These patent drawings of the all-new BMW S1000RR superbike expected to be revealed at the EICMA show on November 6 indicate a complete, ground-up overhaul of the flagship BMW machine. Gone are the asymmetrical headlamps, for example, but the bigger news is that the entire engine and frame have been redesigned.
Expect some groundbreaking features in the new S1000RR, particularly with regard to electronics and power output (for a stock superbike). Perhaps, it will even include a counter-rotating crank to reduce inertia and improve handling. We will see.
In the meantime, Kawasaki star and former WSB champ Tom Sykes has been signed to the Shaun Muir Racing squad for next year to pilot one of the new BMW superbikes in WSB. It is understood that BMW will back this effort similar to a full factory team with the BMW corporation pushing hard for success in the WSB series. Sykes’ teammate will be Markus Reiterberger, current European Superstock 1000 champ. Stay tuned for coverage of all the bikes launched at EICMA beginning November 6.
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Great to see Sykes get a credible ride! He has fought hard and kept going despite being second fiddle to Rea.
Where is BMW’s presence in MotoGP?
I’d take tech upgrades over a bodywork/paint change any day. I like to ride fast on the track and curvy backroads. Upgraded electronics allow me to be fast and SAFE. Screw a new paint job. Thanks to all of the manufacturers who value performance over looks. Looks are for parking lot pimps.
Electronics aside, the fact that sportsbike evolution has sowed to a crawl must be affecting sales.
If we think back to the 1980s, a 3-year old litre bike was easily outclassed by newer stuff.
Today? Much, much less so. A five (even ten) year old ‘blade/R1 etc. will provide 95% of the capability and at 40% of the cost. spend some money on tyre (tire) and suspension overhaul and you’re pretty much there.
You are talking about spec sheets. Most people can’t keep up with a well ridden 40 year old motorcycle no matter what they are riding.
OK. It is a black pile of parts with a muffler/resonater/catalitic converter thing hanging down with a one position seat and a fairing sticking out beyond the front axel. So what’s new ?
Oh oh, I forgot the SCARY head lights.
Let’s hope the new S1000R takes the HP4 Race and turns it into a street bike. The weight of an Yamaha R3 with 200bhp!!! If you have sat on the HP4 Race and just tossed it from side to side it feels like its made out of unobtainium. It certainly was priced that way.
You can dream all you want, but BMW cannot make the new S1000R anything like the HP4 – it’s a cost thing. Light weight means premium materials which cost a lot of money.
Good for Sykes. I hope BMW is as serious about throwing down as the article makes them out to be. Kawasaki and Rea need some competition.
Agreed. A serious BMW effort and well-sorted V4 Duc would be welcome additions to the Johnny Rea show.
+1 to you both. BMW and Ducati have a reasonable chance of putting together competitive bikes, however whether there are competitive riders remains to be seen.
I’m glad this exists and that I can imagine riding it, but it’s just too much bike… I’d rather take the 636 over this and have a bike I could wring out every once in while.
BMW is smart. The are going to try to take the low(er) hanging fruit than MotoGP. The series could use it.
New Beemer, New V4 Ducati. Maybe Rea won’t sweep every race weekend next year.
Hmm, okay but Yamaha’s R1 sounds like nothing else and ol’ Yamaha consistently has the best styling among the Big Four. I’d go R1 for a liter bike.
lovely bike…. All the super sport bikes are meant for the track…..hard to justify on the street. But track days are a blast, so more power to them.
Jim B
What I find a bit annoying, is that liter bikes are really only ideal on big tracks. They’re too powerful, hence tall geared, even for “the track,” on tracks much tighter than WSB/MotoGP ones.
Yet people keep buying them in droves. While the infinitely superior, for almost anything this side of WSB, 600s (and even 750) are rarely considered anymore. And the track king of them all, the Daytona, looks like it’s no longer even going to be made….
I’ve never agreed with the opinion of the 600s being more suited to most tracks. I’ve spent a fair amount of time on both displacements at tracks, and I’ve never ridden a track where I felt a 600 offered any advantage, other than being easier to manage.
It does take more effort to get the 1000s turned, I think due more to the inertia of the internals than weight, and they can be pretty scary when it is time to get on the gas again (my perspective coming from the days before electronics.) They’ll carry the same corner speed as the 600’s if you want, and ridden in that manner like a 600, the gearing may indeed feel a bit off. The turns are shaped differently for liter bikes though, and I find everything falls into place once you stop trying to ride them like you would a 600.
For observation, the big bikes go faster up Pikes Peak, and that run is pretty much just a long go-kart track.
The big bikes, given enough talent and effort, go faster pretty much everywhere. But so does a 911 turbo vs a manual transmission Cayman. Or, for that matter, a Miata, 86 or FiST. While Southwest 737 goes faster than any of them….
If you could outrun yourself on a contemporary 600, on a pre-electronics liter, on tight tracks, you are in a very small minority. Unless either Texans are more talented than Californians, or “everything is big in Texas” applies to what is considered a tight track as well…
The latest liters are faster for most. But only because it doesn’t take many outings to start trusting the electronics enough to just whack it at the apex, and pick a brake marker and just trust the bike to manage braking and blip downshifts on the way in. Turn all that off, and going into a turn or section tight enough to recommend 1st on a liter bike, and you’re well, well above average talented to manage it faster on a liter than a 600. Even on today’s better tires.
