me a bit disappointed; I used to want the F650GS Dakar version and I was hoping to be able to try that one, OK I know I’m contradicting myself here, no this isn’t a sports bike, but if I were to have a stable of 5 bikes, the Dakar would be a contender for my list of dual-purpose bikes. Going up to one of the staff of BMW and voicing out my indignation on why the Dakar version wasn’t on hand, he pointed out that the only difference between the two was that the Dakar version had higher ground clearance, sported knobby tires and had the cool Paris-Dakar paint scheme. Ok, Ok good enough for me.

F650 CS
Second was the F650CS. I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to say it. The person who designed the looks of this bike should be hung using a barbed wire. Beauty as they say is in the eye of the beholder, and the holder of this eye just didn’t see it. As I was inspecting the bike I realized someone forgot to put a tank on this thing. It had a hole where the tank was supposed to be! OK, OK, so I’m not that ignorant, I knew that it was a compartment for extra accessories like an audio system, or a hard case storage system or a helmet luggage spider. But that hole without anything did look peculiar.

R1150 R
Now my loins were getting properly stirred, this bike falls under the naked bike genre. And anything attached to the word naked was good enough for me. Ooohhh, and the single sided swing arm looks puuuurty, real pree-tee indeed. BMW hit the spot when designing this bike, the lines are really good, I just love the single circular headlight, and the exposed engine and if I didn’t know any better I’d say the design brief revolved around copying the Ducati Monster, but maybe I’m just biased since I own one.

R1100 S Boxer Cup Replica
The R1100S Boxer Cup Replica is supposed to be a replica of BMW’s used in the boxer race cup abroad, which I believe is held in Europe and in the States. I was told by one of the BMW staff or bosses, (hard to differentiate since all of the BMW people were really nice) that the difference between the regular S and the Replicas were purely cosmetic. The Replica had really expensive bits and pieces added to it; the cylinder head covers were made of carbon fiber with a protective teardrop-shaped titanium skids for people who do extreme cornering. The exhausts are the under the seat like Ducati rear cans.

Then there were the requisite go-faster stickers which included the sponsors stickers on the carbon fiber reinforced plastic belly pan, which surprisingly didn’t look out of place, good job BMW for not over doing it. I suspected though that there was more than just cosmetic differences between the S and Replica version of the R1100 since I saw a steering damper hidden just behind the front wheel. Upon researching on the replica, I found out that unlike the normal S model the replica had more than just racing stickers. The replica sports a wider 5.5-inch rear rim, a steering damper and stiffer suspension for a more committed riding style.

R1200 C Montauk/CL
The name’s Bond, James Bond. Yes it’s the R1200C model that was used in the movie “Tomorrow Never Dies”. The C designates it as a cruiser; we had two versions of this bike, the Montauk and the grand daddy of them all the R1200CL. Let’s delve into the Montauk version first. The first thing that comes to my mind when I was introduced to this bike was. “It’s called the what?” Montauk you say? Where the hell do these Germans come up with their model names? Apparently “Montauk” refers to a Native American people formerly inhabiting the eastern end of Long Island in New York, a place, where, you’ve probably guessed by now, is also located on the eastern end of Long Island New York.

Looking at the Montauk makes you wonder what the purist cruiser followers like Harley riders might think of this bike. If you squint hard enough and get your vision distorted a bit, you just might see a cruiser there. And I’m certain most of the “purists” don’t consider the R1200C a proper cruiser. But that’s exactly why I love it, the looks are so avant-garde, so un-cruiser like. It’s one of those “either you love it or hate it” bikes. The Montauk differentiates itself from the regular C by having a windshield and lower bars, but this I can only tell from the pictures, otherwise it looks like the same bike. Looking at their online brochure, the Montauk is heavier by almost 20 lbs. Now where did that come from? The specs are exactly the same; don’t tell me the windshield weighs that much.

R1200CL

I don’t know what CL stands for, but I’m guessing more on the lines of Chug-a-lug… The damn thing is Huge! It’s got plastic everywhere, so much so that you would find it hard to find the standard R1200C underneath all that fairing. It’s got the panniers, top box, the tall windscreen and all the fairings go around just about every inch of this bike. The best thing I like about this bike though is it’s got a radio and CD player.

