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Define the term ‘sportsbike’ if you can. Conventional wisdom would have it that a sportsbike has a full fairing, 17” wheels and loads of horsepower just like the bikes seen in MotoGP and World Superbikes. But hold on a minute – they’re race bikes aren’t they? Not sportsbikes. As an industry, we’ve become so programmed to categorise bikes into convenient little subdivisions that nobody now looks beyond the bleeding obvious.
Sportsbike: GSX-R, CBR, etc. Naked (a dreadful term we’ve struck from our vocabulary here at TWO): Bandit, Hornet and so on. Then there’s Retro, Cruiser and Adventure. Nice, neat pigeonholing so that the press (us) can tread down some well-walked path when it comes to reviewing and testing new motorcycles. But look at the specifications of pretty much any bike these days other than a scooter or a learner machine and you’ll see that any one of them could classify as a sportsbike. They all weigh around the 200kg mark, they all make around the 100bhp figure, and they all go like stink. Compared to even a moderately fast car, even unassuming motorcycles are rocket ships. After all, a Honda Deauville will do 0-60mph in under 5 seconds, goes round corners pretty well and will top 130mph on a good day.
So let’s stand back for a minute and look at the bigger picture. Surely a sportsbike is something which is exiting to ride, has eye-catching design, plenty of power and good handling, and it makes you feel good about yourself after a fast ride. It should also stand out from the crowd and make an obvious statement about the person who’s riding it. The superbike mob have virtually popularized themselves off the face off Britain’s roads by now. You see so many R1s, ZX-Rs and the rest on the roads today that you don’t even notice them anymore. The brain just filters them out. Scores of identical machines, each separated only by a few bhp and the name on the fuel tank, being ridden timidly and apologetically by 45 year-old men who really should know better. But what about something truly different, what about bold, sporty bikes that aren’t afraid to break the mould with aggressive styling and have their own way of delivering punchy performance to a discerning rider? Well now you’re talking.
BMW’s magnificent GS1200 Adventure and KTM’s 950SM are just two such bikes. Unique, ground-breaking and stunning to look at, they’ve thumbed their noses at conventional wisdom and are both busy forging their own path. They’re very different to each other but tick precisely the same boxes along the way, and in doing so are quite possibly the two best sportsbikes available to buy right now. It’s a bold statement, so let me explain.
The BMW is rapidly becoming a modern legend. Unquestionably the best bike BMW build right now (and quite possibly have ever built) it combines killer looks with effortless performance and has a host of technical cleverness built in for good measure. In a modern world of riding where 100 miles is often the maximum range, the GS surges onwards for a genuine 300 miles between fill-ups, meaning you don’t have to plan your ride around fuel stops. The battleship grey and silver colour scheme works in perfect unison with the metal-work (yes, metal!) for the alloy panniers and screen surround, and the whole bike has an air of squat menace and muscle about it that the Japanese simply cannot touch. The first Adventures were unofficially dubbed Schnell Panzers by the factory, and it’s a moniker that sticks. It’s a beast of a bike.
They’ve dumped a load of weight off the GS – well over 16kgs – and the Adventure feels alert and responsive to ride in a way that older models just don’t. Until now I’ve never been a huge fan of BMW’s bikes, to be honest. I’ve always felt you had to compromise too much to accommodate the fact that it was ‘German’ or ‘alternative’. I still find one of the cylinders gets in the way when it comes to putting your foot down at the lights, and why they continue to insist on using three switches for their indicator system when the rest of the known universe makes do very effectively with one is still a total mystery, but other than that there simply isn’t anything wrong with this bike. It is, frankly, a masterpiece, refined over the years into a bike which is far more than the sum of its parts and so much more sporty – truly sporty – and individual than the rest of the herd that it’s well ahead of the game.
