2026 New Track Bike

A change was in the cards, but my hand was forced...

I tend to be pretty thoughtful about my vehicle changes, be it my track bike or my cars. I usually start planning over a year in advance and do a lot of homework into the next acquisition. My 2020 BMW S1000 RR had been nicely setup by its previous owner and served me well since I picked it up at the end of 2024 until recently. It was a [relatively] inexpensive way to get into the BMW liter bike world and I’ve been enjoying it. Native data acquisition with it is one of the best using AiM hardware and being a popular bike, there’s great aftermarket and community support. My plan was to sell my S1000 at the end of the 2026 track season and buy a new-old stock 2026 model (I like buying closeouts, great deals to be had on brand new equipment). It also helps that Ken Hill is on a ‘25 BMW as well and is keeping it largely stock so he’s a great resource on it too.

What predicated a new bike ahead of schedule…

Skip to May 2026 and I’m at Thunderhill Raceway, riding with clients at a Volant Vivere day and about to head out on a solo lap and when I went to catch 5th gear on the front straight and it wasn’t taking. ‘Fine’ I thought, ‘I’ll just top out in 4th gear, maybe the bike needs a power cycle to clear a glitch’. I get to my brake marker and before I can meaningfully slow down for turn 1, the rear of the bike starts wagging, wagging enough that the front is moving around. I started thinking seized engine so I pulled in the clutch and looked up the hill for a path and possibly jump off the bike. Gratefully pulling in the clutch reduced the drag on the rear tire and it straightened up, I regained control of the bike, and was able to ride up the hill a little and get pointed in the right direction looking directly at turn 1 but then I noticed a cloud of unmistakable burnt oil wafting away from the front straight. I shut off the engine and looked down. My boots and the swingarm were covered in oil. Once we swabbed up the oil from the belly pan and management got the track cleaned and the bike was back in the paddock, we realized the oil filter had spun free. I put oil in the bike after tightening the filter and it started and seemed to run fine but I was done for the day and loaded up. I brought the bike to Utah to ride at our VV day at UMC and there was some noise when revving the engine that just didn’t leave me confident in it. I rode the Tuono for the rest of the event and that worked out great (it’s truly a good bike). At that point I decided it was time to do the bike refresh (meaning buying a new one). I’m not sure why the oil filter had loosened, I’d done an oil change a few track days before and it was fine. It is possible that I used the wrong filter since the filter for the BMW GS in the garage is nearly identical and honestly, I’d thought them to be interchangeable. Maybe it just worked its way loose, not certain. Any way about it, I’ve now safety wired all of my track bikes’ oil filters and will safety wire the drain plugs and filler caps.

I had hoped to do the switchover when the riding season was coming to a close and I could have used the Tuono V4 as my primary track bike but unless I were to dramatically change the suspension on it, I would feel limited. While I might have been able to save a little more money by waiting for closeouts, a couple of dealerships had some attractive pricing with both their own discounts plus a BMW discount. I ended up finding the exact bike I wanted (Graystone Metallic color, base model except with TPMS and the no-charge M-Torque engine tune) at Burbank BMW and the sales personnel (ask for Hugo) were really easy to work with. I flew down to Burbank from the small but convenient Santa Rosa airport to Burbank’s. I’m a big fan of smaller airports. It was a 1.6 mile Uber ride to the dealership and in less than an hour I was on the road working my way up 101 and Highway 1 back to my little town north of San Francisco.

It should be of little surprise that an S1000 RR is not a great touring bike, however the twisty nature of my route would mean that I’d be varying revs and gears quite a bit and had a lot of engine braking opportunities. It was a gorgeous day and the roads were fantastic. Big Sur was phenomenal and I even saw a whale breaching. Thankfully my friend Max met me not far from Santa Cruz and swapped bikes with me for 80 or so miles (he has a new R1300 GS) and that was some very welcome relief. Thank you, Max! It was a 491 mile ride and I almost wanted to sell the bike by the time I pulled into my driveway. In the following days I got in a little more riding and some more heat cycles before the first official dealer service and unlock on Tuesday (I rode it home on Saturday).

I’ve put the 2020 up for sale back into mostly stock form and that’ll be on the market soon. I did keep some of the racy bits for when I decide to upgrade some components on the new bike. I’ve disclosed my engine concerns about the 2020 in the ad and priced it accordingly. It’ll be a great bike for someone who wants to service the engine or replace it or even part it out, I just don’t have the inclination to do any of that.

So the new bike is in the garage, I’ve got some basic data setup on it already and my first [track] riding will be at Volant Vivere’s Laguna day. I’m not even going to adjust the suspension, though I will put the forged wheels with Brembo T-drive rotors on it, transfer the brake pads, and use SC2 slicks.

I’ll follow up with more detail after I ride the new bike and what I do with it.

The video of when I had the moment at Thunderhill is here, skip ahead to 6:30 to get straight to the exciting bit.