Ride Review
By around 11am the inspection and taping of the bikes are over. It’s time for the best part of the job, being one of the marshals for the BMW track day we had to familiarize ourselves with all 6 bikes; this entails riding the BMW’s all day long. I’m thinking to myself that I had just put one over BMW, I get to ride these babies and I get paid for it too, how much better can that get?

F650 GS
Key’s in the ignition and a license to ride around the track for the whole day, I chose from the smallest and worked my way up to the bigger bikes. I went over to the yellow F650GS and I’m immediately confused with all the buttons on hand. I turn the key and press on the start button, and nothing happens. Hmmm, I try another button and still nothing. I try the red button and find out it’s the horn, I look around my shoulder to check if anyone was watching. I didn’t want them to think it was my first time to be riding a bike. By now I play closer attention to the controls and read the signs one by one. Aha! I found it and it’s placed on the right side on little knobs with a button on it, a totally unconventional place to put a starter button, but that’s BMW for you. With a seat height of only 780mm vertically challenged folks won’t have a problem with the GS and CS bikes.

Leather suit on, I start the engine and off I go, out to pit lane and onto the track. I take the first few laps slow, trying to accustom myself to the bikes weight and feel, plus I needed to get the tires warmed up. The bike was very light and easily chuckable from side to side. The single cylinder “thumper” engine had enough oomph to make you hold onto the bars. The engine for both the F650 GS and CS models is the same and are both rated at 50bhp. Flipping the bike from side to side I realize how well placed the center of gravity is on this bike, it’s tank is actually under the seat, which probably contributes to it’s low C of G. After the third lap I push the bike a little bit more, and which I discover two things, the first being that the bike doesn’t have enough ground clearance for the track, as the center stand touches down easily while cornering, second is that the bike wallows when hitting patches of tarmac on the track. The first problem is easy enough to remedy, just take the damn thing off, the second one could probably be fixed if the suspension was setup right for the track. But then I had to remind myself, that these things weren’t made to be canyon carvers, this bike is designed to go over potholes with ease and the occasional semi-dirt roads we find everywhere in metro manila and in the provinces.

F650 CS
By my 6th lap I’m starting to get bored, so I move on to the blue F650CS, which the Beemer aficionado’s affectionately call the scarver. I do the same routine. What’s to say about this bike? The only difference that I can tell visually is that the yellow GS uses a chain drive while the blue CS is belt driven. I know they probably have different frames, and they look totally different from each other, but it feels the same around the track. With nothing else to do I then decide to dick around with it, looking behind me to check if anyone else is following, I see that all’s clear so I go up to speed, slow down to around 60kph and I hit the brakes hard. Wooohooooo what a rush! With the abs kicking in I stop at no time at all. I pit in and decide to try the ABS on the slippery cement floor of the pit area. I look around and find my target, Maweng a good friend and co marshal is sitting down relaxing on his lazy butt. So I take good aim and I travel to around 20-30kph and hit the breaks hard, stopping within a meter or two of him. Of course this causes a commotion as I hear a lady scream from the side. I take off my helmet and say. “Damn the ABS worked”. Maweng just smiles at me and shakes his head.

This is the bike I like the least, so what else can I say about it? It’s got two wheels, it steers, it brakes when you want it to stop, and it looks ugly. It will probably be a competent bike for commuting, plus with it being belt driven you’ve got less maintenance to worry about. Buy one with my own money though? No. Wait, wait, wait, I take that back. I’d buy the CS if Doris, one of the BMW staff people would go out with me. She’s the cutie posing with the F650 CS. She almost makes the bike look good.

