The down side was that, at all times, at all speeds, there was a tremendous amount of wind noise. Allow me to explain.
Wind hitting your helmet on a completely unfaired motorcycle is laminar. There are no turbulences or disruptions. So even though the wind blast is significant, it's actually pretty quiet with a full face helmet. Add a windscreen to the bike, and now there are three distinct "zones" of wind confronting the rider. The first zone is the laminar flow. This is the wind that is above the wind being affected by the windscreen. The second zone is the turbulence area where the wind deflected from the screen dumps over the top of the screen and is having a little tussle with the laminar air above it. The third zone is that pocket of deflection behind the screen, where you are "protected" from the wind.
You can feel the three areas pretty easily when you ride. Take your hand (left hand, duh) and hold it behind the windscreen, in front of your chest. Your hand will not feel a wind blast. Start to raise your hand and you will feel the turbulence start to tingle and buffet your fingers. This is the turbulence. Continue raising your hand in front of or above your helmet until the buffeting disappears, this is the laminar flow.
OK... we're clear on the tech, now I'll proceed with the story.
With the Z-Technik installed, all of the wind was blocked on my body, but the turbulence zone was directly on my helmet. This made it EXTREMELY LOUD. I don't like loud, it drives me nuts. Maybe it's because I'm an audiophile and I appreciate good sound, so I really find the wind cacophony that much more abhorrent. Maybe it's because I have really bad surfers ear, so I don't want to wear ear plugs because my ear canals itch constantly, I don't know. But the bottom line is this... the Z-Technik is noisy. Very noisy.
One night I decided to take the Z-Technik off and feel the bike sans windscreen. Immediately the bike felt more fun without that big windscreen in front of me, but on the freeway, I was hanging on for dear life! Fuuuuuck. Imagine hurricane force winds on your chest.
So that pretty much sucked.
I reinstalled the windscreen and decided to take a little trip to my dealership and take a demo ride on one of the loaner bikes. They're fitted with the low BMW factory windscreen.
Bingo.
I had hit the magic combination. Basically, the low windscreen is engineered to take the brunt of the wind away from your chest, put the turbulent wake at about shoulder level, then leave your helmet in the laminar flow. So even though the screen is tiny, it actually does an amazing job. Sure, your helmet is in the direct wind, and your neck needs to do some work to keep the head on the shoulders, but overall it's quiet. Very quiet.
Check the logic here...
To get better wind protection I removed my large windscreen and replaced it with an unbelievably small windscreen. Hmmm.
Well it worked. But the Z-Technik didn't go down without a fight! BMW agreed to trade me my Z-Technik for a low screen from one of the demo bikes so long as I agreed to pay two hours labor. While removing the Z-Technik, the mechanic discovered that the mechanic who installed the Z-Technik had cross-threaded the threads basically ruining the top of the triple tree (not a cheap part). And for posterities sake, I'd like to point out at this time that it wasn't me who fucked it up. Because I did, in fact, remove the windscreen. But I only removed the screen itself. I left the mounting bracket in place.
Whew. Glad I did, because if I had removed it, I would have discovered the cross threading and probably would have carried the blame, as well as the cost of a triple tree.
So the bike spent a week in hospital while I had a loaner. But, now it's home safe and after a little fiddling with the headlight, completely dialed in.
Now Let's Talk Aesthetics
I always felt like a bit of a wanker installing this whacking great windscreen on a naked bike. It felt like I was repurposing the bike for a duty that it wasn't designed for. Shouldn't a naked bike be naked? Shouldn't an R1200R have some element of hooligan in it's blood? Shouldn't it be like the sophisticated cousin to bikes like the Ducati Monster?
Indeedy-deedy my friends. It should.
I took a picture of my bike in Malibu in front of this corner that Pierce named "God's Country." It's a really tight corner, with no runoff, and a cliff. If you run wide... well that's God's Country.
The picture turned out OK. With the Z-Technik in place the bike is handsome. But it just looks like it has no balls. It looks like someone just came along with some sheers and lopped it's bollocks off.
I was not pleased.
With the little windscreen in place it looks way better. I'm really stoked.
So there you have it. Bikes are better with balls, especially when they're quieter.
Stay tuned for the next installment. Until then, enjoy these photos of the bike, sans bollocks and with bollocks.
