Bmw F800st Vs. Honda Interceptor
CW COMPARISON
SOMEONE NEEDS TO COME UP WITH A BETTER NAME for motorcycles like these. They’re called “sporttourers,” but for most people, that term is more
confusing than G.W. Bush’s explanation of...well, just about everything. “Sport” resides at one far end of the streetbike spectrum, “touring” at the other, leaving people to wonder just exactly where any given sport-tourer operates within those extremes. Are they sportbikes that tour reasonably well, touring bikes that go around corners better than most or something in the vast regions that lie in between? The answer is: all of the above.
BMW F800ST vs. Honda Interceptor
Comparing every 800cc sport-tourer sold in America. All two of them.
PAUL DEAN
BMW F800ST vs. Honda Interceptor
The two you see hereHonda’s Interceptor and BMW’s F800ST-belong in that “something in between” category. Neither one has an engine or a chassis lifted from a repli-racer sportbike or a full-dress tourer, and both are intended to offer a happy compromise between racking up the miles on the open road and tearing up the tarmac on the backroads. They also just happen to be the only middleweight sport-tourers currently on the U.S. market.
Despite great differences in their genealogy, these two are surprisingly alike. The BMW is German, of course, and
entirely new from the ground eg sharp steering. up. The Japanese Interceptor, meanwhile, has been around in one form or another (carrying VF or VFR nomenclature) for 25 years-a milestone celebrated by the optional 25th Anniversary retro graphics on our test unit. But both have 800-class dohc fuel-injected engines (781cc for the Honda, 798 for the Beemer), full fairings, aluminum perimeter frames that use the engine as a stressed member, single-sided aluminum swingarms and conventional (right-side-up telescopic) forks. Plus, though the F800 engine is a parallel-Twin, its cylinders are canted forward, kind of like the front half of the Interceptor’s VFour. Even the final drives are somewhat similar, the F-ST having ditched BMW’s usual shaft drive in exchange for a belt while the Honda retains the chain drive it has always employed.
Amazingly enough, the two even have comparable price tags. MSRP for the baseline Honda is $10,599 (add $500 if you want the retro graphics), while an unaccessorized F800ST goes for $10,950one of the few times in recent memory that a BMW has been competitively priced.
Our test bikes were loaded with just about everything on their respective option lists,
tacking as much as $3K onto the buy-in. Both had ABS and detachable hard saddlebags, while the BMW arrived with heated grips, an onboard computer display, a tire-pressure monitoring system, a centerstand (standard on the Interceptor) and white turnsignal lenses. Nevertheless, the price tags still remained close, with the Honda coming in at $13,099 and the BMW at $13,553.
Our dyno runs revealed that these two engines make almost the same peak torque, the Honda topping out at 55.4 ft.-lb. at 8700 rpm and the BMW managing 56.5 ft.-lb. at 6100. But in peak power, the four-cylinder Interceptor opens a king-size can of whoop-ass on the F800 Twin, spinning out 97.1 hp at 10,400 rpm, almost 25 percent more than the BMW’s 78.3 at 8200 revs.
In most types of everyday riding, those power disparities are not evident; the two engines perform much alike despite a sizable difference in the bikes’ overall weight (537 pounds dry for the Honda and 485 for the BMW, all optional equipment included). Both have comparable roll-on acceleration at most road speeds, and both go up through the gears at about the same rate when you keep the engine spinning in the bottom half of the rpm range. Their clutches and gearboxes work smoothly and seamlessly, and there’s nary a glitch in either bike’s fuel-injection program. The Honda is noticeably freer of vibration at highway speeds, but the vibes felt through the F800’s grips, pegs and seat are low enough in frequency that they shouldn’t be deal-breakers for most prospective buyers.
Once you step up the pace on these two machines, the horsepressure differences become vividly apparent. The Interceptor’s VTEC valvetrain utilizes only two of its four valves per cylinder until just below 6500 rpm, at which point all four kick in. That wakes up the engine and launches the bike down the road with enough authority to leave the F800ST for dead. The BMW is no slouch, banging out a decent power curve punctuated only by a couple of minor dips around 4000 and 5500 rpm, but it can’t hang with the Honda once the Interceptor rider decides to get serious about makin’ time. The V-Four was a half-second quicker and 5 mph faster in the quarter-mile, and its 145-mph top speed bested the Beemer’s by 9 mph.
BMW F800ST vs Honda Interceptor
Our only complaint about the VTEC’s behavior is its transition from twoto four-valve running, which can be abrupt, particularly in the lower gears. There’s
a toggle-switch increase in acceleration and intake roar when the second set of valves engages, accompanied by a sudden arrival of mechanical cam-and-follower noise. If this event catches you off-guard, the transition can upset your cornering rhythm, which is why it’s best to keep the engine spinning above 6500 when hustling through corners.
