Episode 34 of the Brap Talk podcast is now out for your two-wheeled audio pleasure, and this one gets us back to our usual motorcycling-loving-and-talking format.
The bulk of the show centers around Shahin and Jensen getting a chance to swing a leg over the new Ducati Streetfighter V4 S, right in our backyard of Portland, Oregon.
Alas, the long wait is over, as BMW Motorrad has finally shown us the production version of its much-hyped cruiser model, the BMW R18.
Featuring the largest boxer engine ever produced by the German brand, the BMW R18 boasts an 1,802cc displacement for its two horizontally opposed cylinders.
As was teased, peak power is a paltry 90hp (67 kW), but the real attention-getter is the torque curve: 116 lbs•ft (158 Nm).
That peak torque figure hits at just a mere 3,000 rpm, but the BMW R18 churns out at least 110 lbs•ft (150 Nm) all the way from 2,000 rpm to 4,000 rpm, making for a nice broad power band to play with on the open road.
If you like your motorcycles big, feet-forward, and German, then we have good news for you, as the BMW R18 finally has a release date: Friday, April 3rd.
That’s good news to our ears too, as BMW Motorrad has been teasing the R18 for more than a year with an onslaught of custom and concept motorcycles that feature the big 1,800cc boxer engine.
Expected to come as a platform of machines, we know to expect a model that is very similar to the BMW R18/2 concept we saw debut at EICMA last year.
If you had asked me before the 2019 EICMA show what bike I was most-certain to see debuting for production from BMW Motorrad, the answer surely would have been the BMW R18 cruiser.
The German brand has been teasing this new machine for an inordinate amount of time (since well before the last EICMA show), bringing a bevy of concept bikes to realization in the process to help ease us into the idea of a big air-cooled, pushrod, boxer engine design with an eye on the cruiser scene.
Surely at Milan, we would see the R18 make its debut, and surely were we disappointed when BMW showed us yet another concept for the motorcycle. It is as if no one learned from Yamaha’s mistake with the Ténéré 700.
The new bike season is starting to heat up, and the zenith is only a few weeks away. I am of course talking about the EICMA show in Milan.
As such, the Germans are gearing up for a big show in Italy this year, with an all-new booth design, and more importantly, four new motorcycles to showcase.
We know this, because BMW Motorrad told us so in a press release, but the real information we are craving is which bikes we will see in Milan, and for that, we have some strong guesses.