THREE way FLING - BMW K1600GT

While Bruce and Rich were on a pair of triples, so was I, after a fashion.

- Dave Manning

On a pair of triples, combined to make one inline six on the form of the K1600. While the big Beemer isn’t the first bike to be equipped thus, with Kawasaki’s Z1300, Honda’s CBX Thou and the Benelli Sei all coming before (and quite a while before), it is nevertheless pretty unique in the current marketplace in having such a powerplant.

Aside from the number of cylinders, it is fairly conventional in terms of 21st Century motorcycle design with the expected level of refinement from the manufacturer, the type of bike (a long-legged sports tourer of traditional type), and it’s styling. Although that refinement is balanced out by an unexpected, albeit only partly hidden, level of hooliganism the everyday man in the street would never dream of coming from such an executive type of transport. That said, the K1600 does shout some intent when the start button is thumbed, with a loud and rorty “wah-ow” from an automatic throttle blip as it fires into life. The older GS (with the 1250 boxer twin engine) used to do a similar thing, and while it does shatter the peace of an early morning start, it is rather characterful and it brought a smile to my miserable fizzog each and every time I thumbed the starter button.

There's no point in avoiding the fact that the GT is a big bike - weight aside, the wheelbase is eight inches longer than the Triumph! - but like a lot of other big bikes, it casts its mass to one side once the wheels are rolling. And, despite the barn door proportions of the fairing, the Chesterfield sofa seat and width of the six-pot motor (and the voluminous twin exhausts), it is astoundingly nimble, helped in no small part by the big wide handlebars of course.