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After riding the BMW K1200LT for almost 4 weeks now, the final decision is in!  The judges, Barbara and I came to a unanimous decision.  There was no disagreement between us.  It was an interesting comparison.  The BMW K1200LT is a fine motorcycle.  Some of the things we liked about the bike were:

Power – I liked power and performance of the BMW.  At about 4000 RPM the motor would really wake up and the bike would pull strong to the red line.  Low speed performance was OK, but you really need to keep the revs up on the BMW.

Color – Barbara liked the color of the BMW. (This is the only thing that Barb liked about the BMW! )

Reverse – The reverse gear is a great feature when you exercise poor planning in your parking.
Heated seats and grips – On a cool day the seats would keep your buns warm and happy.

OMG Handles – The bags have a combination opening handle that doubles as an OMG handle for the passenger.  Several times I noticed Barb with a death grip on them.

Things I didn’t like about the BMW were:

Flaky computer – The intermittent no start problem made me very distrustful of the BMW.

Brakes – The brakes are a double edged sword on the BMW, in some ways they are great and in other ways they aren’t that great!  They are powerful and stop the bike very well, however, at low speed they could be quite abrupt and jerky.  The BMW has “Servo Assisted” brakes (power brakes) and at low speed the brakes are very powerful.  Also, the front and rear brake systems are linked.  Meaning, that applying either the front or rear brake singularly would actually apply both brakes.   I was apprehensive about this part of the braking system on this heavy bike.  One thing that will put your butt on the ground quickly on a big, heavy bike is using too much front brake with the front wheel turned.  Long ago I learned the hard way that in low speed maneuvering on a large bike to only use the rear brake.   I don’t like the idea of linking the brakes on a motorcycle.  I love the anti-lock brake system, that is a huge safety feature on a motorcycle.  The squeaking rear brake drove me nuts.

Weight and Height – I probably could come to grips with the weight, but it made me nervous, and Barbara too.

Seats and seating position – The standard seats were just too soft and gave me a pain in the butt after an hour or so.  The highway pegs were totally useless, therefore giving me no way to change position while riding.

Engine/drive train noise – For a shaft drive, 4 cylinder, liquid cooled motorcycle the BMW has a very noisy engine and drive train.  The primary drive gears whine at road speed.  At low speed the drive line “chugs” and sounds a lot like a Ford 8N tractor.  And even with all the tupperware covering the engine it is quite noisy especially when run at the higher RPM that it likes to run at!!  Plus, there was a surprising amount of vibration transmitted to the mirrors on the Bimmer.  Now, a Harley Electra Glide shakes like a coon dog crapping a peach seed at idle, but once you get it up over about 2000 RPM the rubber engine mounts do a pretty good job of isolating the vibrations and you can see out of the rear view mirrors.  On the Bimmer, at 60 miles per hour the mirrors were just a fuzzy blur.

So which way did I go?  Well, after getting back from Florida we rode the Harley around for a couple of days and found it to again be much more comfortable and usable.  The local dealer, Killer Creek H-D was having a “thing” over the weekend, sale, music, beer, and BBQ.  We went down there on Sunday and after looking at the bikes for a while worked a deal on a ’08 Ultra Classic.  The Ultra has a few features that I wanted, particularly the cruise control, extra brake lights, (you can’t have too many or too bright a brake light on a motorcycle!!) lower fairings, and anti-lock brakes.  The anti-lock brake system on the H-D are not linked, they are independent systems front and rear.  Unlike the older anti-lock brake systems on Harleys, they have redesigned the brake controller to a very compact unit that fits under the right hand side cover.  The older system used a controller from an automobile that was mounted on the saddle bag rail and took up fully one quarter of the left saddlebag.  The ’08 also has a 96 CI engine with a re-designed cam drive system and the new six speed gearbox.

Driving the ’08 with the 96 Cubic Inch engine you can really feel the addition torque.  The BMW was very powerful, but the power was at a RPM range that made it not all that useful cruising around town or even at legal speeds on the highway.  The low RPM torque of the Harley is much better to me for a cruising/touring bike.

Apparently they wanted to sell some bikes Sunday, because after their initial offer on trade I made them a counter offer and they took it.  (don’t you hate when that happens, makes you think you were to easy!)  It was actually pretty quick and painless.

So that’s it, I’m staying with the Harley Davidson.