For a foreign language in school, I took French — nine years of French, to be precise. Knowing the “Language of Diplomacy” doesn’t help one too much in the motorcycle industry, which is dominated by Spanish and Italian speakers, and it certainly doesn’t help one when dealing with the newest release from BMW Motorrad.

Like the Alsace-Lorraine in 1940, we were surprised today by a secret that the Germans had been keeping from us, the BMW Concept Roadster. A boxer-twin powered streetfighter (125hp / 92 lbs•ft), BMW says that the Concept Roadster is an expression that “motorcycling is much more than just perfect function.”

Equipped with a single-sided swingarm, driveshaft, LED headlight, and tubular steel frame, the BMW Concept Roadster sounds on paper a lot like the BMW’s we are used to, but one look at the styling of the concept betrays that thought, and we like that.