BERLIN: German automaker BMW is going to launch 160-horsepower sportsbike S1000XR in 2015.
Having 1000cc and inline 4-cylinder engine, the XR is a fire-breathing, road focused light adventure bike with as much potential for long-range touring. It also features this year’s latest must-have gadget – lean angle-sensitive ABS Pro, as well as BMW’s wonderful cruise control unit to round out an impressive electronics package.
Dressed in slightly more respectable clothing and aimed at an older market of S1000R, it’s one of the greatest road bikes ever built. The XR is one of the light sports adventure bikes.
Ducati’s Multistrada set the tone for this kind of machine by being basically a sportsbike in an adventure chassis. Wildly impractical for real bush-bashing, it excelled at nearly everything else, especially hard, twisty road riding. The S1000XR looks like a very similar sort of machine, with a couple of extra tweaks.
Like the S1000R, the XR has a “detuned” version of the S1000RR inline 4-cylinder superbike engine. It loses 40 horsepower in the conversion. But if the R’s aggressive power delivery is anything to go by, you’re not going to miss a single one of those ponies; the road-focused version of this engine is an absolute torque beast that actually ends up accelerating you vastly quicker than the RR superbike at any legal road speed and a fair way beyond.
Electronics-wise, the XR gets the same package as the R, with Rain and Road modes, and an optional “Dynamic” package with two more modes, all of which set the lean angle-sensitive traction control, wheelie control, ABS, engine power output and throttle response to suit the way you’re riding.
