BMW K 1300 S - 2009 |
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The ultimate sports tourer?
But fear not, even with 175 horsepower on tap, the bikes wet weather manners are impeccable; it never put a foot wrong. However it shouldn’t, it has a mass of technology onboard making sure things don’t get out of shape. Our Lava Orange Metallic bike was fitted with the optional ASC (Automatic Stability Control) which works with the standard fit ABS to prevent rear wheel spin under acceleration. Hence designed to provide enhanced grip and stability and under all weather conditions, including as we found driving rain. This was combined with two other excellent optional extras. TPC (Tyre Pressure Control) which via the onboard digital display lets you know if the tyre pressure is not spot on! Over inflated tyres could be disastrous on wet roads, reducing the contact patch between tyre and road. So I was confident the Metzeler ME3 tyres were correctly inflated. The bike also has the excellent BMW ESA II system, which is BMW’s latest version of their Electronic Suspension Adjustment system. Via the touch of a button you can adjust the suspensions spring rate and damper settings through a variety of settings. The basic ones being Comfort, Norm and Sport but further adjustable for a pillion and plus or minus luggage. The convenience automatic electronic adjustment gives you is really useful, enabling you to change the settings as the road surface conditions change. Given the pot hole and gravel ridden state of many roads, the Comfort setup proved to be the best setting on wet country back roads, the Sport setting seemed to make the front end feel a little skittish when pushing hard on such wet roads. Even the Comfort setting is firm though, but there is just enough suspension travel to cope with most poor surfaces; however Sport setup on minor back roads is too hard to cope with such surfaces. Sport it is best suited to dry smooth main roads, where one can truly revel in the tautness of the handling and the flick ability of what is a 254kg bike (unladen weight, road ready, fully fuelled). With braking distances multiplied in the wet as well, the K 1300 S’s BMW Evo brakes with ABS gave total confidence. They are immensely powerful without being abrupt and stop the bike with equally impressive ease as compared to the bikes phenomenal acceleration, for which BMW claim the bike only takes 2.8 seconds to reach 100 km/h. The rear brake is particularly effective and great for bleeding off some speed in a corner if you’ve gone in to hot! In fact on day two of our test the brakes were tested in a full emergency situation, when we came round a long fast sweeping left hand corner on an A road to find a police road block for an accident only some 50-75 metres ahead of us. The bike stopped smoothly in what I can describe only as an instant with no fuss or tyre squirming and no fork dive thanks to the Duolever front suspension.
It can be quite bizarre to see the top of the suspension strut moving up and down quite vigorously in the gap between the tank and fairing, when riding though. The riding position at first feels quite sports bike orientated, but it isn’t. The deep cut outs in the tank accommodate your knees comfortably and the reach to the bars doesn’t induce wrist ache. The seat at first looks as if it will be hard, but a hundred miles in the saddle confirmed it is in fact fairly comfortable. Unfortunately U turns are a struggle on the K 1300 S because of the design of the petrol tank your hands get trapped between the top of the tank and the bars when turning full lock.
BMW have decide to ditch the paddle style indicator buttons and opt for the more traditional Japanese style indicator switch, obviously to give the bike wider appeal. Unfortunately the switch has no positive central click position, and it’s difficult to judge when you’ve switched the indicators on or off due to the lack of feel. Due to the lack of space to accommodate all the buttons for the technology this bike offers, it seems layout compromises have had to be made. The headlight high low beam switch is combined with the headlight flash switch and is therefore non-conventional and tricky to use. The optional heater grips control is a push button rather than a rocker switch, but it’s hard to reach the push button without jerking the throttle, but we were extremely grateful for K1300S’s excellent two heat position grips to keep our rain sodden gloves and hands warm. The onboard digital LCD computer panel provides a wealth of information including average MPG for which it was pleasing to note that the average fuel consumption was 44.8 MPG; which is truly astounding given the immense performance this bike offers.
