BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

Postscript


I thought I'd add a postscript to this, for people who might come across this thread in the future.


My last post saw me pretty convinced that the problem was me. Then I had a huge moment. I'd been out for a few hours in the mountains and the bike was fine. Then on the way back it suddenly starts feeling like the road had been greased - a feeling of low front end grip. The road was newly surfaced, so I figure it might be a bit weird for some reason and take it easy. I come to a town I know well, with normal roads and the bike feels no better. Its like I'm riding on sheet ice but I can see I am not. Mopeds whizz by. I am overtaken by a truck. I give myself a talking to and speed up. At the first roundabout I come to (at normal traffic speed, keeping up with the cars all around me) I pitch it in, track round and pitch it out with a tad of gas and the front lets go completely. The bike just topples over at around 30MPH. It does not go down though, I end up in another lane and get it straight but it was the worst experience I've had that did not end in a crash. There was no bump on the corner, the road surface was clean and grippy.


I ride home shaken vowing never to ride it again. I sold it to my dealer (it did not seem right to sell it to an individual). That ride to the dealer was not fun at all, with the bike screaming "ICE! MUD!" at me the whole way. Shudder.


I have bought a new Ducati Multistrada 1200S. I was worried that the problem might carry over to the new bike (it could, if the problem is my head) but it did not. The Ducati is a light steering bike with wide handlebars that exaggerate any rider input, but its totally fine. There is a great secure feeling of front end grip. Well, at least once I'd done a few miles on the brand new tyres. So I feel that something really was wrong with the BMW.


So in summary, a bike that felt stable and confidence inspiring for 6,000 miles in all weathers gets a service, a new set of same-again tyres, has its rear suspension fiddled with and then is parked up for a week at Exeter airport. After this it becomes a death trap: unpleasant to ride and prone to randomly falling over in slow speed corners. Yuk.


What can I learn from this very expensive experience? Maybe don't leave your bike parked at an airport? I don't know. I have ended up deciding never to buy a bike with a front suspension design that I don't understand ever again. The Ducati has a stone age set up of two metal poles connecting the handlebars to the front wheel. Low tech yes, but at least I understand it and can fault find on it. The BMW system, with its flexible bits and levers was too much for my brain to figure out.

Rols wrote: Postscript
I thought I'd add a postscript to this, for people who might come across this thread in the future.
My last post saw me pretty convinced that the problem was me. Then I had a huge moment. I'd been out for a few hours in the mountains and the bike was fine. Then on the way back it suddenly starts feeling like the road had been greased - a feeling of low front end grip. The road was newly surfaced, so I figure it might be a bit weird for some reason and take it easy. I come to a town I know well, with normal roads and the bike feels no better. Its like I'm riding on sheet ice but I can see I am not. Mopeds whizz by. I am overtaken by a truck. I give myself a talking to and speed up. At the first roundabout I come to (at normal traffic speed, keeping up with the cars all around me) I pitch it in, track round and pitch it out with a tad of gas and the front lets go completely. The bike just topples over at around 30MPH. It does not go down though, I end up in another lane and get it straight but it was the worst experience I've had that did not end in a crash. There was no bump on the corner, the road surface was clean and grippy.
I ride home shaken vowing never to ride it again. I sold it to my dealer (it did not seem right to sell it to an individual). That ride to the dealer was not fun at all, with the bike screaming "ICE! MUD!" at me the whole way. Shudder.
I have bought a new Ducati Multistrada 1200S. I was worried that the problem might carry over to the new bike (it could, if the problem is my head) but it did not. The Ducati is a light steering bike with wide handlebars that exaggerate any rider input, but its totally fine. There is a great secure feeling of front end grip. Well, at least once I'd done a few miles on the brand new tyres. So I feel that something really was wrong with the BMW.
So in summary, a bike that felt stable and confidence inspiring for 6,000 miles in all weathers gets a service, a new set of same-again tyres, has its rear suspension fiddled with and then is parked up for a week at Exeter airport. After this it becomes a death trap: unpleasant to ride and prone to randomly falling over in slow speed corners. Yuk.
What can I learn from this very expensive experience? Maybe don't leave your bike parked at an airport? I don't know. I have ended up deciding never to buy a bike with a front suspension design that I don't understand ever again. The Ducati has a stone age set up of two metal poles connecting the handlebars to the front wheel. Low tech yes, but at least I understand it and can fault find on it. The BMW system, with its flexible bits and levers was too much for my brain to figure out.

