A magnetic concept
The F 900 XR will fulfill the long-held craving for a real-world sporty touring bike. By
As the sun sets over the mountains that ring Lake Como and the fading light flashes its final few highlights on the facade of the beautiful Villa Erba, I take a sip of champagne and cast my eyes over the even more beautiful people with whom I find myself mingling. This is an exclusive gathering, and most people are present not because they are journalists like me, but because they have brought something incredibly rare to the party.
I’m at the Concorso D’Eleganza, which this year is themed as “Hollywood on the Lake” and features cars and motorcycles so unique as to be virtually invaluable.
Arranged throughout the gardens of this majestic Villa, now a hotel to the stars and once the summer residence of the Cardinal of Milan, this collection of automotive masterpieces has transformed the already stunning surroundings into the world’s swankiest open-air museum.
The hum of conversation begins to fade as the opening speeches are made and then the sense of anticipation grows for the soon-tobe-unveiled Rolls-Royce Cullinan and the new BMW 8-Series Gran Coupé. To start proceedings there is a two-wheeled BMW concept, and as I catch the sounds of a barely silenced parallel twin making its way through the Versace- and Cavalli-clad throng, I wangle a position with a view.
MAGICAL BUT FAMILIAR
The headlights appear first, reflecting off expensive white teeth and scattering shards of light through large and nearly ubiquitous diamond necklaces. The effect is magical yet almost familiar. Edgar Heinrich, BMW Motorrad’s chief designer, emerges from within this affluent assemblage and introduces the BMW NovoCento, or 900 to you and me.
Concepts are often nonworking indications of developments that might happen many years in the future, but this definitely isn’t one of those. The engine is the 850cc unit already in production for the recently updated F 850 GS, though given the name it may have swelled in capacity for this dedicated road bike.
The front features floating panels for improved aerodynamics that lend an air of lightness, complemented at the rear by a thin, almost dainty rear end reminiscent of any number of exotic Italian naked bikes. The overall effect is the impression of a dedicated sport bike, and yet this athletic shape is transformed into a more practical sporttourer with a ground-breaking lack of fuss.
Anything that can be described as a tourer needs to be able to carry luggage, and that means it needs a certain amount of unattractive scaffolding to hold the panniers in place. Or at least it used to, because BMW appears to have solved the problem with magnets and a liberal dose of imagination.
LUGGAGE REVOLUTION
What Mr Heinrich showed us was a luggage set-up that fastens to the bike with no visible means of support, and, given my champagne intake, appears to be nothing short of sorcery. The upper surface of the panniers also provide extra width for the pillion seat, transforming in a stroke a single-seat sport bike into a practical long-distance tool for two.
This is nothing short of a luggage revolution, and promises to make it into production in the nearish future. Not quite as near though as the bike itself. Given the familiar look of the front end and the established success of the existing S 1000 XR — the sport-touring relation in the S 1000 RR superbike family of bikes — I’d have to say this looks like it will be the new F 900 XR.
A brave and quite possibly foolish prediction, but given the working nature of this “concept”, it doesn’t require the foresight of Nostradamus to draw such a conclusion.
Switching from champagne to beer and accelerating into the night I’m left underwhelmed by the subsequent unveiling of the new Cullinan, which has all the grace and nuance of a Soviet-era apartment block. The arrival of BMW’s 8-Series Gran Coupé restores my passion for cars and reignites the desire to become a much more successful, wealthy version of myself.
This is the sort of four-wheeler to which I can aspire even though the reality is undoubtedly beyond even my wildest dreams. Not so with the “F 900 XR”, this will fulfil my long-held craving for a real-world sporty touring bike for my wife and me that also satisfies the need for a single-seat sport bike for those solo rides where it’s just the road and rider in perfect harmony. LS