NAKED AMBITION: BMW S1000R

In a bid to keep at the pointy end of supernaked sales, BMW's kitted its S1000R with a raft of tasty updates.

- BIG MAC

For a manufacturer which has utterly dominated the sales charts and constantly set and reset the bar in terms of performance and tech for sportsbikes, the S1000R has never really captured the hearts and minds of the motorcycling community like the S1000RR has done. It’s a strange thing that a bike which shares so much of its DNA with the RR hasn’t taken off in the same way. It must be said that the reason I suspect this is the case is more to do with the priorities of the people who buy naked bikes — super or otherwise - rather than any performance shortcomings of the S1000R over the years. After all, when we did our Ultimate Supernakeds test a couple of years ago, the BMW smoked everything apart from the violently expensive Ducati Streetfighter SP and Aprilia Tuono V4 Factory on track, but it left us more than a little cold and unaffected on the road.

I may well be wrong, but I’m of the view that people who buy a naked bike are less worried about outright performance, placing looks and playfulness above lap times, and this is where the S1000R fell short. While being more than adequate and competent as a fun, playful road bike, it just lacked any real wow factor either, through interaction or visually... To be blunt, it was almost instantly forgettable compared to the likes of the Triumph Speed Triple, KTM SuperDuke, Yamaha MT-10 and so on.