A Whole Other Level

The new apex predator from Bavaria defies logic and physics, leaving us wondering about just how much better a superbike could really become.

- Jared Solomon

Recently, I attended a press conference for the launch of LG’s latest OLED TV’s. Very rarely do consumer electronics interest me, but these TVs blew my mind. Technology seems to have taken a giant leap, and the things that engineers and scientists keep coming up with is almost frightening. The new 55-inch OLED TVs from LG are only 2mm thick – yes, that’s right! They can be placed on a wall and it’ll seem like there’s nothing even there. Now, these are not small TV’s. They are just super thin, equivalent to a couple of strands of hair, but they have unbelievable picture quality. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The same goes for the technology that we see in automobiles. Fully autonomous vehicles are already upon us, and we’ve seen some marvellous advancements in racing technology that have been brought over into road going vehicles. This transfer of technology is most noticeable in the super bikes of today. The Aprilia RSV4, Kawasaki ZX-10R, Yamaha R1 and the Ducati 1299 Panigale are just a few examples, and they are among the best super sports bikes available in the world today. However, the boys from Bavaria have taken super bike technology to a whole other level with the 2017 BMW S 1000 RR.

I recently got my hands on their latest apex predator, and I have to say that I’ve never ridden anything like it before. Let me also just say that the first generation S 1000 RR has been my dream bike for a while now, and, having ridden it on a couple of occasions, never in my wildest dreams did I think that it could be made this much better. My first run in with the S 1000 RR was back in 2012. As I never rode the updated version in 2015, I basically skipped one generation of the bike, and it’s really incredible how much the bike has improved from as little as five years ago.