I rode a BMW R12 nineT thousands of miles through Europe to get to Motorrad Days in Garmisch

Earlier this year, I decided to take the BMW R12 nineT home to the Motorrad Days festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I’ve done a big feature on the journey for the print edition of MCN, but I thought I’d use this space to take a closer look at how the bike handled the trip.

Previous updates

• Update one: First impressions after two months and 1288 miles
• Update two: Time to see how the retro fares on a wet Welsh weekender
• Update three: Electrical gremlins
• Update four: Carrying a pillion passenger

Of course, I’ve mentioned the electrical gremlins that I encountered along the way in a previous update, so I won’t revisit them here. But anyway, this is the journey to Germany despite the warning lights… and it was a corker.

My trip to and from the BMW event took a week, with two days spent enjoying the rally itself. But I wanted to go via Switzerland to take on as many passes as I could and see how the BMW coped with the mountains.

Taking on the motorway

It was a struggle to swallow the miles on the French toll roads. At that point I was really missing having any sort of fairing, and hanging onto the bars was a pain at speed. But although I was taking the bike out of its comfort zone with mile upon mile of open road, the engine didn’t seem to know and purred along as comfortably as if we were sitting at 50mph.

And although the Boxer radiated heat, I didn’t really mind in the pouring rain, as it kept my legs warm and my heated grips meant my hands were comfortable enough. 

But as you can imagine, my body soon started to seize up, and the combination of the peg position and cylinder heads jutting out meant I struggled to straighten my legs to give my knees any sort of relief from the autoroute miles. 

Into the Alps

When I finally got into the Swiss mountains, aches from the day before seemed to wash away. This is when I finally realised bringing the BMW all that way in a torturous day was well worth the effort; the growl from the engine bouncing along the brilliant roads and echoing off the snow-lined mountains. Despite the first day being blighted by some icy rain showers, we tackled three Alpine passes and occasionally saw another biker as well.

Thankfully the next couple of days brought welcome sunshine (although on occasion I still disappeared into the clouds) but the aftermarket Weiser Technik lights were a treat to illuminate the fog in front of me.

Even if I’d picked the wrong gear to tackle a switchback, the torque from the engine sailed me round safely, then burst me out of it. Not only that, but the strong engine braking was also a treat for the downhill sections. Plus, as I had recently fitted Bridgestone Battlax S23 tyres, I had so much more confidence in the twisties regardless of the weather.

City living 

Well, you can’t really call Garmisch a city, but I travelled through a handful of towns and at least one city. I found even after 10 hours of near-as-makes-no-difference non-stop travelling, the BMW doesn’t complain when we go from motorway speeds into the urban pace of life, in fact, rumbling around city streets is a treat.

I have also taken the bike through London on a couple of occasions, and although it can be a bit bitey while the engine is warming up (which takes less than a minute) the big twin can handle slow manoeuvres with ease.

Even though its boxer engine makes it feel wide, it’s pretty nimble and it only reminds you of its boxer character when you’re sitting in traffic and chugs from side to side.

But, despite being a naked retro bike that was clearly out of its comfort zone on a grand adventure, it handled everything it needed to and more. Sure, luggage was iffy, but with solutions from the likes of SW-Motech and Wunderlich we got by just fine and made the urban retro machine into a properly capable touring vehicle.

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