BMW CEO Markus Flasch teases new R20 big-bore cruiser
A picture shared by BMW CEO Markus Flasch shows a line of the brand's new R20, which looks pretty much production-ready.
Since its launch in 2020, the BMW R18 has been something of a blot on BMW’s copybook. Sales of the handsome retro cruiser have been slow at best, and not even a string of wild customs or the touring-focused Transcontinental sibling could reverse the bike’s fortunes.
BMW doesn’t appear ready to give up on the idea, though. A new image shared by BMW CEO Markus Flasch shows him standing alongside a fleet of incoming R20 models.
It’s worth remembering that BMW hasn’t always had the smoothest ride when it comes to the cruiser and custom scene. Prior to the R18, the R1200 C was the brand’s last serious crack at the sector, and not even James Bond sliding one down a high street in Tomorrow Never Dies was enough to make it a hit. With that in mind, it’s a bold move for BMW to have another go at the genre, although from the image posted by Flasch, it looks to be approaching things very differently this time around.
Where the R18 and R1200 C leaned heavily into a classical, almost cartoonish cruiser aesthetic, the R20 looks far more purposeful. In the accompanying post, Flasch even references the Yamaha MT-01, saying: “Yamaha at the time had the guts to put a fat cruiser engine into a sporty chassis.” That raises the question of whether the R20 could finally be the bike that takes BMW into the cruiser market through the performance-cruiser niche.
Very little is known about the bike’s hard specs at this stage, although the images show sporty, road-focused tyres wrapped around what appear to be 17-inch wheels. Some details from last year’s concept remain, including the exposed shaft drive, aggressive riding position and single-seat setup, although BMW seems to have swapped the vast megaphone exhaust for something a little more production-friendly.
If this really is the final stage of testing for the R20, we could get our first full look at the bike, and its spec sheet, at EICMA in Milan this November.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
