I'd heard of the CS before the bike show; my coworker Justin has a Beemer thumper and had heard about the CS through a mailing list, and he told me about it. It seemed pretty cool, but the pictures weren't spectacular, and it never occured to me to want a single-cylinder motorcycle.

I'll be honest, the looks of the CS aren't going to appeal to everyone. It's kind of robotic looking, and the colors are strange (it's fairly customizable -- BMW provides four possible colors for the side panels and the seat, and you can mix and match). But, damn, it's comfortable. The seat height is adjustable, and the lowest setting is a cruiser-like 29.5". That's a full 2" lower than my SVS. It's extremely light (which means I'll have to try it out in a dealership before I believe that that was the production weight) and the ergonomics are nearly perfect. The gas goes in under the seat, and the normal gas tank area is cut away and used for storage. The bike comes with a soft tank bag (shown in the second picture) but the owner will also be able to buy a hard bag, a helmet strap, or a stereo (!). Oh, and did I mention that it's a belt drive? It does has the irritating feature of having only one of its double headlights on when the low beam is on (both turn on when you flip to high beam), which is the only thing I really dislike about it.

Unfortunately, the CS won't be stateside until April. You can bet I'll be at the local BMW dealer, queueing up outside the door. BMW doesn't list the CS on their website yet, but I've heard that MSRP will be around $9000.

My thoughts from the saddle: Comfortable, short, and light. This bike is cute and punky all at the same time. Everything about it, ergonomics-wise, was perfect. How long until April?

Motorcycle.com's First Ride of the F650CS