So I posed a question in the office the other day: is riding a motorbike on the road a sport? The answers were varied, but the resounding outcome seemed to be a ‘yes’. So I looked in the Oxford dictionary, which said that a ‘sport’ is “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another.” Riding a bike fast on the road certainly requires skill, but so long as you’re not actually racing your mate down a given stretch of A-road, it isn’t technically a sport. So why should a Jap bike with a crazy paintjob, full fairing and 170bhp be any more or less a sportsbike than me blasting comfortably along on my BMW Adventure? And besides, I’m having more fun than the guy hunched up on his ZYX1000 wishing he was doing 130mph through the last set of bends but lacking the bravery or gumption to do so. The Oxford dons also speak of “pleasure derived from an activity” as sporting, and the BMW gives you plenty of that. Did you ride your bike into work this morning? If you did, you’ll know it’s pretty cold now and the Goretex kit is in full swing. On my Adventure, however, I just click my heated handlebar grips up to position 3 and carry on into the headwind, toasty warm. It’s amazing how the speed and aggression of your riding is affected by your temperature. Can’t feel your fingers? Just want to go home. Tingling with heat? Let’s carry on and push further and faster. Allied to the proper tank range, hot hands are another unsung hero of sports riding as this country drops into winter.
Then there’s the handling of the GS. Initially it’s not to everyone’s taste, but that’s to be expected. What look like conventional forks up front aren’t at all, but a pair of sliding prongs connecting the front wheel to a spring shock. It’s BMW’s controversial suspension addition to nearly all their big bikes, and they’ve stuck to their guns regardless of what people say. It does make the front tyre feel vague until you get to know how the system reacts, but separating the suspension and steering means that you can (in theory) brake later and harder into corners. Theory be damned, the bottom line is that you can properly hustle on a GS Adventure. The wide handlebars, commanding ride position and heavily-damped suspension mean you can put the bike fairly precisely where you want it, and even when you think you might have gotten a bit too cocky and plunged into a corner way too hot, keep your cool and the chances are the GS will just lug you around no trouble at all. It does take a while to get used to how the bike feels if you’re used to Japanese chassis, but the BMW has an air of uncrashability about it that is (most of the time) completely true.
The feel of the rear end is dominated by the heavy shock spring and the almighty shaft drive swingarm. Apart from that slightly weird torque reaction when you blip it at a standstill and the way the rear tyre hops when you throw in a handful of downchanges in one go, it’s a very refined system and you barely notice its there. There’s so much lowdown grunt from the Boxer motor that the Adventure hauls ass off the line, often with the front wheel in the air if you want it to be and without any cocking itself towards ditches as it does so. “Shafties don’t wheelie,” they like to say on visordown.com. Er, whatever lads. The Adventure reminds me of a GT sports car from the days when GT really used to mean something, combining looks and power with long-distance riding range and a polished air of finesse. It’s got fog lights and even manages to make panniers look great, for God’s sake. This bike is so cool it makes all other road users look like wankers in comparison.
The KTM950SM is simply one of the best motorbikes ever made, sports or otherwise. It’s biking pared down to it’s simplest form, the closest equivalent of running an up-scaled motocross bike on the road. KTM have taken everything they’ve learned from building World Championship off-roaders and applied it to the 950SM. The result is an electrifying motorcycle that just looks right sat there on the sidestand. Acres of orange plastic, styling angles that were performed with a chainsaw: this isn’t a bike built for covert surveillance work. The front mudguard sticks out like Judge Dredd’s chin, the broad radiator shrouds meld straight into the long seat, and the front brake set-up is a work of art. If looks could kill this bike would be breaking hearts all around the world.
Pull the choke lever (yes, it’s got carbs) and thumb the 950 into life. It’s grumpy and rough when cold, just like a real engine should be. Even with road-legal silencing the KTM is gruff and surprisingly loud from its twin underseat exhausts, and very quickly you can feel the sheer amount of urgency lurking under your throttle hand. There’s no half-measures or concern about riders of limited ability on this bike, it’s an expert’s tool, wonderfully brutal, and it’s up to you to learn how to use it properly. First gear – wheelies. Everywhere. Second gear – more of the same. Third gear – indecent amounts of speed from the by-now roaring V-twin engine. There’s no tacho (motocrossers don’t have them so neither does the SM) no problem. As the engine note changes from a roar to a snarl and then finally to a high-pitched shriek, slip in the next gear and on you go. It’s very easy to bump into the rev-limiter simply because the KTM’s motor revs so fast, and it’s quite intoxicating.
