My 2011 K1600gt
Discussion
I got this on the weekend after looking for a touring bike for the longer trips I've been making and potentially taking a pillion too. I like long rides but my current bikes, an RSV4 and svartpilen 701 aren't the best for that, although it's not unfeasible by any means. Also a lack of luggage is annoying for when you want to divest yourself of all your bike stuff at your destination.
I was originally looking at 90s goldwings because I think they're cool af but I had always told myself when I started biking that I'd only have bikes with ABS and even though the plan is to enjoy slower rides I still think any safety net should be taken so having been to see a cheaper goldwing but not being able to go commit to it I got looking at k1600s and saw a few on eBay for cheaper than I'd thought they were, around the £4-4.5k mark. I liked the idea of a straight 6 bike. And compared to the gold wing you get a good amount of tech on the bike. Adding one to my Swinton multibike policy would be £40 (£30 admin fee) was another plus.
One of the cheaper ones on eBay got relisted with a make offer so I put one in and the guy accepted and I was off to Liverpool on the train. The bikes got full service history, pretty new tyres and 9 months MOT and was generally in pretty good condition so paperwork done it was time to get on, I was pretty nervous at this point as it's by far the heaviest bike I've ridden. But I wobbled off ok although the first ride getting used to it took me back to learning to ride because at junctions and low speed turns you're just thinking about the weight and not dropping it. It came with the OEM sat nav which I wasn't expecting and it's nice to have it all integrated in the dash and it seems to work pretty well for whats a 13 year old system. I had a few hours before heading back so put Formby in the sat nav and headed for the beach. Leaving all my gear in the bike was so nice and after exploring the dunes and having my first 99 of the year it was time to head back.
I filled up the tank and got on the motorway. With the screen at its highest position the wind is calm enough for visor up and its quite quiet but you still get buffering on your whole body which doesn't seems to change much with speed so it's not quite the oasis of calm you might imagine. The stereo is usable at a cruise but the engine seems quite busy in 6th at 80 doing about 3800 rpm. Did the whole 3 hour journey without a stop and it was pretty comfortable, a 50mph average bit of roadworks was perfectly timed to have a stand up to stretch the legs. A lane closure on the M6 meant I got try some filtering and having brushed the panniers earlier in the day I was very cautious even though the bike should fit if the mirrors do, not being able to see the panniers is going to take some getting used to I reckon. Getting home it was nice to not feel like relatively fresh. I got 230 miles before filling up again and managed 45 mpg which I was pretty impressed with.
I took it out for a little bit of town riding to see how I got on with it even though I don't imagine using it much for that but going to the supermarket and filling all the luggage with groceries was strangely satisfying. It's not as bad in urban environments as I thought it would be. You can filter for pretty well for the majority of the time its just that last 20% where you have to be a bit cautious. I came back via the b roads and again it was better than I expected. I like that you can leave it in 3rd or 4th if you want and it pulls cleanly from under 1000rpm. The engine is nice and smooth and has good torque but it's never in your face, it feels quick rather than fast to me but I've had a few moments where the speedo has surprised me. It sounds good but I'd prefer it if it was louder. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it so far especially for the price, I didn't buy it thinking it'll be the best bike ever but I think it will fill a niche that I can take advantage of. Looking forward to some proper long trips on it in the summer and seeing how it goes.
That’s really very nice. I really like big old bikes (probably because im tall and heavy which makes me look like a clown on anything normal size). I loved my pan European 1100 and r110rt but these bikes really caught my eye. One day I’ll have one of these and maybe sooner than I thought as I didn’t realise the prices had dropped so. Congrats.
Enjoy, I really fancy one of those to replace my RT but I just don’t have the riding time to justify it.BMW do big bikes really well but the K16 has never been a big seller, possibly because the GS / RT line do everything so incredibly well.
Hope you get some great riding out of it and keep the updates coming.
Hope you get some great riding out of it and keep the updates coming.
I was on a boys bike tour a few years ago . One of the chaps had one of these and I have to admit as he got onto the Eurotunnel train with me behind him, I did think that's not the bike for where we were heading.
I was totally wrong, he was a good rider, better than me, and it was really hard to keep up with him in the twisting roads of Germany and Luxembourg. I was on a Multistrada 1200.
He could get sparks from the centre stand on every bend if he chose to , albeit it's does not have huge ground clearance .
If I remember correctly, it had a reverse gear for manoeuvring.
I was totally wrong, he was a good rider, better than me, and it was really hard to keep up with him in the twisting roads of Germany and Luxembourg. I was on a Multistrada 1200.
He could get sparks from the centre stand on every bend if he chose to , albeit it's does not have huge ground clearance .
If I remember correctly, it had a reverse gear for manoeuvring.
I did my first big trip on the k1600gt last week, London to lands end and back in 2 days. I had been having a few local trips on it to the shops and back road blasts and my feelings were it was more sports than tourer. As I got more used to it I was liking it more. I had a visit to bahnstormer to get a spare key made up for it and they had a k1600b in the showroom which was fitted with the foot boards. Sitting on it felt great, having never ridden a bike with them before. One of the things I was most disappointed with on the ride back from buying it was the lack of legroom on the standard pegs and the lack of space to adjust your legs or stretch out because of the small storage cubby holes either side in the lower fairing. A bit of googling revealed you can fit the floorboards if you remove those cubbyholes but using OEM parts is quite expensive. People have fitted highway pegs to their engine bars and I thought I'd take that approach. I ordered some heed bars from Poland and some footboards from AliExpress for much less than the oem conversion would be. I fitted it before heading to lands end, it wasn't too difficult but it looks kind of untidy with the missing trim pieces but that doesn't bother me. With them removed you can see more of the engine too which I think makes it look less old man so that's a bonus. I had a test ride to see ground clearance and bottomed out the footbards before the pegs but it was still at a pretty good lean angle and I think I can adjust them better but it was good enough for now.
