[AtheK]

Woah such a nice looking bike and topped up with all creature comforts and technology aids. This will take you to places!!

Congratulations and wish you miles and miles of happy and safe riding.

[krishsreedharan]

Originally Posted by rohitoasis

Just last Saturday spotted a previous generation K1600 (The one with the twin round eyes inside the headlight) in grey colour near my house. I was elated to spot a mythical beast which is such a rarity. Among the sea of superbikes and Advs. These beauties come very rarely.

Over the same weekend; a thread on the same bike comes live here. Such a pleasant surprise. Wish you a tonne of miles on this cross country tourer. Hope to cross paths with you one of the days in Coimbatore or when you cross over the border to Palakkad.

May i know how the service will be done for this bike? Would it be possible in BMW Coimbatore or does it have to be in Chennai?

Thanks. Incidentally, there is another one with round lights - the previous generation - hiding out in Coimbatore.

I normally ride every Sunday morning - when I am not riding on work. Feel free to join if you are up to it. Meeting point is under the Neelambur bridge immediately after the L&T Bye-pass.

Will PM you if I ever come Palakkad side.

Service happens in Coimbatore only. No need to take the bike to Chennai.

[neil.jericho]

krishsreedharan, congratulations once again on purchasing what is one of the world's best tourers. At that price point, the Honda Goldwing and the BMW K1600 are the top dogs in the Indian market, and for inter-state riding, in supreme comfort, one cant go wrong with either choice. Overall, Honda offers a far superior after sales experience pan India, when compared to BMW. But as long as your Coimbatore dealer is great to deal with, thats all that matters in the end. As much as I am fascinated by these giant monsters, and the level of engineering that goes behind them, I am equally intimidated by their size and weight.

With the low seat height and comfortable ergonomics of the K1600 GTL, Im sure that you will cherish the endless hours in the saddle of this machine, as you clock tens of thousands of kilometers.

We are all waiting for updates on the first service and the long rides that you do on this motorcycle. If there ever was a motorcycle to do a pan India ride, without ever breaking into a sweat, this is it. You really should consider doing a 2 - 3 week ride, in the coming years. Maybe even Coimbatore to Khardung La?

As discussed offline, do get yourself some excellent touring gear, to match the touring capabilities of the K1600 GTL. In the sub Rs 20K budget, the Royal Enfield Nirvik and the Khardung La V2 are excellent choices. In the sub Rs 50K budget, the Revit Sand 4 H20 and the A* Valparaiso are your best bets.

Cheers once again and I look forward to seeing exciting ride updates on this thread.

Originally Posted by krishsreedharan

In the meanwhile, I had already stared the process of organising for the funding of this purchase of mine. Decided this time to go with BMW Finance since there was a very negligible difference between what they offered and what HDFC were offering me. More than anything else, one of my main reasons was to build a business relationship with them so that it would make things a lot more smoother for my next purchase with BMW - as and when is fated to happen.

I think I smell a replacement for your Z900. Let me be the first to congratulate you on your next motorcycle

[krishsreedharan]

I have been wanting to update this thread since quite some time, but somehow every time I start putting my thoughts together, something comes up to drag me away from this update.

That one out of the way, Condor went for its first service on the 14th of December for its official 1000 kms server. Actual ODO reading was 680kms. This service basically covered complete oil changes and also software updates if any, besides releasing all of the software limiters that were put in as a precaution in the running in period. The total cost of Service including GST was ₹ 15,388/-

Once the bike landed in India, I went ahead and ordered two accessories. The first one, of course, was the OEM Tempered Glass screen protector for the Instrument Cluster display. The other was the short length USB-C to Lightning cable that went into the phone cubby-hole, in order to charge my iPhone. The two of them put together cost me another ~ ₹ 8,000 odd.

Once this milestone was done and out of the way, it was time to start using the bike in the way it was meant to be used - ride long distances. The first of these trip was a ride to Chennai and back to take a meeting.

At Neelambur - just before the start of my highway run.




After reaching Chennai - Trip stats


The Beast resting at Chennai


The trip in a snapshot


Total round trip stats


The return trip on the BMW App.


The onward trip was quite normal with a riding time of around 6 hours and a few minutes. However, on the return trip, I got hammered by Christmas Eve Traffic. Well, that experience is for another post.

Post this trip, I also did a work trip to Ooty. The bike handled the twists beautifully in Dynamic Mode. Once the bike started rolling, all the weight disappeared. To be honest, I felt a lot more comfortable on this bike than I did on the Versys. The exhaust note - well, I cannot find words to describe. To say the least, the exhaust note, the quick shifter and the auto-blipper together are addictive.

Some pictures from that ride are below.





















As of writing this post today, the bike has crossed 3000 kms and I am enjoying it every bit.

[krishsreedharan]

January saw a few local rides and one weekend with my local group of car and bike affecionados (who are also T-BHP'ians) at Ooty.



The picture above was taken after I had reached the place where we were to stay for the weekend and was waiting for the rest to reach.

