BMW R1200RT/R1250RT Forum

I have a 2017 water cooled 1200RT.
I have always manually adjusted my suspension settings on previous bikes

With regards the suspension settings on the RT does the rider mode - one helmet, one helmet plus luggage etc only alter the preload or does it also adjust the damping and rebound.
Assuming that for the rider mode (one helmet etc) the only difference is the weight does anyone know what weight is used by BMW for a one helmet, one helmet plus luggage etc
Riding the RT to the edge of the tyres with it set to one helmet plus luggage and on hard setting it feels as though the front has a little understeer which I would normally correct by hardening the damping, is there any way of doing this on the RT?
Batlax BT023 tyres with 39/44 psi

jackstraw wrote:Assuming that for the rider mode (one helmet etc) the only difference is the weight does anyone know what weight is used by BMW for a one helmet, one helmet plus luggage etc.

I've just remembered that some time ago, I sent this e-mail to BMW Customer Services:-

"The ESA has 3 load status settings, One-up, One-up with luggage and Two-up (with luggage),  are there any recommended weight guidelines for these settings?

There are two sets of tyre pressures quoted, One-up and Two-up and/or with luggage, again, are there any recommended weight guidelines for the different tyre pressures?"

Had a phone call back from BMW Customer Services, their weight guidelines are based on a rider or pillion being between 8st. and 13st., using an average of 11st.

They suggested following the guidelines set out in the handbook based on the above weights.

(At the same time, a friend had a Kawasaki GTR 1400, the factory suspension settings are for a 150 lb (10 st 10 lb) rider.)

However, this still does not answer the question why some bikes only have one set of tyre pressures for all loadings & others have two.

jackstraw wrote:Batlax BT023 tyres with 39/44 psi.

The BMW recommended tyres are Metzeler Z8 or Michelin PR4GT, with pressures of 36/42 psi.

jackstraw wrote:With regards the suspension settings on the RT does the rider mode - one helmet, one helmet plus luggage etc. only alter the preload or does it also adjust the damping and rebound.

It only alters the preload (weight),  the damping is set in soft, normal or hard irrespective of the load on the bike.