Middleweight bike still a street fighter
But new more muscular BMW F900R is as novice-friendly as ever
Consider the following data: according to BMW Motorrad, 10 per cent of all the people who purchased the company’s last-generation middleweight naked bike, the F800R, were women. An impressive, but hardly startling, statistic I hear you saying.
But — and this will take a bit of basic math — Vinnie Kung, Motorrad’s product manager, also says 15 per cent of new F800 owners are complete novices, their Rs the very first bike they’ve owned. Not only that, of those 15 per cent, more than a third — fully 36 per cent — were novice female customers. Do that basic math I hinted at before and fully five per cent of all the buyers of a new F800R were women who seemingly had no — or at least, precious little — motorcycling experience. In fact, statistically, one in two of the women who bought BMW’s middleweight street fighter were complete novices.
That’s important for two reasons. The first is that BMW is obviously reaching a prime growth market for motorcycles — women who are just getting into two-wheeling — that other manufacturers must surely covet. The second thing is — and I don’t think is sexist stereotyping for me to suggest that young women are usually more sensible than young men — that it’s highly unusual for women to choose an 800-cc motorcycle as their first bike.
More typical entry-level choices for those of the double XX chromosome is a Honda Rebel 300 or possibly, if they’re feeling particularly confident, the same company’s CB500R. The number of women who choose an 800-cc class motorcycle as their entry into motorcycling is positively minuscule, yet for some reason — and again one in two of the women buying F800Rs were rank novices — a significant number of them to gravitate to mid-sized BMWs.
The question, if you’re at all as curious as I am, is why?
The purely reductive answer is that the BMW is easy handling. That’s the novice’s way of saying it has a low seat height — so those short of stature can confidently put both feet on the tarmac at a stoplight — and a user-friendly powertrain. And yes, you guessed it, the F800R had both in spades.
But now it’s 2020 and the F800R is no more, replaced by an F900R — basically the same bike upgraded with new styling, LED headlamps and a larger version of the same parallel-twin engine — and the issue is at hand is whether the new R will hold onto its attraction from the female novice market.
The initial surmise, at least by BMW itself, is no, the company’s marketing mavens believing that the new, sportier 900 is now a more serious motorcycle that it will conquest other marques — namely riders cross-shopping Kawasaki’s Z900 — at the expense of losing some of its beginner appeal.
I’m not so sure. Oh, it certainly does have more “serious” ergonomics, the 2020 R boasting higher footpegs, and handlebars 25 millimetres further forward, both attributes more conducive to aggressive riding than ease of use. That purity of purpose is usually off-putting to novices, typically uncomfortable with the hunched-over riding position of a pure sports bike.
But — and this cannot be overemphasized in importance to the novice motorcyclist — the 900’s seat height remains virtually unchanged from the 800. The standard seat height is but 815 millimetres and a low seat option can see that drop further to 790 millimetres. Just as importantly, the engine remains as tractable — lots of low-end torque and perfectly linear throttle response.
So, despite the boost to 99 horsepower (the 105-hp you’ve been reading in European road tests is a result of higher octane gas), the newly minted and more muscular R is as novice-friendly as ever.
Besides — and this hardly applies to the female set exclusively — novice bikers are always seeking credibility from more established bikers. Anemic, single-lung Honda CBR250s hardly exude confidence in one’s riding ability. Ditto for a Suzuki TU250. But show up on an F900R and immediate acceptance can be yours.
That’s especially true, thanks to some of the detail changes BMW has wrought in the new model makeover. Besides being substantially more grunty down low, the 885-cc twin’s new offbeat 270/450 degree firing order makes an ordinarily maudlin parallel twin sound like a sporty V-twin. Even hobbled with a German-approved — that should be read very strict — muffler, the new F900R purrs like a gem, just the thing to impress everyone at the local watering hole come bike night. And I don’t care how deep the divide between the sexes, everyone likes impressing on bike night.
The good thing about the F900R for those beginners savvy/crazy enough to own one is that the chances of quickly outgrowing it are slim to none. Those 99 horses — and their accompanying 67 pound-feet of torque — will amuse anyone this side of jaded superbike owner. The four-pot Brembo brakes up front stop on a dime and the seriousness — there’s that word again — of the sportbike-sized rubber — 180/55ZR17 rear and 120/70R17 front — gives the 900R some superbike appeal to go along with its novice-friendliness.
Even the F900’s one weakness — suspension that is either too crude, too stiff, or both — may lend it some bigbike bona fides with the novice set, the BMW’s tendency to feel every bump and crevice in the road the type of thing novices expect from a ‘real’ motorcycle. If I can’t handle it, it must be a genuine monster is the kind of self-deprecating admission that allows too many — I’m looking at you, owners of the original “Whaletail” Porsche 911 Turbo — to mistake flaws for attributes.
All that said, the F900R remains virtually as beginner-friendly as the old 800. Anti-lock brakes remain, as ever, standard equipment. Ditto for traction control. Both are, according to Kung, high on the shopping list of safety-first novices.
Ditto the availability — it’s part of the option package — of Dynamic Electronic Suspension Adjustment (ESA), which not only allows damping to be easily adjusted but rear preload as well. And, as one wag at the press launch pointed out, Millennials being both maintenance- and tool-phobic, a system that allows suspension adjustment at the flick of a button is always going to find a home.
Of course, you have to pay for such pleasures, but that points to the 900’s other primitive appeal, namely it’s entrylevel price tag.
The price of an all-in 2020 F900R is a totally modest $10,350, one more reason Motorrad sees the F900R as one of the primary “conquest” bikes in its arsenal.