R1150 R
OK BMW now we’re getting somewhere, looks-wise as I’ve said earlier is just right on the money. This will be my first time to ever ride a flat-twin boxer engine. A little bit distressing after all the bad things I’ve heard about this type of engine. No it’s not that it’s un-reliable, it’s not slow either with 85bhp on tap, it’s because they say it shakes from left to right, at the worst possible time, when you pin the throttle. And when are the times you pin the throttle you say? Well aside from the straights, it’s while exiting the corners and you still have the bike leaned over. Not a very good time for a bike to be moving from side to side. I start the engine and rev it a bit. And Houston we have a problem, yes the bike moves from side to side from a standstill. “Be brave young grasshopper,” as I imagine a voice in my head saying, I’m just going to take it easy then, I’ll just cruise around the track, no problem. First three laps and I’m cruising and getting real comfy on the bike. And it is a comfortable bike, but then I feel the bike taunting me, telling me “ What that hell I can do better than this, let’s Rock N’ Roll!!!” By now I’m wondering to myself if I’m crazy, because I keep hearing damn voices in my head.

The R1150 R is confidence inspiring; I actually never knew the real meaning of the word till I rode this bike. Let me explain why this is so. Turn 2 of BRC or what is commonly referred to in the BRC community, as the “R Bend” is one of my weaker points of the track. This is the only part of the track that intimidates me; partially because I’ve seen one of our countries best expert rider Mr. Jao crash here before, and not only that I’ve experienced crashing there myself. But on the R1150R, I just kept going faster and faster. And I knew I was in the zone.

In the words of Pete Mcullugh, “The R1150 R just tells you what’s going on” And I believe every word of it, you can feel the road underneath you, the breaks had a good initial bite to it and gave lots of feedback, the bike was totally neutral on the corners. Going over bumpy parts of the track was no problem; the suspension just soaked it up as if it wasn’t there.

So here I was going lap after lap faster on the “R Bend” faster than I think I have ever gone before. Of course I wasn’t timing myself so I wouldn’t know for sure, but it sure felt like it. After doing a few hot laps, I wondered what all the fuss was about concerning the balance of the BMW’s boxer engine. The movement from side to side wasn’t noticeable at all, at least not as much as I was lead to believe. Of all the 6 bikes, this one was my favorite.

R1100 S Boxer Cup Replica
As I start her up, she gave out a totally different note to any of the other bikes in BMW’s lineup. It’s hard to explain by words alone, you have to hear it for yourself. Moving out of pit lane the bike stalls on me, well that’s never a good sign. So I give it a little more clutch and it still stalls on me. What the hell? Now I’m starting to get self-conscious, as someone makes a joking side remark, which I didn’t really hear or don’t really care to know. I give it even more clutch and off I went. I wanted to forgo the warm up lap and just give it a go, but self-preservation instincts kicked in and I came to my senses. I was really curious on why the fast guys, like Pete would say words like “Perfect weapon, or I can race this bike, or this bike will put a lot of other bikes to shame” in describing the Replica. So there I was, just after my warm up lap and I give it a go on the straight. And I was not the least bit impressed, what’s the big deal? I go through one more lap, and into the right hand sweeper before the last corner I realize that when I was pinning the throttle, it wasn’t even using 3/4th of it. So back on the straights, I pull the throttle all the way down, and Oh  My%@#$ I just had to hold on while trying not to scream out loud. I’m shifting up gears as fast as I could, and in no time I was nearing my usual breaking point.

Another revelation from the Boxer, this bike can brake. And I don’t mean just brake-brake, it almost came to a complete stop! I realized I’ve braked much too early after the straight so I tried it again on turn two, starting my deceleration on my usual breaking point, and it does it again, I’m slowing down earlier than I ever have. Ok so now that I know it brakes really well, better than any other bike that I’ve ever ridden at BRC, I was going faster than I should have been going, scaring myself some. In hindsight I was being over confident with the breaking department and was manhandling the Replica. I’ll tell you one thing about the Replica; this bike doesn’t like to be manhandled. This bike wants smooth, smooth on the corners, smooth on the throttle while leaning over, or it gets frantic. Smooth is hard for me since I’m not the smoothest guy in the world. The suspension is good though; on the double apex or turn 4 there are lots of small patches of tarmac there that can easily unsettle a bike. The boxer just rides over them as if it almost wasn’t there. The BMW site refers to the R1100 S as a sports-tourer. The Replica feels more sports oriented than it is to touring.

