r/bmwmotorrad

Genuine first world problem. I've been riding with my K1300R for about 8 years now, 70.000 km, mostly long tours (6-12 hours per day) mountain passes in Europe, Alps, Pyrenees, Corsica, Sardina, etc. Riding stile is rather sporty, always use the full tire, rarely scraping the pegs on long curves. Never really high speed though, I basically never push past 140 km/h on straight roads. Still really enjoy the high horse power to overtake long trucks on mountain passes.

I've never had an issue with the K1300R and it is honestly a dream for my kind of riding: Long tours, sporty. But it now gets rather old and I can't get the wish out of my head to try something new.
I have genuine trouble finding a replacement that feels like an upgrade. The K1300R is rather special in motor characteristics, wheelbase distance, telelever suspension.

I've tried the R1300R (standard version) now on Sardina. And it was honestly quite fun, suited my riding style well enough with the torquey boxer. The only issue I had was that on a one hour test ride on a curvy Sardina road, I was already hitting 50+ degrees lean angle without really pushing it and being unfamiliar with the bike (nice that the bike is showing this on the display). I'm honestly a bit worried that after a few weeks, the bike will limit me due to the geometric boxer constraints when I want to push it for a fun stretch of free curvy road and quickly frustrate me. Maybe it is ok with the sport suspension version, which is slightly higher. Does anybody here have experience with the new R1300R and a sporty riding stile?

I had fun with the R1300R, but it did not feel really better than the K1300R in any way. It feels strange to me to change my motorcycle and not be excited about it.

The other options are the M1000R and M1000XR, which somehow I cannot easily test ride in Italy due to a restriction from BMW. I could try in Germany, but Germany basically has no nice roads to really get a feel of the bike without getting into very illegal speeds. I will still test ride them though, when I get the chance. I'm mostly considering those because they will feel like an "upgrade" from the K1300R, at least on the spec sheet.

M1000R seems like an obvious choice. I will test ride my wife's S1000R on Sardinia, just to see if I can get used to the higher rev riding style in general. But riding position wise, it is quite similar to the K1300R, and I'm sure that will be ok. I'm just worried a bit about the amount of vibrations I've been hearing about. I will still be riding long tours. Has anybody used that bike for longer tours? Riding it in the lower rev range for a while when you don't want to push it constantly?

M1000XR I will test ride in Germany soon, but I'm sure I will not really push it properly on the public roads here. Riding position is my biggest concern, I've never ridden these kind of tourer bikes with almost fully upright position. Not much space to move my behind back and forth on the seat.
It seems like the perfect compromise on paper, I just don't like the "sports tourer for rich middle aged man image" I guess? Has anyone experience with that bike?

tl;dr

• Want to replace my trusty K1300R
• R1300R felt ok when test riding on Sardina, but I'm worried about hitting the limits with my riding style. Maybe ok with the sport suspension?
• M1000R feels like a proper "upgrade", but is this suitable for long tours? Especially in terms of vibrations, longer stretches of riding in lower rev range?
• M1000XR feels like the best compromise, but worried about the upright tourer riding position. Will test ride that one in Germany soon.

I currently have a 2024 800gs that I love to ride for touring and 2 up with my wife. But I’m looking for something that I can ride daily to work and thought about buying an R Nine T. I know these are completely different bikes and the R Nine T will not be nearly as comfortable but does any one have a GS and a R9T and if so do you ride both? I’m afraid I will have a hard time giving up the confort of the GS and the R9T will just sit in the garage most of the time.

Anyone here bought a R1300GS with ASA? After honest opinions on how they found it and, if they have experience of the honda dct, how it compares. Going for a demo ride on Saturday but garnering independent thoughts.

Also, anyone who may have bought a 1300GS and if they got rid of it, what they moved to.

TIA

Initial situation / problem statement:

I live in Germany and own a BMW F900 GS.

It's a really nice bike to ride, in general. I'm rather tall, so I like its ergonomics. It comes in the (2025) "Trophy" colour variant and already came with quite a few optional extras (including the "keyless" system, quick shifter, tyre pressure monitoring and alarm system) and I upgraded it quite a bit (high wind shield, higher seat (870 mm --> 890 mm), original luggage rack with aluminium cases, third-party sat-nav) to make it better suited for long-distance touring and to work around a few limitations that it has in its stock state. However, one thing I still don't like about it is the engine sound.

