First Ride: BMW R1100S Boxer Cup Replica

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I remember watching a round of the BMW BoxerCup on TV a few years ago when it was a support race for the GP. It was by far the best racing of the day. The sight of around 30 huge flat-twin Beemers nose to tail for the whole 25 lap race with grinding cylinder heads and insane do-or-die late braking that only comes from having identical machinery easily eclipsed Rossi buggering off and winning the GP by a country mile.

Now in its fifth season, the BoxerCup has proved a clever marketing tool for BMW because despite its car side of things having strong ties with racing, their bikes are more linked to touring. With the racing attracting big names such as Randy Mamola, Kevin Schwantz and our own legend Gus Scott it has gone someway into giving BMW some credibility on track. And now BMW has decided to cash in on the racing with this replica.

Now the BoxerCup replica ain't going to radically change sportsbike rider's perception of Beemers overnight but it's actually a pretty capable track bike and a very good road one.

Lining up in the fast group of the trackday waiting to go out on track I was a bit unsure on how the BMW would get on. I mean alongside there were Ducatis on slicks, race prepped CBRs, GSX-R1000s...and me on a road going BMW with a natty paint job and the signature of a former GP rider on the side. Well one thing was for sure, if I could get ahead then it would be a brave rider to try and squeeze past the huge BMW with its cylinder heads sticking out either side taking up half the track.

The first few warm-up laps confirmed one thing, the Beemer is a big bike. Racers are all jockey size so during the BoxerCup they make the bikes look big anyway but at even six-foot plus I had more than enough room on the Sport. The bars are wide and set quite high in more of a touring position than a race-rep's low-slung clip-ons and the pegs are positioned for comfort.

Tyres warmed and with the pace upped slightly the Beemer started to get into its stride, and I started to get out of breath. BMW quote the weights for their bikes including a full tank of fuel and all the oil etc. in the engine, unlike the Japanese who quote dry weights with helium in the tyres, so you can probably take around 20kg off the 229kg quote weight of the Sport as a fair comparison. But either way that's still a large amount of metal to throw around a track, and it feels it.

It takes a fair amount of effort to get the Sport to change direction and after eight laps my fitness regime of beer, takeaways and TV was starting to tell. The large bars help with leverage to turn the bike but most of the effort goes through your legs as you force the peg down to drop the Sport into the corner.