I filled the bike with all my swimming gear overnight bag walking boots etc and set off early and straight in to rain. One big downside I've discovered is in rain the screen doesn't clear itself of water drops very well and neither does your helmet because there's not enough wind on it making visibility horrible at times, I'll have to treat the screen with rain x or similar. Discovering this on a crawling M25 trying to filter wasn't the best start to the trip but it stopped by the M3 and then traffic was light and I could test out the foot boards properly. I'd go so far as to say they've transformed the bike. Whereas before it felt like any other bike wrt to foot pegs, if not worse because of the lack of space to stretch out now you have options when your legs are getting tired or cramping and that also relieves your bum too. This is what a touring bike should be like. So I did the first 225 miles to filling up with one little stop for a coffee then carried on and felt fine when I got to my first destination at the eden project, where it was so nice to be able to take off all my bike gear and leave it in the bike. From there I went to Truro then Newquay then the next day I went from there to st Ives then on the b3306 which is a great windy road along the coast through tiny villages to lands end. The bike surprised me on it, it was genuinely fun and handled it really well. I've got used to the size of the bike now and you can throw it around much more than you'd think. And you can rev out the engine and enjoy the soundtrack. I even threw in some u turns to stop at some of the mines and was walking it backwards when faced with a camper van on smaller lanes. From lands end I went looking for some scheduled ancient monuments which of course sent me down some classic Cornish tiny roads but it's not as daunting as you might think. If they were on gradients I might be more circumspect as the early model k1600s don't have reverse so you're on your own when it comes to going backwards. I had a detour through Mousehole then headed back up the a30 where they're doing dual carriageway works. This was the worst part of the trip for the bike as the traffic was bad for about 5 miles of standstill/crawling on single carriageway double white lines with poor visibility for lots of it. On a smaller bike I'd be fine with filtering when everything was stationary but because there were few gaps between cars and I couldn't see what was coming I didn't want to be a roadblock and had to exercise a lot of caution. I still made much more progress than a car would have but a smaller bike would have been away and gone. The rest of the journey from Cornwall was pretty much traffic free and I could leave the bike in cruise control at 4k revs for what seemed like hours at a time, and it felt like it could do it all day. The footboards again came in to their own just eliminating the need to actually stop the bike to stretch your legs. I did nearly 700 miles over the two days and it's nice to know it handles it with ease and I'm looking forward to more big days on it in the summer.
I filled the bike with all my swimming gear overnight bag walking boots etc and set off early and straight in to rain. One big downside I've discovered is in rain the screen doesn't clear itself of water drops very well and neither does your helmet because there's not enough wind on it making visibility horrible at times, I'll have to treat the screen with rain x or similar. Discovering this on a crawling M25 trying to filter wasn't the best start to the trip but it stopped by the M3 and then traffic was light and I could test out the foot boards properly. I'd go so far as to say they've transformed the bike. Whereas before it felt like any other bike wrt to foot pegs, if not worse because of the lack of space to stretch out now you have options when your legs are getting tired or cramping and that also relieves your bum too. This is what a touring bike should be like. So I did the first 225 miles to filling up with one little stop for a coffee then carried on and felt fine when I got to my first destination at the eden project, where it was so nice to be able to take off all my bike gear and leave it in the bike. From there I went to Truro then Newquay then the next day I went from there to st Ives then on the b3306 which is a great windy road along the coast through tiny villages to lands end. The bike surprised me on it, it was genuinely fun and handled it really well. I've got used to the size of the bike now and you can throw it around much more than you'd think. And you can rev out the engine and enjoy the soundtrack. I even threw in some u turns to stop at some of the mines and was walking it backwards when faced with a camper van on smaller lanes. From lands end I went looking for some scheduled ancient monuments which of course sent me down some classic Cornish tiny roads but it's not as daunting as you might think. If they were on gradients I might be more circumspect as the early model k1600s don't have reverse so you're on your own when it comes to going backwards. I had a detour through Mousehole then headed back up the a30 where they're doing dual carriageway works. This was the worst part of the trip for the bike as the traffic was bad for about 5 miles of standstill/crawling on single carriageway double white lines with poor visibility for lots of it. On a smaller bike I'd be fine with filtering when everything was stationary but because there were few gaps between cars and I couldn't see what was coming I didn't want to be a roadblock and had to exercise a lot of caution. I still made much more progress than a car would have but a smaller bike would have been away and gone. The rest of the journey from Cornwall was pretty much traffic free and I could leave the bike in cruise control at 4k revs for what seemed like hours at a time, and it felt like it could do it all day. The footboards again came in to their own just eliminating the need to actually stop the bike to stretch your legs. I did nearly 700 miles over the two days and it's nice to know it handles it with ease and I'm looking forward to more big days on it in the summer.
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