Weighty matters
Dear Mikko, reading your November edition I was struck just how often you and your contributors mention excess weight. Stuart Barker notes the weight of the panniers on his Kawasaki Versys 1000 GT; Chris Moss notes that his Yamaha T700 is too heavy for serious offroading. And I think your apparent joy at riding the BMW F750GS (227kg) after living with an R1250RT (279kg) for some time sums up what many of us (a lot older than you) have now found: lighter is better for most of the time. And yet big bikes have got heavier. The BMW R100RT was only 238kg; the 1250RT is 40kg more!
Richard Taylor
Hi Richard, bike weight is a curious thing. It seems that in all categories apart from racing machines, higher weight is now accepted as the norm. I appreciate that some of it is because the emissions regulations demand bigger and heavier catalytic converters, etc., and as bikes get faster they need stronger (and often heavier) components. There are also much more electronics on the bikes, which adds weight. I wonder how light a modern bike would be if all the ‘extras’ apart from emissions-related equipment was stripped off? Anyways, it’s a lovely feeling to jump on a lighter bike after riding a big heavy one for a while, and it makes you realise what a big difference there is. Of course, for touring great distances the weight is not as much of a hindrance as when you are just popping to the shops, but I can’t remember ever riding a bike and thinking, ‘Ooh, this is nice, but I bet it would be even better if it was 40kg heavier’.
Mikko Nieminen