Punting around the deliciously twisty roads of southern Spain on BMW’s potent new M 1000 R has me thinking about a bike I fell head-over-heels for around 10 years ago. Back then AMCN had an Aprilia Tuono V4 Factory in its long-term test fleet and, like many others, I thought it was just about the perfect roadbike for someone who wanted one bike to ride on the road and the track. It offered the performance of a superbike combined with real-world practicality; it was comfortable, it was fast, it was loaded with the best electronic traction aids of the time and it sounded oh-so tasty.
Sure, with its high-revving inline four, the M 1000 R sounds nothing like an Italian V4, but it is a bike that like the Tuono nails its design brief to near perfection – these could be the ultimate roadbikes of their respective times.
A quick glance at the raw figures goes some way to explaining what makes the M 1000 R so good. Based on the existing S 1000 R nakedbike platform, the M 1000 R runs the same 999cc engine used in BMW’s S 1000 RR superbike… and it’s a ripper of a thing, punching out claimed peak outputs of 154kW (210hp) at a heady 13,750rpm and 113Nm of torque at 11,100rpm.
That’s 33kW more than the 121kW (164hp) S 1000 R. And while I’m sure many would argue that 121kW is more than enough power for the road, this is an
