Best Tourer: BMW R1100RT

“BEST TOURER: BMW R1100RT”

The glossy So-Cal "moto magazines" normally pick fast sportbikes and big-power machines as their "Best" bikes. The adolescent attitudes they display are rarely mature. Their ultimate motorcycle, for which they wait in breathless anticipation, is one that will hit 200 MPH out of the box. In the meantime, any 160 MPH bike from Japan and almost any sportbike or "hoodlum" machine suffices.
Of course, useful life-saving technologies like Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS) hold no interest to such writers. They are so good that ABS is of no value to them—at least so they think. Some are so ill-informed as to think ABS is "dangerous." Therefore, they ignore ABS as a critical motorcycle feature in their "evaluations," "comparos," and, of course, "shoot-outs."
In 2000, in a rare (unique?) and surprising moment of insight, the editors at Motorcyclist chose the BMW R1100RT at the "Best Tourer" for 2000. An event of such historic proportions must be preserved and remembered, because it is unlikely it will ever again occur. Therefore, I present below, in its entirety, the Motorcyclist article to that effect. Even here, please note that the RT's standard ABS brakes are not even mentioned! Errr . . . hello?!