2023 BMW M 1000 R review: Road and track test

Now, it would be one thing if it were Ducati or KTM saying something like that about a motorcycle. Those companies are typically a little more flamboyant with brochure material. But, Germans? Using “insanity” as a marketing term? This required further research.

And so I took delivery of an immaculate new BMW, glistening with carbon fiber and machined aluminum, and rode it around as though it were my own for about a month. If this seems like a strenuous project to take on, just know that getting to the bottom of a story like this takes true sacrifice and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably someone in my family.

First impressions of the BMW M 1000 R

Before I went in search of anything psychotic or demented about the M 1000 R’s personality, I did the most ordinary thing a motorcyclist can do and rode home from the office. The first note I jotted down when I got home reads “stupendously direct,” and looking back, I stand by that. Everything about this bike feels precise and calculated. The fueling is good, the brakes are sharp and powerful, the seat is fairly narrow but nicely padded, the steering is light, and the rider triangle is agreeable even for me at six feet, two inches.

That said, there are compromises to be made, even in the first few miles. The handlebar vibrates pretty severely, which blurs the mirrors and made my digits tingle. Even if it wasn’t perfect, I immediately felt like the M 1000 R was delivering a pure experience. You feel all the feels, which means it’s ultra-responsive and also a little bit raw. Hardly insane, though.

In BMW’s defense, looking over the spec sheet might make you reach for that word. Fully loaded, as most BMWs that grace American showrooms are, the MSRP is $27,000. It uses the same engine as the S 1000 RR superbike, meaning claimed horsepower is rated at 205, on its way to a maximum engine speed of 14,600 rpm. These are numbers big enough to make almost any sport bike blush, much less machines without clip-ons or a windshield.

When it comes to the M 1000 R’s weight, the specs swing the other way. When I filled the tank and rolled it onto our scales at RevZilla West it rang in at 443 pounds. That’s three pounds heavier than a Suzuki SV650 and nearly 20 pounds lighter than a Kawasaki ZX-10R. 

Sure enough, I searched the document outlining the technical details of the M 1000 R for the word “light” and it returned 15 matches (that didn’t have to do with actual lights). A lithium battery, titanium muffler, and carbon-fiber wheels all do their part to chip away at the total weight. Inside the engine, the use of exotic materials and painstaking diligence in weight savings continues, my personal favorite being intake valves that are not only titanium but also have hollow stems, just to shave a few grams.

Second impressions

Over the next few weeks, I commuted regularly and took the M 1000 on joy rides to the hills, plus used it for errands around town. It might seem like a waste or just feel silly to use a weapon like this for such menial rides, but it’s amazingly docile putting through suburbia. From lugging through a parking lot at idle to gently cruising between stop signs in my neighborhood, it is endlessly polite, friendly even.

I went from lusting after it to appreciating it. Then again, I started to wonder if it was just me. I tend to like upright sport bikes with too much power, and by plucking at my heartstrings I was worried that I was losing track of what was bad and what was good about this machine.

Luckily, I have a small cohort of RevZilla West colleagues similarly dedicated to the task of reviewing bikes and who were, believe it or not, willing to take this maniacal, winged BMW for a spin in order to give me a reality check. Namely our West Coast video editor, Stephen, and Common Tread staffer Dustin.

Dustin’s notes on the ergonomics of the bike were immediate and clear; “I love ‘em. Lots of room in the seat to shift fore and aft. The bars have no rise and are mounted pretty low, but I never found the riding position ‘wristy’ because the tank is wide and easy to clench.” Stephen had practically the same feedback, saying the ergos were “very comfortable, very confidence-inspiring.”

At this point I turned to the big guns. My dear ol’ dad was in town to visit his grandson and I offered a test ride into the hills northwest of Los Angeles to tell me what he thought of the M 1000 R. After a day of riding and occasionally commenting that the bike looked like “it was going to eat its young,” he agreed with Stephen and Dustin.

“Boy this thing is pretty good” he said a few times, circling back to his own disbelief that he was fairly comfortable all day. At 70 years old, with hundreds of thousands of miles under his belt, my daddio typically tolerates discomfort on a motorcycle only if it delivers some other charm or sentiment, which often stems from the bike being nearly as old as he is. The M 1000 R is cold and clinical, and costs more than any vehicle he’s ever purchased, which would normally make him furrow his brow and grumble. Yet here he was, borderline happy.

