In a somewhat unprecedented initiative, BMW Portugal organized a public test-drive of their new F800S bike in the Estoril circuit. Naturally, faced with the possibility of free track time (although surely at a controlled pace), I grabbed the chance immediatelly.
Here's the bike:
Twin cylinder, 80 Hp, more or less 210-215 Km/h top speed. Not too fast, but enough to have some fun, I guess.
First impressions of the bike: "it's not like other BMWs !". Telescopic front suspension ? Light and somewhat good looking ? Paralel twin ? Not too expensive ? Is it a Honda under disguise ???
Sessions were divided into 3 groups (fast, medium and novice), and my first session was in the fast group. When I say fast, you must keep in perspective that this is a test drive, and that in all groups there was a control rider in front, and no overtakings whatsoever were allowed in a group. In the first session, I never needed to apply the brakes. Ever. Period. That's how smooth and calmly we were riding in the "fast" group.
The bike seemed light (although not near as flickable as the 600 RR) and the torque at medium revs was quite nice. But forget the top end, the engine is too linear, and you don't even notice any surge of power at all. It almost seems like an electric engine. Not too many vibes on the footpegs or handlebars, and it's a really confortable bike. Perfect riding position for any type of riding, excellent compromise, I might say. For track riding tought, the suspensions are really too soft. Maybe with some tweaking it would become better, but we weren't allowed to touch the settings at the test-drive. The tires were fine for track use (Continental Sport Attack and some Bridgestones I didn't get the model). It brakes very well, with additional safety if equipped with the ABS option (read on to find out why I know about the braking). This is a great bike for anyone jumping from small bikes or maybe even a good starter bike if some care is taken.
Then I was told I could go for a second session later on, and even though I didn't think I wanted to, the arrival of a friend that used to race had me go for a second session, with him, just for the fun of it. Fortunately, by the time of my second session (4 pm or so) there were not many participants going for the other groups. Just 2 other participants in another group. To add to the fun, the control rider for our fast group (basically, just me and my friend) was Nuno Oliveira, a rider which was several times national Supersport and Stocksport vice-champion, and he was riding a K1200 
.
Yes, he did went much faster than my previous session, and we were able to ride round the circuit pushing the bike a bit (for whatever "fast" it could go), dragging knees, hitting the rev limiter, etc. Quite fun. Even though he did slow down mostly in the straights and some corners, also to make sure we weren't left behind, but naturally to make sure we wouldn't push the bikes too much and risk a fall (there had been a fall a couple of sessions before where the rider got hurt). Nevertheless, I was able to push the bike up to 207 Km/h on the main straight for at least once (he only went fast on the main straight a couple of laps) and try out the brakes. Altought the suspensions simply had more than enough travel and were soft for this type of riding, the bike coped with it extremely well, and for those interested in a good road performer with the ability to go round track just for some fun (forget diving into a corner like on a CBR, but I could surely kick some less experienced sportbikers butts with the F800 on a regular track day). All in all, a nice day !
For an added fun factor, I was able to use something I have been developing these past weeks on a personal level, which is a lap analyser using a bluetooth GPS and my PDA, and then being able to export the results to Google Earth. If you have Google Earth installed in your computer, just download and open the file attached to this post. (For a better experience, download Google Earth 4 Beta and crank up the quality settings in the Tools->Options menu, and set Altitude Exaggeration to 3). Any feedback appreciated. Here's an example printscreen (the noticeable offset over google's imagery is due to that imagery's projection system, even google roads don't match exactly to the image):
