IT’S been a long time since the most famous German marque made a small-capacity single cylinder machine, but after the acclaim and publicity received by the R Nine T, it was only a matter of time.
But this is no hipster bike though, with modern styling taken from the four-cyclinder S-series rather than the R Nine T, with three modern colour schemes, contrasting forks and a tubular steel frame.
So the G 310 R has one pot, is pretty light and offers ‘dynamic performance’ – than means the engine output isn’t very high – 25kW – but it should feel pretty lively. The engine’s actually front-fed – the fuel injection system sits in front of the backward-slanted cylinder, a design only seen before in recent years on Yamaha’s motocross machines.
Handling’s taken car of via the steel frame, alloy swingarm, single rear shock and upside-down forks. ABS is standard.
The pictures BMW has provided make the bike look reasonably big, but the seat height of 785mm isn’t high for a Roadster.
The bike looks squarely aimed at the learner market, which these days isn’t full of teenagers, but people discovering motorcycling in their 20s, 30s and 40s. These are people who can afford to buy a new bike, and with BMW making the German-designed G 310 R in India, it should be competitively priced.
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