Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/30/bmw-motorrad-to-sell-m-cla.html
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Excuses not needed. Good looking bike. Here’s a picture of my same-era bike -
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I rode the new s1000rr with full M package on track with the California Superbike School. The bike is AMAZING. I don’t care what they call it.
Edited to add a couple photos of the M s1000rr:
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That means they can support human life, right?
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Prepare a landing party consisting of the Captain, the First Officer, the Chief Medical Officer, and some poor bastard in a red shirt.
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Only that it is in the right zone to be able to keep riders alive - not that it necessarily will.
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Checks out.
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I’m sure they’ll be reasonably priced for the common folk…
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Goddammit. How the hell am I supposed to get all of this drool off of my keyboard?
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I’ve driven several BMW cars over the years, and “boring” has never come to mind as a descriptor. Fast, maddening, fun, expensive, well-balanced, I’ve experienced, but I have a hard time understanding how anyone who has driven a few (especially Ms) comes up with ‘boring.’ Maybe it’s the part between the pedals and the steering wheel that needs enlivening.
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BMW has been using a very interesting way to use M and S letters.
BMW’s regular cars (320i, 530i etc) were powered by M engines. Their engine codes were M20B20, M60B30 etc. BMW Motorsport built sportier cars (M3, M5 etc) that were powered by S engines that had engine codes S14B23, S38B36 etc. Currently the M cars still use S engines but the regular cars have shifted to B and N engines.
Motorcycles have more engine in them than cars so maybe it makes mores sense that M motorcycles would be S motorcycles instead? They could of course start using M engine codes for the S motorcycles to distance them from the S engines used in the M cars.
I drive old BMW E34 525 and really like it (altough V8 swap would be nice), but their modern, large SUVs do seem a bit boring to me. Maybe I’m just not the target audience.
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To be sure, there are some clunkers in the current lineup, but people also seem to be demanding boring. Big car companies can’t live by performance alone, in any case. Toyota is boring. Decent, dependable cars, but, meh. By comparison, there are several cars in the BMW lineup that I could have fun in, and even my diesel wagon provides some grins. Was a bit grumpy after seeing a two-pedal M on the dealer floor, recently tho.
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Maybe they’ll use the M designation for electric bikes?
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They make premium cars and motorcycles that sell for a premium price. If you are on a budget buy a Honda.
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And probably won’t, except as organs for other people.
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The first letter has always denoted the engine type. RR is racing XR is sport touring GS is adventure touring. It reads like they made a new 1000cc engine and included a larger cylinder bore for the adventure bike.
The S bikes only came out 5 years ago. Maybe this is a new one to be made by their partners in India like the G310? They seem to want to be clear which bikes are made in Germany.
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There’s an easy rule of thumb that applies to all motorized vehicles, regardless of make:
Four wheels: boring.
Two wheels: exciting!
This rule applies especially to BMW, since it manufactures both types of vehicles.
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I agree completely, but i think that this theorem could be generalized by linear interpolation, which some say never yields an incorrect result 
Thus, one wheeled vehicles should be indescribably exciting, and correct course of action for fun-seeking individual would be joining American National Unimotorcyclists Society (A.N.U.S.):
http://sidecar-willy.com/anus-history-1992---2017.html
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