Road Test Bakker BMW K1600 Gs

Special K On Two Wheels

- Alan Cathcart

BMW Motorrad has always been pretty adept at maximising the number of model segments it can reach with different variants of its various platforms. So it’s been surprising that ever since introducing its current rangetopping six-cylinder K1600 models back in 2011, the over 50,000 such bikes delivered since then have so far only comprised the K1600 GT sport tourer, K1600 GTL full-dress tourer, and the K1600 B bagger. So, no straight-six Custom rival as yet to the flat-six Honda Valkyrie, no series production version of the gorgeous Custom 6 showbike (shame!) that BMW displayed at the EICMA Show in 2009 as a what-if intro to its own brand of six appeal, and especially in view of the superlative success of the R1200 Boxer version – no K1600 GS! Well, not yet, anyway – though you can expect the drawings and maybe even a running prototype of such a bike to probably exist somewhere deep within BMW’s R&D department!

However, it’s even more surprising that it’s taken till now for this omission to be rectified in the aftermarket, and for a K1600 GS to be built on the platform of a GT/GTL – but in the Netherlands, rather than Germany or in the K1600 family’s No.1 market, the USA. But when high-mileage Dutch rider Willem Heijboer decided he wanted a sportier special version of the BMW K1600 GT two-wheeled land yacht that he’d been criss-crossing Europe on for his work as CEO of his own safety signage company, there was only one person he could turn to the Netherland’s master baker of frame design, Nico Bakker.