But why would anyone turn of the electronics they have paid for just to go slower….? I just don’t think it is entirely coincidental that interest in sport bikes have fallen off a cliff, during the same period that they have morphed into semiautomatic amusement park rides, from the analog and mechanical contraptions they used to be. The fact that you can go a bit faster, without scaring yourself witless doing so, by having ever more of what used to be part of the riding experience taken over by computers, just doesn’t, at least for me, engender any longer term interest in keeping at it. It’s fun the first few times, in a “Wowwww! Amusement park!” ride kind of way. But once that wears off, so does pretty much the entire experience.
Well said sir.
Well, of course Texans are more talented than Californians… That goes without saying! 🙂
I doubt I have have enough skill to get into a small minority of even average track day riders. As far as the tracks go, maybe I don’t know what a tight track really is. I’ve never ridden on a kart track or anything like that. But I have ridden quite a few tracks on account of having moved around a good bit.
Your point is well taken though. My track days are behind me now, and my passion is tight single track enduro stuff. I am definitely faster with smaller engines than the 450-500cc beasts.
Maybe Sykes will give BMW some good results, like Melandri did back in 2011(?) but overall I don’t expect the bike will be a podium finisher in the first year. Kawasaki should have helped Sykes run AMA Superbike in the US … we need some green on the grid here.
I agree. I wish that would have happened. Been a long time since Eric Bostrom put the Kawi on the podium consistently. Those were the good old days.
If chasing aerodynamics, yes they all end up looking much the same eventually. Wonder what the excuse for cruiser couches all looking the same is?
I wonder too.
Not an excuse, but a reason. Because the cruiser style still remains popular, but then I suspect you already knew that.
Really? You “wonder what the excuse for cruiser couches all looking the same is?”…Silly manlet. Harley-Davidson style sells and so the “cruisers” copy it. FFS, quit being so predictably lame.
As for this bike? Nice but not needed anywhere on the streets. Few, if any, can use this much on public roadways and fewer still will ever take one to the track.
Some of you “think” this bike will make your dick bigger when in reality all it will do is make you a bigger dick. FTN.
Typists.
“Some of you “think” this bike will make your dick bigger when in reality all it will do is make you a bigger dick.”
As opposed to the typical Harley owner?
GTFOH.
😉 🙂
Never said the same wasn’t true for riders of other marques and never would. We all know people that behave as though the motor makes the man. FTN.
What I do is write and write (relatively 😉 ) well. Your pull quote of my words is an excellent example of my style of writing.
Most here can barely bang a few keys and make even a modicum of sense while doing so. Thanks for the smile. Your words were well put. 🙂
You sir, are very adroit at blowing smoke up your own dress.
It’s not a matter of need but want. These days a lot of folks like to pretend who they aren’t. Just step up and buy a persona, whether it’s Ricky Rocket, Hard Rock Café Squid or Bad to the Bone Pirate all dressed in black. My costume tends to be Adventure man, where I take off for 10 days, ride away from any weather, tent it and get home stinking like the arse of a bear. Now that’s living!
Buzz Lightyear and George Jetson will love this machine. The concept looks nice and it’ll be fun to see how Beemer does next year.
Adroit at stinking like the arse of a bear. Now that’s skill worth having.
I do believe I am gifted, as do others here but I’m certainly only in the olfactory sense.
Looks pretty much like every other squidmobile out there. If you’re into the techno stuff it might be interesting, but otherwise zzzzzzzzzzzz.
It looks like the fairings (nacelle?) are moving glacierly forward to cover the front wheel. Kind of like they did in the fifties. Throw some active winglets on it and it cold be very interesting.
“Dustbin” fairings were pretty unique during the day but Dorna/Moto GP has put their nose up in the air and made them illegal. I’d like to see them make a comeback.
They were banned because they were dangerous in sidewinds at the top speeds of the day. Now with top speeds 80mph faster they would be deadly.
There must be some kind of electronic doodad that can overcome a little breeze.
From Day One, BMW has been absolutely relentless with the S1000RR. They seem utterly determined to keep that bike at the top of the performance heap, and good on ’em.
Really glad they finally ditched those stupid asymmetrical headlights, which always looked like some old German dude wearing a monocle, raising an eyebrow.
Their race effort stalled out there for a while but I’m glad to hear they’re coming back. It’ll be hard to catch up with KRT’s and Ducati’s current level of development.
I haven’t been paying attention, have Ducati started running the V4 Panigale yet?
It is a reasonable suspicion that BMW decided that the outgoing S-RR would never be competitive in WSB and decided to cut their losses and spend the money on other endeavors.
New motor, new frame and suspension, time to go racing and see what they have.
Looks like a Panigale had sex with a Triumph 675 and gave birth to a bouncing baby Beemer…
WesC +1
Not a bad set of genes if you ask me. I just wish more manufacturers would incorporate the exhaust in the styling similar to the Brutale 800, Panigale, Multistrada, etc.