And yes, I do understand that "Euro 5+" is very restrictive in this regard.

At idle RPM, all that comes from the exhaust system is infrasound. The gas column in the exhaust system oscillates primarily with a frequency of around 10 to 11 Hz, exactly one octave below the firing interval of the engine, which should be roughly 21 times per second at idle. The engine noise you hear primarily comes from the camshafts, valves, timing chains, etc. The exhaust system appears to be heavily muffled. When you rip the throttle open and reach high RPMs under high load, the bike goes like: "Raaaaah!"

(At least that's what I heard in videos. For obvious reasons, I can't really hear my own exhaust sound when I ride my bike.)

It really does sound a bit like a dirt bike or an airplane (propeller plane) engine - which is kinda funny, since BMW was manufacturing airplane engines in their early days, but it's not quite my preference when it comes to motorcycles. Also, the huge stock exhaust system really doesn't look that appealing to me.

Desired state:

My goal would be to get rid of the "octave down" effect and be able to hear each individual ignition at idle, while smoothing out the sound and pressure waves under high engine load or at high RPMs. Ideally, I'd also get a (significantly?) shorter rear muffler for aesthetics. I really think that the "Bazooka" of an Akrapovic silencer looks a bit excessive.

I also noticed that the bike is very clean emissions-wise and stays by a factor of 8.6 below the legal limit for carbon monoxide emissions, and by a factor of 2.5 below the legal limit for both hydrocarbon and nitrous oxide emissions. It would be cool if hydrocarbon emissions were a bit higher, since I like the scent. I mean it seems like there's considerable "headroom" to the limits required by the emissions class.

Potential issues / questions:

Now the bike is "Euro 5+" compliant and the stock exhaust system includes headers, a catalytic converter (with Lambda probes before and after), then a pretty large and heavy reflection- or interference-based primary muffler / resonator beneath the swingarm and a long absorption-based secondary muffler (manufactured by Akrapovic) on the side. So the bike is definitely heavily muffled.

What are my options to improve the sound and aesthetics of the bike?

I often hear that it's only legally possible to replace the rear muffler, but that the catalytic converter and front muffler must remain stock for the bike to remain road-legal. Why would this be the case? Why would the rear muffler be legal to replace (with a road-legal part that meets noise limits) but the converter and front muffler won't? I mean, I'm pretty sure law doesn't regulate how many converters or mufflers a bike has or what their arrangement in the exhaust system is, as long as it meets noise and emission limits, or does it? Is it no longer possible or allowed to produce (?) or install a (road-legal) "full system" replacing everything from headers via catalytic converter and mufflers for modern motorcycles under "Euro 5+" regulations? Are these systems generally illegal by now? Or is it just that people imply that "replacing the front muffler" will mean deleting it and the link pipe will not be road-legal and the bike will exceed noise thresholds?

So what would my options be, realistically?

From an aesthetic point of view, I like the relative compactness and dual-exit design of the "Remus 8 2.0", though it's still rather large compared to a true "short can". Not sure how much (if any) it would actually "improve" the sound either, since it's only a secondary muffler, but most of the actual sound dampening appears to happen in the primary muffler.

Any other recommendations?

Availability of aftermarket parts appears to be quite limited so far. The bike's only been on the market since February 2024. My hope would be that the availability of aftermarket parts will improve once manufacturers had more time to design and certify components and more bikes go out of warranty and more people start tinkering with it.

Germany also has a "legal specialty" that any modifications which worsen the emissions behaviour (including noise) will invalidate the vehicle's operating permit. However, since EU law overrides national law in this case, as far as I understand it, an EU-homologated part can be legally installed in Germany even if it worsens emissions behaviour. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

My neighbour only has a small "stub" of a muffler (SHARK RCT) behind the catalytic converter on his bike. No multi-muffler system, etc. It's clearly an aftermarket system, but he claims that it's road-legal. His bike is also homologated as "Euro 5+", but it sounds like a formula one car and smells like heaven (if you like the scent of gasoline). Not sure if I should believe him that it's actually road-legal, but when I heard and smelled that bike I was like: "Well, that much is still allowed?" - So I'm kinda now exploring my options.

Any recommendations? Will third-party exhaust components (e. g. rear muffler) fit underneath the stock luggage rack? How difficult will it be to install? Is this something I could do myself? I assume I will have to take the luggage rack off, since the rear muffler basically sits underneath it?