Frustratingly, the longest ride I have had so far on this new lovely bike, is riding it back home from the dealer in Welwyn.
What I don’t want to lose is the sense of the bike’s slightness, lightness and responsiveness compared to my old bike, as well as very welcome slight closeness to the ground. It takes up less space in the garage and has none of that imposing bulk. Opening the garage door to Bertha felt like I looked her in the eye but this bike is definitely down there on the ground.

Plenty of people have offered impressions and more lengthy reviews of this bike, some are clearly new to Beamers and this sort of eccentric design while some compare it carefully with previous models.
For me, I was most surprised by its similarity to riding the old bike, the same position, the same clunky gear box, but as everyone says, it is just so much more zippy and the brakes, which were strong on my old model are even more impressive on this 2014 bike. In fact I’m surprised that the 7 years between Bertha’s production and this model have made such a difference to the sophistication of the machine. The bike, along with the customised GPS is a model of the quantified self, it records and logs all kinds of minute information: how many times you have used each brake, the average opening of the throttle (mine was only 4% after the last but one ride). You can make miniscule adjustments to the way it rides and the suspension which I have only briefly tried in the park and ride car park I go to for low speed practice. As others have said, I can’t say I noticed much difference. The bike also looks and feels more mainstream, less individual and eccentric. Even the seat is springy and comfortable. And the indicator switching has finally come into the 21st century.

I was keen to install some basic protection, SW Motech engine bars and radiator protection and a device meant to make theft of the clocks more difficult, both from English firm Cymark with voluble instruction sheets. So this mass-produced slightly anonymous bike is gradually becoming a little customised. On order are some beautiful Touratech panniers and top box and a couple of other minor enhancements.

In order is a much longer ride.