My Break-In Procedure: BMW R1200RT

Start With Wine

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Irma and I started my bike's break-in procedure the right way, toasting to the new bike with a surprisingly good bottle of wine, if you see kay . After finishing that bottle I got on to the business of doig the break-in on my new BMW 90th Anniversary Edition R1200RT . We had trailered the bike down from Austin on Saturday; a nice 660 round trip in one day. Sunday afternoon I took the bike out, escorted by my brother on his 2010 RT. We rode 150 miles and followed the break-in procedure recommended by MotoMan; a controversial procedure of hard accelerating to 5500RPMs and then down shifting to either 3rd or 4th and repeating the process. We did this repeatedly the first 25 miles and then more randomly the next 125 miles.   On Monday we rested. Tuesday we took it out for a 210 mile ride repeating the process, but I had increased the RPMs to 6500 after the first 120 miles. That day I also started using the cruise control a little so as to give myself a break.
I must say that I'm very impressed with the bike. It's got plenty of power for me, especially in the upper RPMs and it just hums along at 80mph without any effort. It's a new bike so the mileage at 80mph was running at 39.8 miles per gallon and in the 40s at slower speeds. I think we were right at 4,000rpm while doing 80mph.

Moto Hank's BMW Service in Dilley, TX

Those two days of riding totalled 360 miles then on Wednesday it was off to Dilley, Texas to have Hank of Moto Hank's perform the 600 mile service. We arrived in Dilley with 608 miles on the odometer and only 6 miles of fuel in reserve. We rode from the north side of Edinburg to Dilley, about 210 miles or so, on one tank of gas. The first service is important, but fairly simple, mostly change the crank oil and the final drive oil, check for faults and that's about it. Of course, I had Hank, a certified BMW service tech, sign and stamp my Owner's Manual.
We got back home about 7:30pm with an additional 482 miles for Wednesday. So I have 842 total miles on the bike this first half-week.
While we were at Hank's we met Frank Voellm from Stuttgart, Germany who's taking a few years to ride the world. You can check him on on Face Book and track his travels. He's been in South America and had just crossed over from Mexico on Tuesday after traveling extensively in Mexico. He had his GS bike in for repairs and new rubber before heading out to San Antonio. His plans are to head towards Florida and up the East Coast as weather permitted. He was then shipping his bike to Bangkok as he continues his world tour. He was an interesting guy to chat with and you always meet interesting guys at Hank's.
Just before lunch another rider, Albert from Medina joined us. Albert is 72 and still doing plenty of riding. He shared with us stories about his nice collection of motorcycles. That day he was riding his BMW cruiser for some maintenance work.
On our way up we rode to Freer then northwest to Encinal to catch I35. We can do 80mph on I35, but it's loaded with truck traffic coming and going to Mexico via Laredo. So on the way back on we took Hwy 624 from Cotulla to North of Freer. It's about a 60 mile ride with lots of fracking going on, but we had some entertainment as a pair of fighter jets went over us four times. They were low enough to where the jet engines roared. I don't know if they were just checking out the bikes or on maneuvers, but it was sure neat seeing them fly by. Somehow they didn't seem to have any trouble catching up to us!

Frank's World Touring Bike

Another nice road from Freer to Falfurrias is highway 339 which runs about 60 miles. It's actually free of fracking trucking so it's fast and more comfortable than Hwy 44 from Encinal to Freer. We decided to get on the expressway 281 as we headed back, trying to avoid the back country at night when all things wild come out and play on the blacktop.

The 2010 and 2013 RTs in Falfurrias, Texas

Tomas, Frank, & Albert Notice Frank from Stuttgart Germany is right at home in 60 degree weather in his short sleeve shirt and sandals!

Here She Is - All Serviced Up Until the 6,000 Mile Mark

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