Yeah, I love the Wonder Wheel and thought it would all be too complicated and non-intuitive but only took a few mins and now it's just the opposite to the point any other bike would feel badly laid out and more complicated than it needs to be.The OEM lighting is good, but we all want more.
BMW adopted the European lighting standard with the right side being low-beam and the left being high beam. I thought that perhaps I could simply adjust the high beam side down to the low beam height, but that won't work. The low beam light pattern is a wide bright light and the high beam light pattern is a rectangle shape. It also has "cornering lights". Nice idea, but apparently gov't regulations limit the amount of light they can put out. On a dark twisty road, you can see them come on and off, but they don't do much good.
I added some inexpensive aux lights. Price on Amazon is $40 for both.
These have a "Hi Beam", "Low Beam", and Flashing mode controlled by the switch and internal circuitry. I got them not to see better at night...the OEM lights are good enough for my purposes, but to be seen. I was noticing several instances where people looked at me and then pulled out anyway. Each light is about 1800 lumens, which is just a little dimmer than a halogen headlight. The strobe light might be useful. Besides using it when you're in a group and not BT connected, you could get the attention of the people in front of you if you wanted to stop. I had a Mercedes accelerate to get in front of me as his lane merged into mine. Lots of room behind me, and he had to squeeze in front of me. So I turned the strobe mode on and just rode behind him. That has got to be irritating.
Range? My Fuelly record doesn't show it, but I've done a couple day trips and the MPG were up past 50...but then I didn't fill up when I got home and rode around in town where it is mostly "stop" and not "go". So the gas mileage on Fuelly is still reflecting more of the in town mileage. At this time of the year, it is meaningless to me. It looks like it'll do about what my F800GT did on trips. I consistently got 55-63 mpg with once at least up at 72 mpg, if my memory serves me right. I'll probably still plan for stops at 180 miles, even though at 55 mpg, I could stretch that to 200 with a range of 220.
I used to do a mental calculation in my mind while riding the F800GT. I'd compare how many miles I'd ridden with what my average MPG reading was. I'd compare that with how many miles the bike had gone before the gas gauge started reading at the halfway point. That gave me a fair estimate of how many miles further I could go. The XR just tells you what your remaining range is. I watched it go from like 170 miles on one of my day trips, up to 190 miles as I got moving and the bike became more efficient.
As far as "still liking the bike", it is strange how I feel. I really loved my F800GT. I thought when I got rid of it, that I would miss it, but I don't. I'm just looking forward to better weather and some riding time on this new bike.
Regarding the Tracer...that's for you to sort out.I think they are ugly. I liked the pictures of the earlier model, but when I actually saw one in person, there was no yearning for it at all. I couldn't get past the looks, and the new model is even worse in my mind. But that's the nice part of all these bikes to chose from. What I like, doesn't have to be what you like.
I think beyond the looks, the XR is probably more of an integrated feeling. BMW came up with the "Wonder Wheel" idea and patented it. Other manufacturers came to the party late, so their ways of implementing that functionality aren't as smooth. I didn't care about a "Wonder Wheel" when I had the F800GT, but it is amazing how intuitive that is. With the new computers and sensors, they can show you all kinds of data...but can you see it without taking your eyes off the road for more than a second? On the XR, you can.
Yeah...no regrets.
Chris
How accurate is the Miles-to-Empty counter? On the RT it's great and resets with each tank refill so I no longer have to reset a trip counter. The keyless ride is another thing I really like and would hate to have to deal with keys.
