this is the new bmw r18 classic it's the second of the r18s and the obvious difference between
this and the first r18 as it has the pannier bags and the screen but maybe not so obvious it has
two extra lights on the light bar at the front it has a 16 inch wheel instead of the 19 inch wheel
but it's got fatter tires on this so the overall diameter is about the same just four millimeters
less actually um also you've got the round section exhaust pipes on this the pillion seat and pegs
come as standard and cruise control comes as standard now the r18 classic has a seat height
of 710 millimeters and my height is six foot one there abouts and this bike feels very very roomy
indeed so if you are larger than that six foot five even six foot six and above you'd still be
perfectly fine on this bike i don't think it needs forward controls a lot of people do but
that's purely personal preference because you can still be tall and ride it with these mid controls
it doesn't really matter but if you really really insist on forward controls then that's really
personal preference now the riding position on the r18 is very nice you have the center mounted pegs
there's tons of reach here i'm six foot two and i think the riding position is very comfortable
and i've been riding around all the time and i haven't felt in the least bit uncomfortable
i haven't had backache i haven't had leg aches so i like the riding position on this
you can get optional highway pegs which means you can ride with your feet above the cylinders
like that and i've demonstrated that just by resting my feet on there in some of the
shots personally i wouldn't bother because i think the riding position is perfectly fine
now we'll put some footage in of someone who's five foot ten sitting on the bike just so you
can get the perspective of someone who's a little bit shorter i know it's not a massive
height difference but it is a little bit shorter and it might relate to a few more of you
now the most noticeable feature about the r18 is this enormous boxer engine they call it the big
boxer and it produces 158 newton meters of torque at 3000 rpm but it never drops below 150 newton
meters between 2000 and 4000 rpm and that talk is enormous and it pulls you along like nothing else
it's got so much low end grunt that you ride this bike between 2000 and 3500 rpm most of the time
and you only really need to go above that in rpm to overtake and what have you and it produces 91
horsepower but it's all about the torque and bikes like this are fabulous to ride because
the torque is just incredible and if you've never ridden a talkie bike like this you won't know what
i'm talking about you have to experience it to understand it now it's got a 16 litre pair drop
fuel tank which looks fabulous and they say it will burn 5.6 liters per 100 kilometers
and you'll get 180 miles of range out of it which is pretty good now riding along
normally just exploring the world you can ride this engine at low rpm and just burble along
it's a lovely bike to ride if you do open it up it has staggering amounts of torque and
acceleration so you can get shifting pretty fast on this bike we actually did a naught to 60 on it
and we did it in 4.95 seconds and the official figures are 4.9 seconds
and that wasn't really trying very hard and that's with me a big fat bloke on top of it
so if you really try you probably could easily do the official figures but it's not about nought
to 60 times it's not about top speed it's all about the experience and the character
and this bike has character like no other motorcycle on the planet
now the bmw r18 has so much character there's really nothing like it on the planet when
you start it up it does this little sort of movement to the left if you sustain the revs
it's dead straight and then if you shut off it kind of moves to the right
and when it's on tick over it does this little shake and it reminds me very much of sitting on a
horse in the yard before you've gone anywhere the thing's moving about like that and you can feel
the muscles tensing and this motorcycle is like sitting on a living creature it's just fantastic
now you've got 120 millimeters of travel on the front suspension and 90 millimeters travel on the
rear that combined with the fat front tyre that you get on the iot classic means that
the it handles the bumps slightly better than the normal r18 but it's possibly fractionally
less sharp than the standard r18 but you probably wouldn't notice that at all you'd have to really
really be looking for it to notice any difference now the r18 has three modes and dare i say it
i like the modes on this bike you've got rock and roll and rain how cool is that in rain mode it's
more subdued you have less throttle response more traction control and what have you
and it's a very good rain mode and it doesn't let you sort of open it up too easily roll is the sort
of mid-range everyday riding mode and that's nice and you can open it up and get all the torque and
all the power but in rock it's the rock star it's it's very very fast and very responsive and it's
very nice to ride and as we've said many times i still think it's best to get used to the bike
and ride most of the time in the most responsive mode because it's better to come back on yourself
when the road conditions are poor then get used to it in the mid-range mode and then
when you go into your sport mode or whatever you call it on whatever bike it is then you can
get caught out by that sudden acceleration because the throttle is more responsive so
that's what i would recommend but yeah i actually like the modes on this bike
now the thing i like most about the bmw r18 is its dimensions it's got a very long wheelbase one of
the longest wheel based motorbikes in the world at 1731mm the rake is 32.7 degrees and the trail 150
millimeters and all those measurements combined give you a very stable ride yet it's good in the
corners as well it's not a sharp turning bike like some of the more sporty bikes
but some of those more sporty bikes so like riding a squirrel that's been stung by a wasp
and they kind of turn like that with this when you sort of do a slalom it feels very secure
and very short footed and i like bikes that handle either
now the lovely thing about the bmw r18 classic is you've got the touring capacity with this
bike you've got the bags at the back which we'll go into detail in a minute and you've
got your screen which keeps the wind off of you it still allows a certain amount of wind
on you especially on your helmet so keep your helmet ventilated which is a good thing to have
and for long rides and i've been on some long rides it's very comfortable and not
for a second have i found it a difficult bike to be on for a long uh long period of time
and you've got enough luggage capacity here to take some spare clothes a pair of spare shoes and
what have you enough for a sort of weekend away and it's a motorcycle it's not a car so you're
