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HOT SHOTS
Gonna miss that girl
I enjoyed the review on the BMW K1600GTL (CW, July). Once again, they’ve teased me by producing a touring bike with great handling, light weight, wonderful tech, great wind protection and fatally flawed in the most basic characteristic of a touring bike: luggage space. The bike has barely 75 percent of the space of a Honda Gold Wing GL1800 and is, in my book, sadly inadequate for two people on a long tour. I’ve been here before: In 2001,1 dearly wanted to replace my Kawasaki Concours with a K1200LT touring bike for all the same reasons. Just for grins, we tried to pack rainsuits, tools and emergency supplies on both the BMW and GL1800. What took one saddlebag on the GL took almost two on the K12! So, do I buy the K1600GTL, get a divorce and only date poor women with few clothes, or do I keep maintaining my 2001 GL1800? Please write, my spouse says my life depends on your answer.
Rick Hansen Silver Spring, Maryland
Ifyour spouse says your life depends on our answer, we go with A: new women with few clothes.
What's the deal(er)?
Just finished reading Editor Hoyer’s riding impression of the new 2012 BMW GTL. Outside of the gear whine, driveline lash and numb passenger fingers (from the grabrail), sounds like a fine machine, indeed. I am in the market for a luxo-tourer, but, for now, I have no interest at all in placing it on my short list. Why? I searched for BMW dealers and there are none in my home state of Kansas. Zero.
I have thoroughly enjoyed my ’97 Harley-Davidson Heritage Springer.
I have over 87,000 miles on it, been to Sturgis 1.3 times, all 48 states (with sign pictures) and it still runs perfectly without any engine repairs. And during the last 14 years, I have enjoyed an H-D dealer network wherever my travels led.
I want speed, performance, a large gas tank, premium sound system, comfort and a dealer network to back up my warranty for my $27,500 out-the-door price. I do not want to “make it to a dealer,” I want to “arrive at the dealer.”
I will pay for the 18,000-mile valve adjustments that H-Ds do not require and the other extra adjustments that come with a high-performance machine.
BMW, I love your new competitive pricing and products, but, if you want to sell 100,000-plus bikes a year, I would recommend more dealers, with at least one per state. It’s not only more convenient for local warranty/service work to have an extra dealer choice but for extra peace of mind while I am touring stateto-state.
Wayne Kozak Posted on forums.cycleworld.com
Sei we're sorry
In Kevin Cameron's sidebar ("All Zeros," June) that ran with the report on the BMW K1600GTL, he states that the 1978 Honda CBX was the world's first production six-cylinder motorcycle engine. I guess my 1976 Benelli 750 Sei was a figment of my imagination, then.
Jim McGarrigle Olean, New York
Glad to see that Kevin Cameron is hu man after all! He knows so much about motorcycles, it was surprising to see him give credit to Honda for "the first production inline six-cylinder engine" in 1978, per your June issue. He got the CBX and KZ1300 right, but poor Alessandro DeTomaso must be turning
over in his grave to have been forgot ten! He left Peron's Argentina in the late `60s, emigrated to Italy, where he bought Benelli and took on the UJM inline-four cylinders with the stunning 750 Sei, in 1974.
Vincent Ciotti Santa Fe, New Mexico
Extreme disappointment bordering on outrage
I am writing to express my extreme disappointment, bordering on outrage, at your items about the profits of HarleyDavidson and Polaris Industries, and the compensation of their CEOs (Ups and Downs, June). Your items implicitly endorsed the notion that the sole indicators of the vibrancy of a company are its shortterm stock price and the compensation of its CEO. The idea that those indicators are in the long-term best interest of the company, its investors, its customers and society in general is, to put it mildly, controversial (remember Enron, anyone?).
The items show a glaring misunderstanding of economics and math. One item praises H-D CEO Keith Wandell for “not letting layoffs or possible plant closures prevent HOG stock from boosting back above $40 per share.” Anyone who has watched the financial news with any regularity knows that layoffs and plant closings often boost a stock’s price because investors see those as cost-cutting measures that will ensure profitability.