Many bikes have got truly great frames or great engines, but far fewer have both and even less are as brilliantly executed as this. The Japanese simply wouldn’t have the balls to even consider making a bike like the SM, but KTM just went ahead and did it. The spirit of the company is stamped all over the way the 950 feels to ride. I attended the world launch three years ago, and after a demented day’s riding during which I had a very serious race on deserted European roads with one of the test riders, that evening we got stuck into some serious drinking with the KTM heads of department. The following morning at 9.30am we were climbing onto the coach back to the airport nursing sore heads, but the most senior KTM man there was still drinking, still knocking back Heinekens and he hadn’t stopped all night. Shockingly pissed and stinking like an animal, he roared at us “I love you guys!” as we departed. I laughed all the way back to the airport. What a bloody legend. If that’s what their managers are like, no wonder their bikes are so outrageous.
Like the BMW, the SM is a great deal more than the sum of its parts. How can a bike that weighs 190kg on paper feel like something half that weight? The rider is plugged into the chassis and can feel everything the bike is doing beneath him, and it doesn’t matter how fast you just took your favourite set of bends, you know you could turn round and do them again quicker. KTM run radical geometry on their bikes and the SM is no exception, the steering is incredibly swift and the bars are always gently moving in your hands, especially under hard acceleration. Waggle waggle waggle. You sit right over the front tyre in traditional supermoto fashion, pushing the front into the ground so there’s plenty of grip while the rear is free to spin up and break away for those perfect broadside corners. If you’re a riding god, that is. For the rest of us mortals, the 950SM merely provides an exhilarating ride that lets you push your skills to the absolute limit on roads where any sensible person would be taking it easy or catching a bus home, thank you very much. It’s no word of a lie that this is the bike pretty much everyone who’s riding a Japanese superbike should really be on, if only they had the courage to make the swap. The SM will actually teach you how to ride a motorcycle properly. You’ll learn more about counter-steer, late breaking and lean angle in a single weekend on an SM than you would in a whole summer of riding a superbike.
And yet for all this delicious madness, the SM is a doddle to live with for the other 50% of the time when you can’t be bothered taking on the world. TWO’s Art Editor Barry just took one all the way to Scotland and back and didn’t pull a single wheelie (he doesn’t know how) nor get into any trouble with the law or kill any kids. He did burn a litre of oil and bring the chain back dragging on the floor – you’ve got to look after these bikes – but the KTM is surprisingly easy to live with day-to-day, very comfortable over long distances, and even the fuel range isn’t too shabby with 120 miles do-able to a tank if you ride like a granny. The long, firm suspension that makes the SM so damned rapid and forgiving in corners also keeps your bum remarkably isolated from discomfort, and the brakes are razor sharp. One finger is all you need to haul you down from any speed, neatly balancing ferocious power with poise. If you ever needed proof of the argument that having good brakes actually make a bike quicker, then it’s right here.
Both the KTM and BMW occupy an ethereal motorcycling place that very few bikes reach. Many bikes aspire to be as unique or as involving as either of these two, and nearly all of them fail. When it comes to tackling the ‘sport’ of motorcycling, the Adventure and 950 have ploughed their own furrow and in doing so have become two of the most exciting bikes on the market today. Neither of them are new and there’s very little point trying to explain it to those that refuse to hear it by now – you’ll either get these bikes or you won’t. It is, after all, as simple as getting yourself down to a dealer and booking in a test-ride if you think I’m talking a load of bollocks. Most people come back from the first ride on one of these with a bemused look, “blimey, that was weird!” they’ll say. Because it’s not the norm, neither of these bikes represent the status quo. If you really want a bike that feels normal the very first time you ride it and doesn’t feel any different six months later, stick with what you’ve got. But if you want to grow as a sports rider, get on one of these.
SPECS:
KTM 950SM
Price: £7,983
Engine: 942cc, liquid-cooled, DOHC, 8-valve v-twin
Power: 98bhp@8,000rpm
Torque: 70ft/lb@6,500rpm
Weight: 191kg
Seat height: 865mm
web info: www.ktm.co.uk
BMW R1200GS Adventure
Price: £10,633
Engine: 1,170cc, air-cooled, OHC, 8-valve inline four
Power: 99bhp@7,000rpm
Torque: 84ft/lb@5,500rpm
Weight: 223kg
Seat height: 910mm
web info: www.vinesofguildfordbmw.co.uk
