Classy: BMW Rninet Racer
Restyled café racer version of Rninet Traditional air-cooled Boxer twin Single seat and retro riding position
THE FORMAT IS simple and has generated some of the coolest custom café racers of recent years. Take an air-cooled BMW boxer, bolt on a half-fairing, humped seat and a few other bits and add a neat paintjob. The result is a stylish special with a Seventies vibe and generally enough performance and reliability to work well.
Now BMW is bringing the air-cooled boxer café racer into its showrooms with a production model: the Rninet Racer. Like last year’s Scrambler and the Pure and Urban G/S models that also join the range this year, the Racer is based on the naked Rninet that has been a big hit since its launch in 2014.
Like those other models, the Racer is designed to encourage customising and costs slightly less than the original Rninet. So while it shares the air/oil-cooled, 1170cc engine that previously powered the R1200GS, it differs from the original R ninet by having a slightly more basic chassis with less expensive cycle parts.
Its tubular steel frame has front and rear main sections, making do without the Scrambler’s bolt-on rear subframe because it’s a single-seater. The Racer’s forks are conventional 43mm units, its rear shock has settings for preload and rebound but no remote adjuster. Its front brakes are conventional four-pot Brembos.
It’s still a classy looking bike, thanks partly to its half-fairing, which blends neatly into the tank and is colour-matched to the seat hump in BMW’S traditional Motorsport colour-scheme. Footrests are rearset (though not dramatically so) while low clip-on bars bring the rider forward towards a pair of round, alloy-rimmed analogue dials.
Apart from the riding position, performance of the Racer is like that of the other Rninet models. The air-cooled lump doesn’t quite have the power or sophistication of more recent liquid-cooled motors, but it fuels sweetly, kicks out plenty of midrange grunt and produces 109bhp at 7750rpm – which is enough for all but the fastest roads.
The Racer also has heaps of slightly earthy character, makes an appealing low droning note from its left-sided single silencer, and revs respectably smoothly towards the 8500rpm redline as the bike heads for its top speed of around 130mph. That leant-forward riding position means maintaining a decent pace is pretty effortless, as the lowish screen keeps off some of the wind while letting enough past to take your weight off the bars.
The café-racer crouch is fine at speed on a curving road, where the Racer is stable and its suspension is firm and welldamped enough for good control, but still fairly supple over bumps. But the riding position is less convincing at lower speeds where it takes a fair bit of effort to change direction and a lot of the rider’s weight goes through the wrists, limiting comfort.
Braking is adequate, if less powerful than that provided by the standard Rninet’s monoblock calipers. Metzeler’s Roadtec Z8
“The Racer has heaps of earthy character”
tyres give plenty of grip to exploit the generous ground clearance. BMW’S fairly basic ASC traction control is a £310 option.
Alongside the standard £10,775 Racer is the Racer S, which for £11,360 adds wire-spoked 17in wheels, heated grips, a chromed exhaust and LED indicators. Other extras range from an alloy tank and adjustable rearsets to pillion seat and saddlebags. These might add some useful versatility, but there are plenty of more practical boxers. There are also many other bikes that are more comfy at low speed.
But the Rninet Racer makes no apology for that. It has been built to be quick and, more importantly, to look cool. If you like its style, can match its commitment and cope with its ergonomics, it’s fun to ride and less hassle than commissioning a builder to make you a sporty boxer special (let alone building your own). Whatever took BMW so long?