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BMW K75RT Getting more out of less

FINDING A PROPER TOURING bike is no problem. Finding one that breaks with the bigger-is-better tradition, however, can be a problem. Mostly, you either opt for a sound-systemed, air-compressored, large-capacity machine from Harley-Davidson or one of the Japanese manufacturers. Or you do without.

There is an option, however, which offers fine touring-bike utility without the weight, size, cost and complexity of touring’s mega-machines.

That would be BMW’s jewellike little K75RT. This is, basically, the K75 standard with a fairing, bags and a Corbinclone seat hung on it. Think about that for a minute: BMW’s methodology carries the roots from which today’s touring bikes grew. Hanging touring paraphernalia on standard bikes worked in the 1960s and ’70s, and a ride on the K75RT proves it still does work.

The keys to the RT’s success involve the excellence of the basic platform and the excellence of the add-on parts. The platform is the tube frame which carries the counterbalanced, dohc, fuel-injected,

740cc laydown Triple around which all K75s are built. The engine is very smooth, reasonably responsive, and genuinely German. Yes, it makes fewer horses than any Japanese 750-fewer than most 600s, in fact-but BMW doesn’t care. This engine is about useable pulling power-the sort of lowand midrange oomph that means you don’t have to downshift several cogs and spin the thing a billion rpm to maintain your momentum up a hill.

The ride from the conventional fork and drive-shaft-carrying single-sided swingarm is comfortable and solid, with the sort of sporting-firm feel that

seems to be inborn in European chassis designers. If we’ve a complaint here, it’s that rebound damping is a bit light for our tastes, allowing the fork, especially, to react too quickly to compression loadings.

What gives this platform its RT designation is that fairing and those bags. The bags are excellent-cavernous things that seem plenty large enough to satisfy one tourist’s long-range needs, or a pair of tourists’ longweekend needs. The latches work well, and the cases slide on and off the bike with ease.

It’s that fairing, and the K75RT’s seat, that complicate things. Taken by itself, the seat is handsome, well-made, nicely comfortable. What its bucket configuration does, however, is put you in one spot, and one spot only, aboard the bike. There’s no way for you to move fore or aft even a little. For most riders that will be fine. If you’re tall, however, it will be very bad indeed, because your knees will be in unyielding, uncomfortable contact with the trailing edge of the fairing, which otherwise is a fine piece of work, offering all the coverage you could want.

It all comes down to how much motorcycle you want between you and the road. If you’re a less-than-tall holder of the Less-Is-More touring ethic, if you’ve put behind you the temptation to mount yourself aboard an Electra-Wing, you’re exactly the sort of person that might find happiness aboard a K75RT.

Jon F. Thompson