Similarly, in the item complaining about Polaris CEO Scott W. Wine being “short-sheeted,” the article notes that Polaris’ stock price went from $52 to $83 (an increase of 60 percent) while Wine’s pay went from $1.95 million to “only” $3.62 million (an increase of 80 percent). Even if we accept the notion that CEOs should be rewarded for boosts in short-term stock prices, Wine was clearly more than adequately compensated for Polaris’ performance.
By all means, praise motorcycle companies for making a profit producing motorcycles. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have motorcycles to ride. But please do so in an intelligent and non-ideological way.
Eric Stepans Honolulu, Hawaii
I noticed myself less amused the last issue. I always know I am reading a John Burns article by the number of times I laugh out loud. Get that man to work!
Donan Klooz Mobile, Alabama
Well, we tried to have Burns do Ups and Downs and you see how that turned out...
WR too far
I usually end up shaking my head after reading articles where someone with apparently more money than brains spends large amounts of it trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Or in the case of the WR250R, a dual-sport bike out of a tank. This bike is but one of the latest pigs the Japanese have been marketing as dual-sports for decades. I’m a believer that lighter is better, and the terms “300 pounds” and “dirtbike” are mutually exclusive to me. But since these barges keep selling, I must be in a small minority.
I’m fairly familiar with the weights of motorcycle components and find it unbelievable that this bike weighs 70 pounds more than its YZ250F brother! It leads me to think that Japanese designers must lay awake at night devising new ways to add weight to their products. For less than you spent, you could have the Husqvama TE250 or even the TE310, both of which weigh over 30 pounds less. There’s no reasonable amount of money that would lighten the Yamaha by that much. And they also have the speedo driven off the “proper” wheel, allowing for no-problem gearing changes. Alas, the Huskys are not without issue. The entire TE line has the most moronic transmission ratios offered for bikes marketed as “on/off road.” Maybe these issues are why KTM’s EXC line sells so well!
Dave Petrizze Phelan, California
Spyder Man
After over 45 years of riding motorcycles, for the first time there isn’t a single one in my garage. Now, sitting on that hallowed ground are two Can-Am Spyders, mine, the Touring RT SE5, and next to it, my bride’s sporty RS in brilliant Ferrari red. How did this happen?
My ability to ride most bikes became very limited 25 years ago with the loss of a leg in a work accident (not motorcycle-related). While I was able to modify some bikes to enable shifting, the lack of bend in my fake leg limited the style of bike I could ride; gone were sportbikes and off-road bikes. A 2000 VL1500 Suzuki Intruder ended the need to jury-rig shifting and peg location. Great bike, and a decent-handling machine even in the canyoncarving Mecca of Southern Oregon. A little over a year ago, my wife commented
that perhaps we should look into a three-wheeler, since it was becoming more difficult for me to balance the bike at intersections and so on, and she really didn’t like riding in the old Bingham sidecar on the CB750. We checked out some conversions for my aging Suzuki and some new trikes at the Harley dealer. But I remembered seeing a picture of a Spyder in Cycle World, and so we went online to check them out.
We bought the RT SE5 13 months ago, and it will turn over 18K miles this week. The wife started riding the RT around in parking lots, passed her test and bought the little red roadster.
Very little of this mileage is on straight roads—just look at a map of Southern Oregon/Northern California. While the Spyders are not motorcycles, the wind in your face and the fun-factor experience are there big-time. They don’t lean like a bike, but they turn like a cutting horse on steroids; you best hold on. And when the road gets wet, or the sand from the snowplows is still there, you are on a machine that has an outstanding safety factor. Did I mention fun?
Vaughn and Cathy Slavin Grants Pass, Oregon
Rat Packer, Hoy?
Why is it that the photos that accompany the columns by Peter Egan and Kevin Cameron look like a couple of crusty old geezers, while the photo of Mark Hoyer looks like a young Dean Martin? Me being firmly in the crusty-old-geezer camp, this really irritates me.
R. Campbell Submitted via www.cycleworld.com
The Photoshop department knows who signs the checks. Please don `t tell Hoyer that's not really him.