not going to fill up the panniers with two weeks worth of stuff but it's more than adequate for
touring around and exploring the beautiful world that we live in now the r18 classic weighs 365
kilograms that's a wet weight so with all your fuel and your lubricants in it
and although that sounds like a lot on paper in the real world with the center of gravity
that this bike has it doesn't feel like it's that heavy when you're going along and because
of the reverse gear that's fitted to this particular model and the rating original
you don't notice it while maneuvering which you do with a lot of other bikes so it's not actually
that heavy in practice now there's two options on this bike that i would say are well worth having
and this has got them one is hill hold control and that means obviously if you're on a hill
it won't roll back the other is reverse now i'll show you it's fantastic let's start it up
now down on the left there's a little lever which can turn then you see our
on the display and all you need to do is just use the starter motor button there to reverse and
that is so much easier than having to manhandle the bike around and i would
say now after experiencing that i wouldn't want to ride any other heavy motorcycle without it
the panniers have a 15.5 liter capacity and there's also a little liner that's in there as
well which kind of you can pop out and you could take it out and use it as a bag that's got a 10
litre capacity so if you want more luggage you'd want to take them out but it could make it easy if
you've got your luggage in that liner you just pop the liner out and carry it around with you
saves you bringing a bag and they've also made it really easy to take the panniers off and they've
included two bolts inside there to cover up the holes that will be left from when you take it off
now on the r18 you've got double disc brakes at the front and a single at the rear obviously and
you've got these beautiful chromed brake calipers they look really nice the front
lever operates both brakes and there's a sensor that distinguishes how much braking
force goes to the front or the rear and the rear foot pedal operates just the back brake
one thing i would say about the brakes you do need to give quite a good strong squeeze to the front
lever to get the maximum braking force out of the bike now some other great features about the r18
classic it's got automatic stability control it's got engine drag torque control and they've made
it really easy to change the height of the bus so if you want to get higher bars or lower bars
and because of the way that the brake and clutch cables connect it's really easy
to change those and this bike also comes with a three year warranty which is great
now just looking at the bmw r18 i mean it's just like mechanical art on wheels it really is
very beautiful it's like looking at jessica simpson
in the dukes of hazard it's just something you just can't take your eyes off i mean it really is
beautiful i might actually my wife can be watching this i better not say that can we cut that out
now on the subject of jigsaw hazard this bike has the same essence as the 1969 dodge charger it's
got that lovely lopi engine it gives you the same thrill the same low down grunt and the effortless
pulling of torque that's what this bike is all about and it's not like a ferrari or a porsche
or a lamborghini it's like one of those old muscle cars it gives you that pure muscle and grunt but
it's not all about speed and power now at motorway speeds you don't notice any particular vibration
which is good yet bmw do use the phrase good vibrations with this bike and the characteristic
you get with the boxer engine is a sort of bit of a movement and it does this little sort of shake
tick over particularly and that's one of the nice characters about this bike that it does now if you
like the r 18 and you think which one do i want the normal routine or the r18 classic it's really
up to what look you prefer we personally would go for the normal ro team because it's slightly more
minimalist and we don't really need the touring capacity but if you do want the panniers so you
can take some luggage with you do a little bit of touring this would be the option to go for you've
also got the screen which is obviously going to give you a little bit of wind protection
which is nice on a little bit of a longer journey now the engine on the r18 and the r18 classic
is really a work of art it looks like it's come out of an old aeroplane from the war or something
and it's also driven by an open drive shaft which also is a work of art it looks really nice
now one thing this doesn't have is a fuel gauge so it only comes on with a little warning light when
you reach the reserve capacity which is one gallon and then you get a countdown telling you how many
miles you've gone into that reserve capacity and obviously it does about 45 to 49 miles
per gallon depending on how you're riding so you know you've got about that amount of range left
but it would be nicer with a fuel gauge now i really do like the display on this
motorcycle i mean it's so beautiful just the right size it's beautifully chromed and it fits in with
the character of the bike you've got an analog speedometer and you've got your digital display
of your revs and the gear in it's nice and big it's easy to read and you can scroll through
on the left handlebar to the various things that tells you miles per gallon and what have you
we are currently on 45 miles per gallon i've had it up to 49 but we're doing some
acceleration tests and what have you um so it's very beautiful and very easy to see
now the r18 classic is very long and it's very low the ground clearance isn't a massive problem it
gets over speed bumps and normal road obstacles very well so it's not really an issue there
now you may have noticed that we haven't made any comparisons in this video between
other manufacturers and other models the reason for that is that next week we're
doing a side-by-side comparison between the r18 classic and the harley-davidson heritage classic
we'll also mention some other models that are easy to compare with this bike in that video next week
the bmw r18 classic there are faster bikes there are sharper turning bikes
and there are bikes with more luggage capacity but that's missing the point there are very few
bikes on the planet with this much soul and this much character and as bmw themselves say it's soul
fuel and that means it's fuel for your very soul now if you want to support our channel make sure
you like the video leave your comments down below what you think of the rit classic and make sure
you subscribe we've got plenty more amazing videos coming this year and also check out our t-shirts
they're in the link below there's a carousel as well so make sure you have a look at that
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