Throttle tube twisted to the stop, hold on tight and here we go. The burbling boxer barely needs a breath before unleashing a thunderstorm of thrust, slingshotting us out towards a red-and-white blur of kerb, traction control warning flashing away excitedly on the dash. Donington’s start/finish straight is dispatched with several stabs of staccato quickshifter, before the pit exit streaks past marking where I should grab the brake lever as hard as my feeble, floppy form can stomach.
Roll into the right at Redgate, short-shift on the exit, then get set for one of the greatest corner sequences in British motorsport. Craner Curves is a dizzying, daunting and disorientating downhill plunge that switches from full-commitment right to big-lean left, all while the track drops 100ft in a few seconds. It’s total sensory overload, like playing 3D chess at three-figure speeds.
BMW’s R1300RS is far less flustered than me. Longer than an unwelcome anecdote and stable as a granite doorstop, it’s untroubled by the snowballing speed, precipitous plummet or giddy fool at the controls. It’s been way too long since I’ve enjoyed any of this malarkey. I’ve been on track once in the past two years, and haven’t ridden Donington in nearly a decade.
So that’s a rusty rider, an unlikely track bike and, due to what I can only assume is an admin error, a place in the Advanced group. On a regular trackday I’d be bricking it, but today’s different. This is a special (if slightly cheesily named) BMW ‘Make Life a Ride’ day, a one-off festival offering both on-road test rides and accessible track time. Some folk are here for the more serious Performance Academy, involving track-ready S1000RRs, big-name BSB instructors and high-tech analysis; but there are also plenty of bozos like me, happy just to romp around Donington’s glorious GP layout, enjoying the small group sizes, friendly atmosphere and optional one-to-one coaching.
I’m also here to try and get my head round the R1300RS. Fifty years since BMW created the sports‑touring motorcycle with the R100RS, its modern-day descendent feels a lot more sports than touring. Not only is it significantly peppier than the R1250RS that came before, its ergonomics are now more front-end focused and its fuel tank has shrunk. That surprising shift along the sporty spectrum is only enhanced and underlined by this Performance edition model variant, which not only gets the superficially spectacular Motorsports colours, but also substantial dynamic differences: taller and stiffer sports suspension; beefier brakes; stickier Dunlop SportSmart Mk3 tyres. On top of all that I’ve also got machined adjustable rearsets and a booming Akrapovič twin-exit silencer – but no centrestand, hard luggage or radar-cruise cleverness. It feels like an RS that’s here for a good ride, not a long ride.
After a two-hour early morning trundle to the circuit, track prep involves fitting a GBRacing brake lever guard, removing the BMW’s satnav and selecting ‘Dynamic’ riding mode. No van, no paddock stands, no tyre warmers, no faffing with pressures. But it only takes a handful of warm-up laps in the first session to realise Dynamic is way too cautious for track riding, with the lean-sensitive rider aids refusing to dole out any drive until the bike’s pretty much upright, thank you very much indeed.
Switching to ‘Dynamic Pro’ lets me tweak traction control levels on the go with an up/down rocker switch. Back on track I start with DTC in default setting 3, then over the course of a session back it down to 1. It still feels more intrusive than I’m expecting, but I’m not brave enough to turn it off altogether. Instead I start toying with the lean-angle gauge, seeing how far I can crank the RS on its ear. Having successfully scuffed the hero blobs on both footpegs, the dash declares I’m better at lefts (52°) than rights (47°). I’m flattered, but suspicious.
The RS isn’t the most natural track bike, which perhaps explains why there’s just me and one other boxer in the group, drowned out by a sea of screaming four-cylinder M1000s and S1000s. But it’s still impressively handy, the composed chassis more at home through the fast, flowing curves in the first half of the lap than the stop-start hairpins and chicane at the end. And despite the motor’s mountainously tall gearing and lowly 9000rpm redline, its prodigious punch means the 2.5-mile lap can be comfortably covered between second and fifth gears, with the flick-flack Foggy Esses taken in third.
Good thing it doesn’t need a lot of cog-swapping, because the gearbox and two-way quickshifter are, frankly, a mess. Gear changes feel clunky, stiff and clumsy both up and down, and on more than one occasion a shift fails to complete cleanly. The only solution is to slow it all down, make each change more deliberate, pause briefly between multiple shifts and even (shock horror) use the clutch lever at times.
Brakes are fantastic though, with way more stopping power than I can use, plenty of feel, no ABS intrusion, and so little front-end dive that I start remarking to myself on just how good BMW’s modern Telelever is. Then I remember the RS dropped Telelever a decade ago, and what I have is a very clever set of semiactive forks with a variable spring rate. Blimey.
Later in the day I’m chatting with an S1000RR rider when he mentions his traction control settings go down below zero – all the way to minus 7. I’ve never heard of such a ludicrous scale, but I check and, sure enough, mine’s the same. Next time out I carry on dialling the electronic assistance down step by step, the RS feeling increasingly eager. I get down as far as -3 before my final session is cut short by a red flag. Not on my account, thankfully.
I come in from the track, ride through the pits, pick up my backpack, refit my nav and head home via a fuel station – today it’s been slurping super unleaded at just 25mpg. This may be the sportiest model in the RS’s 50-year life, but it still has several strings to its bow. This evening I’ll strap on a Givi tankbag and tailpack, then tomorrow I set off on a four day, 800-mile romp round Yorkshire and the Pennines. From sports to touring, just like that.