Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

BMW believes its new F 900 XR is more than a super commuter. Challenge accepted – we took the high road and put it to the touring test.

- Peter Frost

My morning commute is, as AA Gill might have said, as predictable as a cheese sandwich. Trevor in his M3 – I know this from his personalised number plate – not happy until his organs are jostling for space inside him, is lane hopping and usually ends up back where he started. The Renault Megane incubus, in a puffer jacket, has a rictus grin as he checks in every morning for his traffic jam Zoom meeting. The Fortuner tailgater tribe, reliving the weekend’s Cederberg obstacle heroics. The hands-free make-up artist in an Audi Q2, the counterpoint khakis in 30-year-old bakkies held together with hope and desperation. But most predictable of all is the peloton of BMW F 800s that crawl carefully past me, a tightknit, button-down platoon, 6:15 am alarms synchronised so they all appear at the R26 traffic light together. These Five-GoAdventuring types are always in spotless dayglo all-weathers, headed to a brace of sit-ups at the gym, a low-sodium packed lunch dug out of their Thule backpacks and the rigours of a cost-benefit analysis report ahead, due Friday.

For these Everymen did BMW make the biking equivalent of a spagbol – the absolutely predictable, entirely familiar family of adventure commuters known as the F-series. These paralleltwins helped the maker sell more than 180 000 bikes in 2019. But even as the dad bikes were flying out the showroom, BMW Motorrad CEO Markus Schramm was hinting that the sector needed something of a hot curry to wake it up. That kick turned out to be 2020’s F 900 R and XR. Spagbol in the hands of Gordon Ramsay. Take the recipe and play. F 900 XR, suggested BMW, could tour as well as commute.