BMW Path 22 Concept most likely the upcoming BMW Scrambler

This concept bike by Roland Sands Design, revealed today at the Wheels and Waves custom bike festival in France, gives us a glimpse of the upcoming BMW Scrambler.

This concept doesn't seem to really be all that different from the BMW R nineT it's based on. It just looks like Roland bolted on a high Akrapovic exhaust and different bars and then chopped some of the seat and rear fender. The R nineT's inverted fork has been replaced by a conventional Ohlins unit, but it's hard to say whether that's a revealing hint of the future production model or just what happened to be lying around the shop. The paint job by Ornamental Conifer is lovely and is a nice branding touch, and while it would be neat to see him have a hand in the production model's styling, that's about as likely as this bike being even remotely capable off road.

When we first reported news of an upcoming BMW Scrambler this past April, I was transparent about my hopes that the Scrambler would not be based on the R 1200 RT motor the R nineT uses, with 110 horsepower and 88 foot-pounds of torque. The R nineT, while a roadster, is still hip looking enough for buyers to consider its $15,000 price tag.

While this bike certainly looks cool (I would buy this over the R nineT, if that's what I was about to buy), it will be too expensive and too powerful and heavy if they want to challenge the Ducati Scrambler, which comes in at almost half the price and 90 pounds lighter.

Details about this bike, or the production model that will likely follow this fall, have yet to be released. All I know for now is that I hope this "path" to the production version comes with a Steve Jobs-esque "but wait, we have one more thing" that introduces an 800 cc model alongside it.