Issue:
May/June 2007

Text:
Neale Bayly

Photography:
Neale Bayly

Pages:
34 - 37

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Rolling out under a gray sky, with the clouds so low and swollen they looked as if they might burst at any moment, I kept a close eye on the onboard temperature gauge. It read 42 degrees, and with over 600 miles of riding in front of me and a major storm racing in from the west, I was leaving Gladstone, New Jersey, on the wrong side of 1 p.m. While arguing with myself that I should have skipped the press briefing and left earlier in the day, it didn’t take long to figure out I would need to haul some serious tail to make it home before midnight. And, if the temperature dropped by just a few degrees, I might end up stuck in a hotel beside the highway somewhere until the storm passed.

Good thing I’m in the saddle of BMW’s new 2007 R1200R for the adventure, because there isn’t another naked bike on the market I would have even considered riding for this sort of madness. Equipped with heated handlebar grips, a BMW electric vest, and dressed head to toe in BMW adventure touring gear, I knew I had all the right ingredients to give it a shot. So, making a corporate decision that I would ride until the tank ran dry, I dialed the 1,170 cc air/oil cooled twin on 75 mph and settled in for the ride....