Hello,
I recently sold my 835 pound 2018 Honda Gold Wing Touring in favor of the nimble 505 pound R1200RT, and I am new to the forum. If you live near the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, drop me a line some day. After the first week of owing the R1200RT, here's my initial wish list I will gradually start on...
Add the Nautilus compact air horn (safety)
Add the 28" tall Aeroflow windshield to suit my 6'4" height (Comfort)
Add 2" handlebar risers (Comfort)
Russell Day Long front and rear touring seat (Comfort)
Add the front and rear crash ilium bars and highway pegs (Safety)
Add the Shad SH59X rear trunk (Comfort & Convenience)
Add the Admore high output premium LED tail light (Safety)
Add pannier reflector sticker kit (Safety)
Add Cree 35w/3500 lumens driving lights (Safety)
Add breaklight flashers (Safety)
Add headlight modulator (Safety)
Add a cup holder to the handlebars (Convenience)
Add an electrical distribution CAN Bus (Convenience)
Add a handlebar RAM mount (Convenience)
Add SW Motech Evo tank bag (Convenience)
Acquire trunk and pannier bag liners (Convenience)
Add kickstand food pad enlarger (Safety/Convenience)
Acquire the service DVDs (Maintenance)
Did I miss anything important?
The only complaint I currently have about the R1200RT that I cannot address with an upgrade is the dark instrumentation/gauge display.
Also first time BMW owner,Been on Harleys since the 60`s.Only have 800 miles on the Beemer I like it.Its a 2015 1200RT,Only thing is the stock seat It sucks.First thing I will replace.
DV817 wrote:
Hello,
I recently sold my 835 pound 2018 Honda Gold Wing Touring in favor of the nimble 505 pound R1200RT, and I am new to the forum. If you live near the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, drop me a line some day. After the first week of owing the R1200RT, here's my initial wish list I will gradually start on...
Add the Nautilus compact air horn (safety)
Add the 28" tall Aeroflow windshield to suit my 6'4" height (Comfort)
Add 2" handlebar risers (Comfort)
Russell Day Long front and rear touring seat (Comfort)
Add the front and rear crash ilium bars and highway pegs (Safety)
Add the Shad SH59X rear trunk (Comfort & Convenience)
Add the Admore high output premium LED tail light (Safety)
Add pannier reflector sticker kit (Safety)
Add Cree 35w/3500 lumens driving lights (Safety)
Add breaklight flashers (Safety)
Add headlight modulator (Safety)
Add a cup holder to the handlebars (Convenience)
Add an electrical distribution CAN Bus (Convenience)
Add a handlebar RAM mount (Convenience)
Add SW Motech Evo tank bag (Convenience)
Acquire trunk and pannier bag liners (Convenience)
Add kickstand food pad enlarger (Safety/Convenience)
Acquire the service DVDs (Maintenance)
Did I miss anything important?
The only complaint I currently have about the R1200RT that I cannot address with an upgrade is the dark instrumentation/gauge display.
Just my .$.02 worth...
1. Look at Skene Designs for their P3 LED lighting systems for auxiliary brake lights and especially their front visibility systems...as a modulating headlight on an RT will usually throw error codes.
2. Another thing to look into is the Hex ezCAN...it can control an air horn, aux modulating brake lights and can flash your driving lights on a horn blast and/or flash-to-pass.
Don't bother with the Aeroflow windscreen, get the Works Quiet Ride screen. Highly recommended.
An aftermarket seat would be way up there on my list. Doesn't really matter if it is a Sargent, Corbin, RDL or whatever, but they are all way better than the stock item.
PS, I have never heard, ever, of anyone complaining of a dim instrument display. I can't fault it.
Last edited by bandytales on Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
I had a friend with a hexhead that complained he couldn’t see the screen when he went out and rode... I looked at his bike and it appeared just fine.
Then I noticed he was wearing sunglasses so I said “loan me your sunglasses for a second”...
Don’t know where he got those sunglasses, but the polarization on those lenses pretty much made the screen unviewable. A different set of sunglasses solved this problem.
DV817 wrote:
The only complaint I currently have about the R1200RT that I cannot address with an upgrade is the dark instrumentation/gauge display.
The instrument panel tilt can be adjusted. If it's an issue with polarized sunglasses changing the angle might solve your problem. If I tilt my head just right while wearing my glasses, the screen gets very dark.
Littlebriar wrote:
If it's an issue with polarized sunglasses changing the angle might solve your problem.
But, there is the issue. for driving and operating machinery, polarised glasses are just plain dangerous. Some things become invisible (or certainly less clear)!
Personally I wouldn't rush to make those changes. I have made extensive changes to various bikes over the years, but so far my RT has remained absolutely stock. This is because I haven't identified any major shortcomings (yet)!
Yep the RT is a great bike. Not really a fan of chucking every gizmo and farkle I can find at the bike though, I bought the bike because it does what I want. Here's my short list of what has been added:
Werks quiet ride screen (excellent)
Front fender extender
Headlight protector
Louder horn (Steibel - the small one because you may find the larger compressor type from Stiebel and Denali foul the brake hose. Mine did, but clearly it is not a universal issue)
Big foot on the side stand
Clear film protector on the tank and panniers
Wunderlich cockpit bag.
Satnav lock that works off the central locking
Just added these piece by piece as I felt they were necessary.
