ON ROAD...BMW M 1000 RR

Just like that, our three days of testing were done and dusted, barring a final blast over the Mountain. The question was, what bike would I be doing it on?

- BRUCE

The answer to that lay in the hands of our mate Nick, who’d picked three different lengths of grass for Tim, Joe and I to wrestle from his grasp. I went first… and the outcome was the Beemer. I was quite happy with the result, which said a lot about how much the M 1000 RR had come to appeal to me over the shoot-out. No, it wasn’t my favourite, but it was a solid choice and I felt a little smug as I readied my gear for one last roll of the dice.

To be fair, I knew before I started exactly what I’d be in for, which I considered a good thing. Fast, sharp-handling, but maybe a little soulless is the truthful way we’d come to gauge the carbon-clad wonder-weapon that towered over its rivals parked up at Ramsay Hairpin. Yep, it sure was a big bike, with big wings, a big screen, and a fittingly big seat height. Everything about it was big, including the amount of attention it drew wherever it was parked. This was the head-turner of the pack, the bike everyone came over to ask questions about, to which we gave our best, uneducated replies, practically guessing at how beneficial/or not the carbon discs covers were… let alone why they’d been put on there in the first place.