The other thing all of my surrogate testers agreed on was how nimble the M 1000 was on a twisty road. Dustin commented that it “felt light for a bike of that size,” while Stephen was more effusive, saying “I felt a whole new level of cornering ability. I don’t know how or why that is. It really felt like it wanted to lean.” My pops said the same, astutely pointing out that bikes with 200-section rear tires need a lot of good engineering to feel light when they turn.

A deeper spec dive

Maybe the most impressive thing about the M 1000 R being fairly light is that it is not a simple machine. Those tricks I mentioned to help keep the engine light are especially important, considering the weight it gains from being so sophisticated. Variable cam timing allows the lift and duration of the intake valves to toggle, in just 1/100 of a second, between a “torque cam” and a “power cam,” based on throttle position, engine load, and rpm. At 11,000 rpm, a servo in the airbox opens shortened intake paths to improve flow into the combustion chamber and therefore maximum power at high rpm. All of this is dynamic and admirable, and it also costs the mill a couple of pounds.

As it happens, the little motors that control the ShiftCam system or the variable intake lengths are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to electronic features built into the M 1000 R. There are seven different ride modes, three of which are programmable to change the character of the bike’s throttle response, total power, traction control, wheelie control, engine braking, and suspension. There is dynamic damping control in the suspension, reading data and adapting 100 times per second, but also the ability to freeze the M’s automatic adjustment of the damping circuits and manually adjust the settings at specific parameters. Y’know, like typical suspension, except it adjusts with a button not a screwdriver.

The customizations and calculations available in the TFT dash unit are way too intricate to detail here, I’ll just say that if you’re a track-day nut or performance guru who likes to geek out on data, the M 1000 R will probably scratch that itch. It has all of the usual functionality of a dashboard, plus the ability to track just about any piece of information the ECU is monitoring, which is almost everything. Wondering how many times you shift during a lap around a track? Me neither, but the M 1000 can count for you, if you like, and can have a database of more than 300 tracks uploaded to its brain.

For visual representation of how complex and high-tech the M 1000 R is internally, BMW was kind enough to sprinkle over the bike’s exterior virtually every bit of sparkling aluminum and crisp, lacquered carbon fiber in the catalog. Again, as exacting as I’m trying to be here, I can’t bring myself to list them all. I tallied about two dozen optional “M Performance” parts bolted onto the M 1000 R in the technical document before I stopped counting.

Seeing the light

Of course, none of these specifications or numbers should be front of mind as you peel through a set of corners at speed. All of the work that went into making the M 1000’s chassis balanced or making the accessory parts shine is meant to congeal into a unique and whole experience at speed, like a mosaic portrait. And wow, does it ever.

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The M 1000 R is ridiculously capable on a closed course. Actually, “capable” isn’t even a good word to use because it’s not that the M 1000 R can go around a racetrack, the bike almost craves the violence of a fast lap. It is a machine that relishes the chance to torture its tires and it dared me to ride faster every lap, just by being ready for practically anything.

Aside from unleashing arm-stretching power, the rest of the bike is designed and willing to obey every command and get around the track more efficiently. Wheelie control can be adjusted to carry the front wheel just above the track under acceleration and the ABS can do the same with the rear wheel under braking, making me feel (but not look) like Toprak at maximum attack.

The suspension can go from stiff-but-accommodating in street settings to transmitting just about every bump and crease in the track’s surface. Most importantly, the supreme ease of use and agility that my colleagues and I basked in while riding on the street brightened into an inferno of confidence at high speed. Trusty Dustin, who attended the track day with me, to test a Honda CBR650R, took the M 1000 for one session and said he almost ran off the inside of the track because the BMW turned in so quickly and easily.

Usually big, fast bikes like this, in showroom trim anyway, eventually feel heavy and a little ungainly when pushed hard, but I hustled the M 1000 from side to side as fast as I could and was never met with a hint of doubt that the bike was ready for more. I felt connected to the track, and hugely in tune with what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. The M 1000 R is vicious and precise in a way that, in my experience, only a few motorcycles can touch.

