Traded In Two, Bought One New

[dhgeyer]

In my seemingly never ending search for the perfect motorcycle, I have reconfigured. Today I traded in my 2006 Kawasaki Concours and my 1996 BMW R850R for a brand new BMW R1200R. BMW has a promotion going. Buy the bike, and they'll throw in the hardbags, which are luggage like, easily removable, quite large, and of course lockable. They would have added another $1,000.00 to the cost of the bike. In addition, BMW knocked $800.00 off the top. I decided it was time for a change.

I used part of the $800.00 to put a big windshield on it. It doesn't really lack anything else I want. It has ABS, and all sorts of electronic farkles built in. It is fed by closed loop FI with a catalytic converter for emission control, which will help decrease all this global warming we're (not) having. The engine is counterbalanced. The suspension is the excellent telelever front, and paralever single sided swingarm/driveshaft rear.
It has a six speed transmission, over a hundred ponies, and will do a tested 125 mph, which it will never see, or even close to it while I own it.

I test rode one last Summer, and I must say it has the smoothest engine and throttle response of any bike I ever rode. And it's white. I always wanted a white BMW boxer ever since a good friend from my high school days had one.

Anyway, this should keep me happy for at least 3 years. I'll have to keep it at least until the warranty runs out or my wife will kill me.

We're having the second snowstorm in 3 days here, so there's no possibility of riding for a while. The dealer is coming by tomorrow with a box truck to deliver the new bike and pick up my trade-ins.

So, now I'm down to two, much to the joy of my wife. I kept the GZ250, of course. I'm having way too much fun with that to part with it any time soon, and so is my daughter.

In the Spring, after some get acquainted rides and the initial service, I plan to do a coast-to-coast on the new Beemer. I recently was given a Blackberry, which I have equipped with a text editor and an FTP client. I also got a few micro SD cards and an adapter, so I can take pictures with my D80 (I'll have to leave the D300 home), edit/resize them in the camera, and get them onto the Blackberry. This means that I can do a live blog with pictures as I travel, without the need for a computer. It'll be a fun trip and project. I can also keep up with this forum with the Blackberry, as it has a decent web browser.