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BMW C1 - Autocar
01.02.2001 |
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The BMW C1 is a lifesaver. I can vouch for this because the C1 has cut at least half an hour off my daily commute. Over six months that equates to 15 hours a month or nearly a week of daylight hours that would otherwise have been lost staring up the exhaust pipe of the car in front.
That's why I reckon the C1 adds more to the inner-city congestion debate than any other vehicle on sale today. Bold statement? Absolutely, but I reckon it stands up.
For the price of my 125 cc C1 Executive (£4,470) you could buy either a brand-new 600 cc Suzuki Bandit or a two-year-old Ford Ka, although the C1 has now been cut to £3,920.
But you can't ride a Bandit to work in the rain wearing a suit, nor can you drive down the outside of a queue of traffic. You can do both on a C1. You don't even need a full bike licence - a day's compulsory basic training is all it takes.
My eight-mile journey to work now takes 20 minutes regardless of weather, traffic, tube strikes, or anything short of a nuclear holocaust. Even when the recent fuel crisis brought the country to its knees, I was buzzing around at an average 70 mpg with a five-litre spare can of fuel that would last me at least another week.
I haven't always been a fan. Aside from looking like a giant motorised embryo, the first few yards felt like trying to ride a bicycle with a tropical fish tank on my head. All that glass and metal swaying around exaggerated the slightest angle of lean, giving the impression the whole lot was about to come crashing down around my ears.
But now, leaning into a corner feels as natural as turning a steering wheel. I'm still a bit wary of U-turns and pushing it backwards when the C1's high centre of gravity can get the better of you, but as yet I've never actually dropped it. The only time it did fall over was when I was loading some shopping into the top box.
On the subject of the box, I have yet to see any C1 without this ugly but useful £250 option. The 75-litre lockable boot doubles the bike's usability overnight. I can tackle the weekly shop on the C1 or ride it to the airport with an overnight suitcase stuffed in the back.
It is this ability to carry large loads and keep you protected from the weather that makes the C1 an infinitely more practical commuting proposition than any other bike. I've never worn wet-weather gear other than a pair of gloves and a light waterproof jacket, as smart aerodynamics and a roof keep out most rain and road spray.
Nor should you underestimate how much warmer and quieter it is having a full-length windscreen. I swapped the C1 for a BMW R850R for a few days and could hardly believe how noisy and strenuous it was to ride on the motorway in comparison.
The C1 would be a good motorway cruiser if only it were a little quicker. The new 176 cc C1 200 will raise the top speed from 65 mph to just over 70 mph but what it really needs is a 400 cc engine. Not only would this raise the cruising speed, and so increase the commuting range, but the price would seem more palatable.
Lack of go is not the C1's only flaw. The single-cylinder engine is noisy, vibrating through the seat at high revs. A firm ride, slow-to-react CVT (continuously variable transmission) gearbox and an unnecessarily wide front fairing that reduces the bike's ability to sneak between traffic queues, are all minor irritations. Even if you do succeed in squeezing the handlebar through the gap, there's still the risk of clipping the adjacent car's door mirrors with the C1's strange rear winglets.
Nor has the C1 been BMW's usual model of reliability. Twice in two weeks the cable leading from the stand to the handle snapped. When it works this ingenious mechanism is a godsend. The centre stand flicks down and the bike's suspension is lowered until it sits on it. But when the cable snapped the only way to get the stand down was by scrabbling around under the footrest while precariously balancing the bike between my thighs. This problem has affected other C1s too.
Coopers BMW in Thames Ditton, Surrey, sorted out both faults under warranty and provided a loan bike for the fortnight it was off the road.
Another source of annoyance is the ignition switch. Twist it too far when you remove the key and it turns the parking lights on, draining the battery while you are away. Then there's the pointless sunroof fitted as standard to the Executive model that traps water in the gutter and tips it into my lap at the next bend. A way of carrying an extra person inside the safety cell rather than perched on a book-sized saddle outside it would be handy too.
Yet I remain a huge fan. And despite its other assets there is one reason why it deserves to sell by the trailer load: safety. I've never needed to test the anti-lock brakes, impact-absorbing nose cone, aluminium survival cell, shoulder bars and twin seatbelts but I'm convinced that if I did, I would fare far better than on a conventional bike. The bottom line is I wouldn't be prepared to risk riding to work on any other bike.
So the C1 is a lifesaver - in every sense of the word. BMW has proved the concept of a semi-enclosed commuter bike can work. Now it needs to develop a smoother, slimmer, quieter, quicker and above all cheaper follow-up. Roll on the C2.