Rally Ready

RALLY READY

What your Dakar Replica BMW F650 really wants to be

JIMMY LEWIS

WAY BACK IN 1999, I GOT SHIPPED OFF TO HUNGARY to test the factory BMW that Richard Sainct rode to victory in that year’s Dakar Rally. I didn’t know at the time that I was auditioning to race the forth-coming 900RR Boxer-Twin, but I got a real feel for the F650 Single before there even was a production GS version, let alone a Dakar Replica. And just about the time BMW retired the Single from rally-racing duty, Richard Schalber, the primary designer and builder of the works bike, licensed Touratech (www.touratech-usa.com) to produce a kit converting a production F650GS or Dakar Replica into a real rally-ready ride.

From its 468-page (!) catalog, the German company will sell you a complete kit or the individual pieces^depending on the strength of your desire and the thickness of your wallet. Although I’d ridden F650s with Touratech suspension and fuel tanks added, I’d never sampled a complete conversion until recently. Following last December’s Cycle World Show in Long Beach, California, I was given the opportunity to ride the F650 Rallye that the U.S. importer had on display in its booth.

Naturally, I headed straight for the desert, where my first problem was getting over the trepidation of riding this beauty off-road. Its paint, fit-and-fmish and-don’t forget-$22,000 price tag make it a little difficult to go splattering through the puckerbushes. But like all rally bikes, it encourages you to ride a long way, saying things like,

"C'mon, we're not going to run out of gas. Hey, Ibet you can’t wear out my tires in a single day!” With a free-flowing exhaust that is quite a bit louder than stock, the sound alone begs the rider to twist the throttle and spin the rear wheel.

Since the F650 Rallye is firstly a purpose-built racebike, the seat is firm and the quad fuel tanks (three in front, the other under the seat) are big, holding a total of 13.7 gallons. Clearly, Touratech intends to transport man and machine great distances between gas stops, really fast. But on this particular bike, the springs in the WP inverted fork weren’t up to the task; excessively soft, they allowed the front end to bottom on every bump. I had to stay on the gas, keeping the front light to avoid working it too hard. Otherwise, the ride was good. The shock was much better set up, and let me hit things that would crush the rear end of a stock F650.

With a set of Magura handlebars and billet triple-clamps, the overall layout of the cockpit is excellent, especially considering the limited space between the front and rear gas tanks. Standing up is way more comfortable than on a stock F650 with its fat fuel tank that flares out awkwardly. Purpose-designed off-road foot controls make shifting and braking feel proper to a dirt guy.

Opening up the exhaust gives you an idea of what the Rotax-built motor is really capable of. Though response from the EFI is a little lazy, there’s plenty of torque and power. Big flywheel effect doesn’t make for a snappy burst, but once the engine is spinning, it’s one smooth ride, keeping the character that makes the F650 the best road-going Single around. Never mind that you won’t need roads to get where you’re going!

Backed up to the towering fairing is a rally cluster of instrumentation, with a GPS, map book, Touratech odometer/computer thingy and a bunch of LEDs and switches, the functions of which I’m not sure. I didn’t touch them and no lights came on, so everything must have been okay.

From what I could tell in one day’s testing, the Touratech F650 Rallye is just a set of fork springs away from a Dakar finish, and surprisingly at a price comparable to that of a race-ready KTM rally bike. Almost makes a guy want to check that his passport and inoculations are up to date... □