Post that trip, again was only with weekend rides but in the meantime, I decided to add a much required accessory - the integrated brake light on the top box. This is an official BMW Accessory for this vehicle. In its stock form, the top box is already pre-wired for this accessory and the space is covered with a black plate. All that needs to be done is for the plate to be removed, the light to be snapped into the holder which comes along with the light and the entire unit to be wired into the top box.

Once it is fixed, the light illuminates whenever I touch the brake, like the picture below.



In addition, I had also ordered a set of black reflective stickers, which I planned to affix at the edge of the top box as well as the panniers. Black because, in daylight, the stickers would be invisible while in the dark, they would glow when a light source fell on them.



The bike without light source shining on it.



When a light source shines on the sticker, they show up like the above.

It was all good that I got these installed since during the beginning of March, I had to make a multi-day trip to Bangalore and back on work. However, my departure was delayed due to some unfinished work at my office due to which, what I expected to be a short ride in the night turned out to be an almost complete night ride.

I am happy to say that I dont believe I will be going for any aftermarket auxiliary lights. The lights on the bike do a fantastic job in lighting up the road. I was able to hold on to my normal pace of travel which I keep during day time rides through the night as well. A few picks that I clicked during my usual hydration break.





During that trip I did manage a ride upto Kolar and back on the Sunday with a few like minded enthusiasts. Unfortunately, did not take pictures since I was busy making new friends and admiring other bikes

The final trip average stood as below.



As of writing this update, the ODO stands at 4,460 kms with another 6,000 odd to go by which time the bike will be ready for its next scheduled service.

I was to do a quick three day trip to Coorg and back in the last weekend of March, but there are other pressing priorities which might not allow me to do that. Let's see how it pans out.

[Rob UK]

The K1600 is ex-F1 racer Martin Brundle's bike of choice. He rides out to some of the European GPs on his from the UK.

I know a guy here in the UK who is a very hard-core biker who picked up one of the very first ones built. He put 48,000 miles on it in a couple of years. BMW eventually bought the bike back from him in a swap for a R1200RT as he had some issues with it. He felt the initial development & testing was insufficient and that he'd been a bit of a guinea pig - they do seem to have that well in hand now though.

Never ridden one, but I'd like to!

[krishsreedharan]

I am back with another update. After doing quite a few weekend rides in and around Coimbatore, there was an opportunity for me to take Condor out on a serious work trip. This was a one day trip to Kolar and back. The route I took was the highway until Shoolagiri and from there, branch off into inner roads via Berigai, Athimugam, Masti, Malur and into the Narasapura Industrial Area.

While the roads until the TN border are pretty good in terms of surface, once I crossed into KA, there was bits of roads in-between pot-holes. Apparently, this area did not get the TLC it required in terms of infrastructure. However Condor handled all this with aplomb and did not break a sweat.





Pictures taken at my usual hydration break at Cafe Coffee Day at Palayamputhur after Thoppur.

I had booked myself into the Radisson Individual on the Highway just off Narasapura Industrial Area in the hope that when I am at work, Condor will be in the safety of the underground car park, but unfortunately, that was not to be. I ended up parking it out in the open since the car park was under renovation and I was advised by the hotel staff that it would add a lot of dust onto the vehicle.



However, they ensured that it was parked within line of sight behind the restaurant and I tipped the security to keep an eye.

One of the milestones of this trip was that Condor crossed 6000 kms on the ODO.







Total trip stats were above. I have been managing an average of over 17kmpl on all my highway rides this far, about which I have absolutely no complaints. Given the tank capacity of 27.3 litres, it gives me a comfortable range of just under 400 kms to the tank before I have to pull into a petrol pump.

Post that trip, Condor sat idle for almost a month even though I was back in Kolar for a week on work. Ideally, I would have taken Condor as my steed again, but for the fact that the parking at Radisson was not yet ready. They have incidentally assured me that by the time I do my next trip by the middle of this month, it will be ready and I can park there. Fingers crossed on that one.

In the meantime, there was a breakfast ride to Radission Salem, which was pending for a long time. Finally all those involved decided that we will just do an impromptu trip since so far, all planned trips failed to materialize. So on Sunday, the 4th of June, two bikes from Coimbatore and one from Bangalore set out to complete this trip.

It was a sight to see - 3 K1600 GTLs at the same place. The K1600 GTL is not something that one commonly comes across on Indian roads. I had the opportunity to see people who came in far more expensive rides, forget their rides for a moment and check out the bikes when they saw the three together.







As always, the last picture says it all - tried a different strategy this time and saw a difference in the FE. Some more tuning to be done to my riding style.

That's it for now folks. Until the next big ride, that is. Cheers!

[100Kmphormore]

I ended up parking it out in the open since the car park was under renovation and I was advised by the hotel staff that it would add a lot of dust onto the vehicle.

Please cover the bike with a bike cover when you park in a hotel parking lot or outside. You would be amazed how many walk away thinking its some old bike for repair, also the cover will protect the bike from the dust you mentioned or those irritating bird droppings. Tipping the security has never worked atleast for me. I always do the same for my Himalayan in hotel parking slots as many inquisitive/destructive people have tried to sit and nearly fell with it or scratch the paint. I know the value of the bikes is a huge difference but the point is the same