By around the 7th lap I’m exhausted and feel thirsty, so I pit in. I settle the bike into the shade, while not yet being able to shut down the engine; someone waves me over to ask me if I could go around the track two-up with one of BMW’s female employees. Being the good trooper that I am, I heartily comply with their request. After a short briefing on how to be a proper backrider (hold on tight dear and don’t let go!), we do one short lap to help her familiarize with being a pillion around the track, the second lap I go a bit faster, after this I ask her if she wants to go around one more time. She shouts with gusto, “More, more!” So I bring her around faster than I’ve ever ridden on a bike with someone riding pillion. And here I discover another thing; this bike’s suspension is set up so well that having a backride hardly disrupts the balance of the bike.

Going back into pit lane and getting off the bike, I gulp some liquid and I feel that something’s different. I don’t feel the normal ache on my arms and back, a sensation one usually gets while riding around the track on a real race-rep bike.
I decide to take a break before moving on to the last two bikes on the lineup. A break is what I needed, just looking at the two behemoths; I didn’t expect to have lots of fun on the Montauk and CL around the track.

R1200 C Montauk
OK, If skinny little Pierce Brosnan (Bond) could do it, then so can I! On then to the R1200C Montauk. To tell you the truth I’ve never ridden a cruiser farther than a city block before, but this being a BMW and all, plus all the stunts that I’ve seen Mr. Brosnan or his stunt double perform in his Bond movie led me to believe that this could be one helluva’ cruiser. And boy was I disappointed. Wallowing at speed on the double left apex in BRC isn’t exactly what I’d call fun. Imagine cornering at speed, pegs scraping then hitting the uneven portion of the track and the bike literally feels like it’s throwing you off wide. I’m guessing this is an inherent trait to most cruisers. Like I told you, I ain’t no hell’s angels wannabe. So cruisers just don’t do it for me. The bike’s no slouch though, rating in at 61bhp, it can accelerate, albeit at a slower pace than I expected. Ok so I know I can’t push it, so I decide to focus on enjoying the ride. I feel my rear and decide that this is definitely in the couch range comfortable, the bars never seem like you’re trying to reach for them, they’re as neutral as can be, feet forward and relaxed, a ride to Bagio in comfort, no problem.

R1200CL
“Oh Lord, forgive me for all my sins as I mount this hell of a beast, may not the wrath of BMW management sue me if I crash this into a turn, and make me pay till the death of my days.” Intimidated is putting it too lightly, scared is closer to what I felt whilst mustering the courage to mount the CL. While executing a tight U-turn to get to the pit lane, I almost fall over while I was engaging the rear breaks; no one told me they had linked breaks! Not a good sign at all! The ride marshals were required to take all the bikes out to familiarize ourselves with them, so I had no choice but to go out on the track. My plan was to do a few laps for the sake of telling them that yes I did ride them all, and then come back in.

A few laps pass by and I tell myself, hey not bad, it’s even comfier than the Montauk, this relaxes me, so I start to fiddle with all of the controls. ABS switch, no I don’t want to turn that off, let’s see, oh the radio! I turn it on and dial in my favorite rock station. As if on cue the song “Bring me to life” by evanescence starts to play. I turn up the volume and open up my helmet’s visor so I could hear better. I discover that, no wind is hitting my face, so I leave my visor open.

So there I was starting to enjoy myself, forgetting that just a few minutes ago I was scared of this truck. And you know what happens when you put bike and rock music together don’t you? Oh you don’t? I’ll tell you what happens, you tend to be more aggressive without knowing it. And I was getting more aggressive, taking the turns at a faster pace so I could go faster on the straights. And guess what? This bike handles well for its size! I’ll venture far enough to say that it even handles better than the Montauk. Why this is so, well your guess is as good as mine. The suspension was set up differently? Maybe? I don’t know, what I do know is that this bike surprised me in what it could do. And everyone else who asked for my opinion the next day on what to try first, I always said the CL! It will surprise you. Here we have the Bavarian Motor Works - Motorrad at its best.

I am a BMW fanatic myself when it comes to cars, but for the bikes? “Sheer driving pleasure” is their tag- line. Well, at least if you’re in the 40+ and over age bracket, it just might work for you. A question I posted to one of the bosses was “what age is your target market?” and the answer I got was “Each and every single survey we put out we get 45 years old and over”.