There’s a quiet trade-off with these new bikes. The more tech a bike ships with, the less room you have to make it your own. I absolutely love my BMW R 1300 RS. It’s a genuinely impressive machine with radar-based Active Cruise Control, Forward Collision Warning, and Lane Change Warnings all come bundled into a package that makes long highway stints noticeably less stressful. But every one of those systems is a small anchor tying you to the stock configuration.
Tail Tidy:
The rear radar unit that powers Rear-End Collision Warning and Lane Change Warning lives right behind the license plate, tucked into that chunky factory tail section. Tail Tidys are not compatible with the radar.
Mirrors:
Same story up. Lane Change Warning shows its alerts as triangles embedded in the mirror housings themselves. Super cool! But if you swap in a set of bar-end mirrors or a lower-profile mirror you’re not just changing the look, you’re removing the only display surface that system has. There’s no separate warning light elsewhere on the bike to fall back on.
Luggage:
The RS’s electronically latched, keyless-adjacent luggage system is genuinely slick, but it’s one of those features that feels like magic until you check the price tag. And because it talks to the bike’s electronics for locking and central locking integration, there’s no real third-party equivalent. Aftermarket case makers like Givi or SW-Motech can absolutely sell you a comparable or larger box, but you lose the integration, and you’re back to keys and separate locks. It’s a case-by-case downgrade rather than a drop-in swap.
Will the aftermarket catch up? Probably, eventually. For now, these bikes are too new though, so we’ll have to live with whatever small changes we can make to make each bike our own. Guess I’ll start looking at exhausts…
Tail Tidy:
The rear radar unit that powers Rear-End Collision Warning and Lane Change Warning lives right behind the license plate, tucked into that chunky factory tail section. Tail Tidys are not compatible with the radar.
Mirrors:
Same story up. Lane Change Warning shows its alerts as triangles embedded in the mirror housings themselves. Super cool! But if you swap in a set of bar-end mirrors or a lower-profile mirror you’re not just changing the look, you’re removing the only display surface that system has. There’s no separate warning light elsewhere on the bike to fall back on.
Luggage:
The RS’s electronically latched, keyless-adjacent luggage system is genuinely slick, but it’s one of those features that feels like magic until you check the price tag. And because it talks to the bike’s electronics for locking and central locking integration, there’s no real third-party equivalent. Aftermarket case makers like Givi or SW-Motech can absolutely sell you a comparable or larger box, but you lose the integration, and you’re back to keys and separate locks. It’s a case-by-case downgrade rather than a drop-in swap.
Will the aftermarket catch up? Probably, eventually. For now, these bikes are too new though, so we’ll have to live with whatever small changes we can make to make each bike our own. Guess I’ll start looking at exhausts…
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