BMW F900R: HEADY COCKTAIL OF COMPLEXITY AND EASE

We review the latest middleweight roadster from Bavaria, the BMW F900R, as it tries to carve a place for itself in a rather crowded segment.

- KARAN SINGH BANSATTA

YOU are out on the road on your motorcycle, in your zone and someone overtakes you aggressively… and you’re okay with it. Someone turns without signalling and you narrowly avoid an accident… and you just deal with it. You are just riding to ride, not riding to reach. That’s you taking it easy. BMW F900R is the right motorcycle to take it easy on. But there’s a lot more going on than just that so let’s dive in.

I started with taking it easy because of a lot of reasons. The persistent horsepower battle, the reliance on spec-sheets, the general mindset of newer riders, and for the most part BMW Motorrad’s own history. Even their design language spoke volumes about their ethos. An example could be the goofy-looking F800R which we got to see most often on one wheel with Chris Pfeiffer onboard. It was a very busy motorcycle which kept the rider busy as well.

The BMW F900R changes all that. With the state-of-the-art electronics (for a mid-range motorcycle), the F900R is still a busy motorcycle but it does not keep the rider too busy. Busy and engaged are different things in motorcycling, mind you. Out of the roadster class of Beemers, the F900R looks like a bulked-up (quite a bit) G 310 R.

The F900 R is like that perpetually shirtless model muscles here, muscles there and all out there for a good show. The high and muscular tank (which is plastic welded, a world’s first), the busy front fascia, and minimalistic tail paint a picture of a well-proportioned motorcycle. It is not over-thetop like a few out there but it holds its own.