And hustle is something both bikes do brilliantly on snaky backroads. As it always has, the Interceptor possesses exceptional steering and cornering capabilities, making carving through the turns a wonderfully predictable, enjoyable affair. Ditto for the BMW, which mates its lesser weight with quick, light steering to make knifing through corners about as close to effortless as you’ll experience on something that, with full gas tank and saddlebags, weighs close to 500 pounds. The F800 feels lighter than it actually is, flicking into and out of corners so easily that you almost don’t have to think about it. The engine’s moderate power output is well-matched to its chassis, so the rider is unlikely to do anything with the throttle that will seriously upset the handling.
BMW F800ST vs. Honda Interceptor
Both bikes’ suspensions do a superb job of controlling chassis movement when the machines are heeled way over and railing around turns, even on bumpy, uneven pavement. The Honda has excellent cornering clearance, the peg feelers touching down only occasionally when barging through a turn at an aggressive clip. The BMW, on the other hand, has so much cornering clearance that you practically have to Rossi a corner to get a peg to drag.
But life is full of compromises, and steering geometry and footpeg location are two of them. The ultra-responsive steering that allows the F800 to flick into corners so effortlessly also causes it to easily wander off-course in crosswinds or if the rider is gawking at the scenery on the open road. By comparison, the Interceptor is dead-stable in a straight line.
What’s more, the footpeg location that gives the F800 its roadrace-quality cornering clearance has made the seat-topeg distance significantly shorter than it is on the Honda.
This might not be too big of a deal for short riders, but those 5-foot-10 or taller are likely to find their knees bent at an angle that is less than ideal for long rides. The Honda’s peg location isn’t exactly cruiser-like, either, but it doesn’t force nearly as much bend in the knees.
Despite those niggles, these two are pleasant long-ride companions. The BMW’s tubular handlebar props the rider in an upright position almost like that of a standard bike; the Honda’s alloy clip-ons put
the rider in a mild canted-forward position that’s typical of many sport-touring motorcycles. Both are comfortable, but if you could combine the F800’s more-relaxed upper-body ergos with the Interceptor’s rangier peg location, you'd have sport-touring perfection.
Nothing wrong with the ride on either bike, though. Both offer excellent suspension compliance and well-shaped, nicely padded seats. The Honda’s fairing does a more efficient job of shielding the rider’s legs and feet from the elements, while the F800ST’s windscreen provides marginally better upperbody coverage. Neither bike delivers the kind of weather-protection you enjoy on a big-rig touring machine, but they still help make long, multi-day rides much more pleasant.
As do the detachable saddlebags, with each bike’s system going about it in a dramatically different fashion. The Honda’s GIVI-built bags are simple and conventional, with hard plastic, vertically split, color-matched cases and a wide-open interior.
The F800’s bags are BMW’s unique Sports Panniers that use a rigid crosshatch frame over a flexible gray shell, with builtin nylon expansion liners that allow the capacity to be adjusted from 15 to 25 liters. Though the BMW bags are clever, they don’t hold as much as the Honda’s 35-liter cases, and they make the bike extremely wide when expanded to their fullest. Plus, their squat, square design requires larger clothing
items to be folded into smaller shapes than is necessary with the Honda’s bags.
That is just one of several detail differences that tilt the playing field in favor of one bike over the other. The BMW’s brakes have a mushy feel and faded slightly during a couple of runs through some long downhill twisties, whereas the Honda’s linked brakes always remained firm, progressive and fade-free. The Beemer’s speedometer is small and its mph numbers crowded, making it more diffi-
cult to read at a quick glance than the Interceptor’s large digital speedo. The Honda has beautifully integrated, colormatched master-cylinder reservoirs, while the F800’s front-brake reservoir (clutch operation is via cable) is an unattractive plastic “urinesample cup” sitting high atop a cheap-looking metal bracket-not the kind of thing people expect from BMW.
When you combine those factors with the Interceptor’s superior power, the outcome of this head-to-head comparison starts to snap into focus. On one hand, we applaud BMW for creating from scratch a superb sport-tourer that, right out of the gate, is
capable of running with one of the best bikes ever built. But the years of refinement that have gone into the Interceptor pay off in a motorcycle that clearly understands its objectives and knows precisely how to accomplish them.
Truth be known, you wouldn’t be the teeniest bit disappointed with either of these two. But if you’re on a quest to find the very best middleweight sport-tourer in the business, here’s how you can bring your search to an end: Visit your local Honda store. □
BMW F800ST vs. Honda Interceptor