The rub and the twin

Exiting one of Chuckwalla Valley Raceway’s many long corners, feeling the rear tire smear and wiggle as the traction-control light blinked and I listened to the BMW’s engine scream past 14,000 rpm, I might have told you that this M 1000 is darn near perfect. Because at that moment, it was. But that’s not every rider’s reality and, therefore, not the whole truth.

I had a few little gripes, as did my teammates. Dustin hated the shift pedal, saying the strange shape jabbed his toes and he pointed out that it isn’t knurled so his boot kept slipping off, especially in the rain. Stephen provided my favorite note, which reads, “Mirrors: Absolute garbage. WTH?” Each of those are fair criticisms for a bike that’s otherwise surprisingly refined and undeniably pricey.

These complaints pale in comparison to the fact that all of the many layers of technology and use of carbon fiber don’t save the M 1000 R from the ugly reality of government regulations. Foremost, noise emissions, measured at half of maximum engine rpm, which in the case of the M 1000 R is 7,300 rpm. To abide by the regs the engine had to be muted at that rpm, and that means there’s a noticeable dip in the otherwise-rising power curve between 6,000 and 8,000 rpm. If you take a look at a dyno chart you might find yourself channeling The Dude: it’s a bummer.

To combat this reality, BMW offers a retuned M 1000 mill which drops maximum revs to 12,650 and thereby releases more available torque in second, third, and fourth gears in the middle of the available rev band. The lower rev ceiling means peak horsepower drops from a claimed 205 to 180, but the idea is that the stagnation in power between 6,500 and 8,000 rpm is cured.

Riding both the “torque-tuned” and standard bikes back to back, the difference is immediately clear, especially on a racetrack. My track testing found the standard M 1000 R felt briefly feeble leaving a couple of Chuckwalla's third-gear corners, making a downshift pretty crucial to carry speed. Aboard the torque-tuned bike in the same situation, I was met with a thick and progressive wave of power that made the bike more predictable and therefore much easier to ride.

The downside is the rev limiter kicking in before 13,000 rpm, instead of letting those titanium valves do their thing and let the engine howl like a 600 Supersport bike. With a good rider on board, I’m convinced that an M 1000 R with the standard engine is faster around a track. For any other ride or rider, in any other situation, the torque-tuned engine is almost certainly the ticket.

Final thoughts

It’s easy to get distracted in the midst of a ride or a review of the M 1000 R, whether it’s the huge power figures and berserk acceleration or all of the fancy pieces of hardware dangling off it. Those things are fun, but as incredible as it is to ride it around a track and experience how ferociously it can gain or shed speed, what makes it special is easier to access than that, something not visible when the bike is parked or audible at speed. The chassis and handling dynamic is a work of art all by itself.

The most impressive thing about this motorcycle is its ability to contain and utilize the phenomenal rage that the engine is able to unleash — an attribute that is so much harder to measure than horsepower and yet just as easy to feel. The M 1000 R is absolutely laced with lunacy, just as the website promises. The reason that’s a good thing has everything to do with the rest of the machine offering so much stability and clarity.

2023 BMW M 1000 R
Price (MSRP)	$27,035 as tested ($21,345 base)
Engine	999 cc, liquid-cooled, 16-valve, inline four
Transmission, final drive	Six-speed, chain
Claimed horsepower	205 @ 13,500 rpm
Claimed torque	83 foot-pounds @ 11,000 rpm
Frame	Aluminum twin-spar
Front suspension	45 mm Marzocchi fork, adjustable for spring preload, electronically adjustable compression and rebound damping; 4.7 inches of travel
Rear suspension	Sachs shock, adjustable for spring preload, electronically adjustable compression and rebound damping; 4.6 inches of travel
Front brake	Nissin four-piston calipers, 320 mm discs with ABS
Rear brake	Two-piston caliper, 220 mm disc with ABS
Rake, trail	24 degrees, 3.8 inches
Wheelbase	57.1 inches
Seat height	33.1 inches
Fuel capacity	4.3 gallons
Tires	Bridgestone RS11, 120/70ZR17 front; 200/55ZR17 rear
Measured weight	443 pounds
Available	Now
Warranty	36 months
More info	bmwmotorcycles.com