Let's start with the positives - you're unhurt, the BMW never actually fell over and you were able to trade it for another bike which gets rave reviews.
It's still a bit of a worry that a bike which should have been great to ride was able to scare you the way it did. I know you did what you could to fix first the bike then yourself, trying to cure the problem but ultimately without success. I suspect that, in the same situation, I would have done what you have done, but I know I would wonder forever what the problem had been. Will we ever find out what the real problem was ??
Please don't give up on the forum - you may get the answer from someone on here one day (or we will if the Ducati suddenly develops the same symptoms ! :wonder:).
Good luck in the future.

It would appear you never took the bike to a dealer for their advice or tried changing the front tyre. One hopes you told the dealer you sold it to that in your opinion it had a potential leathal flaw.

Oh jeez, I feel I should set the record straight...


To cut a long story short, turns out that all of my problems were in my head. Nothing to do with the bike. Everything to do with me.


Sorry for wasting everyone's time.


The longer version is this:


After a thousand miles or so on the Ducati, and watching loads of YouTube videos about how bikes steer, and trying things out myself, I eventually figured out what I was doing wrong.


This is (now) my mental model for how a bike steers: Speed and corner tightness determine how much the bike/rider need to lean over to track round a bend. For a certain angle of lean there is a corresponding headstock angle (the amount the handlebars are turned - and they don't move much). You can do really tight slow speed turns with your hands off the bars, just by shifting your weight around to lean the bike. Bikes are perfectly happy to do tight turns without you holding the bars, which will turn just the right amount. At slow speed you steer with body weight. At high speed the self-centring forces of the front wheel are too strong to be affected much by you moving your weight about (I've tried, only slow changes of direction are possible). So at high speed (I mean faster than a jog) you seem to have to use a different technique to make the bike lean over: counter steering. When you steer (say) right with the bars, the bike (pretty violently) falls over to the left, i.e. leans hard to the left - we all seem to learn unconsciously that to lean the bike over one way we (gently) push the bars the other, and the magic of bike's geometry quickly overwhelms our feeble pushing and sets the headstock angle to suit the amount of lean - we then lightly hang on and let the bike track round the bend.


The above piffle sets the scene for what I was doing.


I'd had an experience of the front end washing out in a torrential downpour, while riding on a flooded road. I probably just hit a manhole cover, or there was some groove in the road; the sort of thing that happens to us regularly.  But for some no good reason, instead of thinking "that'll teach you for not being able to see the road surface", my brain builds a narrative of "there is something wrong with your bike, it happened at the service, the front tyre is f**ked, this is dangerous, it will fall over, shattering thousands of pounds of german plastic". So once this thought has lodged in my bonce, I loose trust in my front wheel, and when I get into a similar circumstance (slow speed corner), I tense up, trying almost to hold the bike up, braced for the slide. I now think that this tensing up might stop the handlebars turning as far as they want, i.e. I was effectively counter steering which would make the bike fall into the corner, and keep falling until I let go. This scared me witless, making me more tense at the next corner - I get myself into a viscous circle of thought: stupid idea cause bike to feel unstable, which is scary, which reinforces the stupid idea.


As proof, I find I can deliberately make the Ducati feel like the BMW by adopting a death grip on the (very wide) bars in slow corners. 


I would rather forget the whole incident but felt I should fess up and record my dumbness here in the hope that maybe I might help someone in the future. I am still amazed that I, someone who has ridden all his life, including on the track, could do this to himself. Maybe senility is beckoning.


Go well.

You have my sympathy, I remember having a rear wheel puncture on a 1987 K100RT even after it was fixed I often felt that it was happening again, TPMS has cured all that. Sometimes the feel of the bike just straddling a tar over-banding on the road can instil a feeling of insecurity for a while. I always tell myself that modern tyres are very grippy even in the wet as evidenced by heavy braking on a wet road rarely invokes the ABS. enjoy your biking.

You are not alone in this.