However the white backed analogue speedo with grey numbering was not the clearest colour combination, making it difficult to read at a glance. With a 19 litre tank this gives the bike a theoretical range of just short of 190 miles. I however would have liked to see a tank with a larger capacity for a bike that is billed as a tourer, so you can comfortably do 200 miles plus between fill-ups. The somewhat vulnerable stalk mirrors which also house the front indicators unfortunately offered only a small viewing area, functionality seeming to be sacrificed for styling. However these minor ergonomic issues simply fade away once you start riding the bike and revelling in the near dedicated sports bike handling qualities and the scintillating performance the bike offers. This bike is deceptively quick and a keen watch on the speedo is required to avoid entering licence losing territory all too easily. In fact for a sports tourer the riding experience is very focused and you have to keep reminding yourself this a tourer and not a top flight sports bike. Whilst the bike has a six speed box, so quick is the throttle pickup backed up by immense torque of which 70% of the 140Nm is available from 3000 rpm that sixth gear was normally all you need to be in for most overtaking opportunities, the digital gear indicator almost being superfluous. Drop a couple of cogs on the slick gear change lever and the accelerative G-forces are however near addictive. The bike accelerates so smoothly with no discernable power band that’s like riding some mighty turbine. Normal riding sees you in 4-6000rpm range most of the time, but rev beyond this and you and the pace quickens considerably, but at no time are you over awed by the power delivery. The performance is delivered so smoothly and linearly that at all times the bike gives a great sense of confidence and control.
You totally forget this bike is shaft drive as well, there is no tramping or back lash from the shaft drive, no mater how hard you accelerate, the performance delivery is totally fuss free. Further the engine power delivery is incredibly tractable; you can ride it in top gear in at low revs with no snatching or jerkiness which makes the bike really easy to ride in heavy traffic or when filtering. However a quieter radiator fan is needed as you notice the fan whine when the bike gets warm slow riding in traffic! The handling whilst not as light in action as a truly dedicated lightweight sports-bike still offers sublimely smooth cornering action and reacts very positively to rider input, despite its size and weight; corners are demolished with Teutonic efficiency and rapid changes of direction are a joy! One optional extra that initially however I kept forgetting to use was the quick shifter. This bike is fitted with as BMW describe “Gear-shift assist”. Initially it was hard to overcome the habit of years of using a clutch lever; particularly as the action of the clutch on the K 1300 S is very light and smooth in operation. However once you remembered to shift up without the clutch and rely on the quick shifter, even more rapid performance can be made. Though there is knack to getting the best from the quick shifter to avoid abrupt gear changing, it seemed to work best in 5-7000 rpm range and just momentarily dipping the throttle before changing up made for the smoothest clutch-less gear changes. Looks are very much a personal choice the Lava Orange metallic colour of the paintwork is certainly eye catching and the angular fairing styling a complete contrast from its predecessor’s K 1200 S more svelte styling. Unfortunately the standard silencer can (as with many new bikes) is on the large side, but our test bike was fitted with a (non-standard) Remus sport silencer. Smaller in size it much better suited the bike, but more importantly you could delight in the sportier sound it emitted. So is the BMW K 1300 S the ultimate sports tourer. Well these matters are somewhat subjective, but if you can overlook the minor ergonomic issues the K 1300 S offers near sports bike handling in a tourer package, with the addition of the BMW panniers and a BMW tank bag you could easily ride down to the south of France and beyond.
In fact from a performance, braking and handling viewpoint the K 1300 S is near faultless and it has to be one of the most lithe and dynamic large sports tourers we’ve had the pleasure to test. Article and Photos by Jon Booth – http://www.inter-bike.co.uk – The UK Biker Site Note all performance figures, weights and technical specifications are as claimed by the manufacturer Thanks to the BMW North Oxford dealership for the loan of the BMW K 1300 S
Specifications New price*: £11,345.00 Engine: 4 stroke water cooled in line four cylinder Engine Size: 1293 cc Power: 175 HP Transmission: 6 speed synchromesh gearbox Weight (Dry): 228kg * Suggested On Road Retail Price for base model with no factory fit options
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