After switching to the RT from a GS I was finding the bike incredibly unstable in bends. Similar to how you describe, I was finding it falling towards the inside of the curve, most especially noticeable on tight roundabouts. It took me some hard self-analysis before I worked out what was going on. With the RT having more top-hamper - and especially after dropping it in a car-park not long after I picked it up - I had suffered from a crisis of confidence in the ability of bike and rider to safely corner. As a result what I was doing was backing off on the throttle just at the point where I was counter-steering to lean the bike into the curve. What I was experiencing was the natural result of leaning the bike over and reducing power at the same time.

Having realised this it then took a conscious effort to set the throttle and tell myself that the bike WAS going to go around the bend before I tipped into the curve. No surprise the bike was immediately stable and very quickly my confidence in bike and rider is returning.

So don't beat yourself up. We live, and we learn, and that's the important thing.

Rols wrote: Oh jeez, I feel I should set the record straight .... I would rather forget the whole incident but felt I should fess up and record my dumbness here in the hope that maybe I might help someone in the future. I am still amazed that I, someone who has ridden all his life, including on the track, could do this to himself .....

Many thanks for having the courage to "fess up". Lots of people could benefit from your story, and of course it's great on a forum for riders of the R1200RT to know that the fault wasn't with the bike (or the Michelin tyres).
Enjoy the Ducati and who knows - we might see you back on a BMW in years to come. ^-^

gogs01 wrote: Many thanks for having the courage to "fess up".

+1 

Before ordering my RT, exactly 1 year ago now, I tried a few different bikes - (although I never did get a chance to try an FJR  ).
One of the bikes I tried was a 2nd hand Trophy - unfortunately this bike wasn't new and needed new tyres, but it also had the exact same problem described.  I had to fight the steering at every corner, it felt like it was going to fall into every turn and I didn't enjoy the ride at all.  I put it down to tyre wear, suspension, damaged forks and/or slightly flat tyres. We all know how different your own bike feels after getting new tyres - so I put it down to that.  I Know it wasn't me as I've owned several different bikes over the years (I don't understand why some people stick to the same bike for decades!). 


Needless to say I didn't order a new Trophy!! Who knows, if they had sent me out on a newer demo model it may have been different . . . probably not, because the clocks and display seemed very old fashioned compared to the RT  :D . 

Masq85 wrote: Before ordering my RT, exactly 1 year ago now, I tried a few different bikes - (although I never did get a chance to try an FJR  ).
One of the bikes I tried was a 2nd hand Trophy - unfortunately this bike wasn't new and needed new tyres, but it also had the exact same problem described.  I had to fight the steering at every corner, it felt like it was going to fall into every turn and I didn't enjoy the ride at all.  I put it down to tyre wear, suspension, damaged forks and/or slightly flat tyres. We all know how different your own bike feels after getting new tyres - so I put it down to that.  I Know it wasn't me as I've owned several different bikes over the years (I don't understand why some people stick to the same bike for decades!). 


Needless to say I didn't order a new Trophy!! Who knows, if they had sent me out on a newer demo model it may have been different . . . probably not, because the clocks and display seemed very old fashioned compared to the RT  :D .

My brother has a 2015 Trophy, and I have a 2016 RT.  Huge difference between the 2 bikes, most notably the trophy weighs about 150lb more, and the weight is very high up in the frame.  The trophy is smooth as glass going in a straight line, but makes me very nervous in the turns.

Just in case you build up the confidence, watch this for watt you can do with an RT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KRP0VknbBo

Ganesh wrote: Just in case you build up the confidence, watch this for watt you can do with an RT.

Or this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RP0hTig-Xs


RT on a track, overtaking everything, then it rains, but the pegs kept scrapping, and the traction light kept flickering. Ack.

blokeonthemove wrote: They call it 'target fixation' in the trade, we have all suffered it at some time, get your vision up to where you want to be, in the distance and you and the bike will get there. I'm told that one should first  check way ahead then a glance for any surface hazards but return to the distant point as you take the bend. Just over a year ago I saw a guy in front of me drive into a recessed gutter because he was looking at it, it reminded me to bring my vision up.

Great advise - when swinging a sledge while a buddy holds the iron - never, never look at his hand. Ask me how I know, or better yet, ask my buddy.

Glad someone opened this up again.  I've noticed a few times that I get a mild version of this 'falling bike' feeling, but then realised it only happens when I'm really tired.  Like riding home from the National Road Rally having ridden all night.  So my conclusion was that it was my tired brain lagging behind the physics of the bike. FWIW, just another view.