I would not want the auto-clutch as low speed manouvres and really tight alpine bends often require / benefit from moderating the clutch, and a deft bit of letting the clutch in or out at the right time / in a particular situation can be the difference between staying upright or having to pick your bike up and spend a fortune on some bodywork / exhaust can.
The ability for a bike to shift gear automatically does not bother me too much, as long as I can turn it off and change manually,a gear lever being my preference as that is how I have done it for the last 40 years, but the point is I want to get the power delivery to my preference, sometimes low throttle and low revs to gently ride away, but sometimes I enjoy a bloody great handful at low revs and let the Torque be felt and hurl me forward - and not have the bike kick down 3 gears and scream senseless etc.
My desire can change from one gearshit to the next depending on the road, what is in front of me at the time, and although predominantly I change up between 4k and 6k (probably 99% of the time on an open road) it is not always the case, if the bike can "learn" (AI will be next) your "riding style" it could probably get pretty close to changing as you do - just without the "whims" some of us have - and that is where a manual override comes in.
Like adaptive cruise, I can see auto-box being best for heavier traffic and commuting journeys predominantly and I would use it for that if available and almost certainly turn it of on nice twisties, an back on maybe if I was feeling knackered.
When I think of my touring I can see it being in Auto for the ~150 miles of almost exclusively dual carriageway and motorway miles to the Tunnel, and the 2-4 hours I typically spend clearing the clutter of Northern France after leaving the train, before turning it off for the X-country back roads that follow, but it may stay on here and there in "cruising" / "touring" mode, before being firmly ignored once in the Ardennes / Vosges / Black Forest / Alps / Pyrenees until the return journey.
My biggest put-off (apart from the cost of the bikes) is the additional shit to go wrong, all I had in ~25k on my 1190 was issues with error codes and after a service some of the clock display not working. On my 1290 I have replaced a fuel sender (they all do that sir) as well as a couple of error codes, one due to the battery getting a bit past it and causing an error on startup (needing dealer reset) and once when I turned the bike off mid way through a suspension adjustment and confused it - another trip to the dealer....
...and most recently a "brake switch failure" - which was a false alarm, not sure quite how the logic works as the switch was operating fine, had a mate behind me all day with the error coming and going and always confirmed the brake light was working, post replacement the old switch tested fine on a meter, even with much flexing of the cable and trying to get a failure situation, maybe the resistance in the wires increased a few % in the 7 years since new and the over-sensitive self-test system was the real issue....
....and this is the problem, with each new feature there is a host of electronics, sensors, solonoids, wiring all waiting to age a little, deteriorate slightly - or totally fail, the latter is probably easy enough to diagnose, but potentially expensive to fox, but some codes do not give an accurate report to the computer and you end up paying for a dealer to start randomly fitting sensors, switches, ECU's and wiring looms in a bid to fix a fault - all at your expense.
Now if KTM / BMW offered a bike with a traditional key, basic cruise (it is handy, and with fly-by-wire throttles just a few extra lines of computer code) basic ABS (no IMU to fuck up one day) no TC - I can use my right wrist and restraint thank you, manual suspension - which can easily be services or replaced with high quality fully rebuildeable conventional kit for a fraction of the cost, basic display - maybe some LCD segment like the 1190 clocks, but not the fucking laptops they fit now (and thieves love) - I can even check my stop lights work before / after each ride - in 40 years of riding I have never had a brake switch fail until this one did not fail but needed replacing anyway despite being fine, and without the additonal shift-cam and auto-boxes to go wrong I can see a very reliable machine if it was stripped of all that shit.
Basically go back about 10-15 years with the tech, knock £3k off the price and I am in, I was really keen on the CB1000GT until I heard it had semi-active suspension, until then I was half way to justifying one.
The ability for a bike to shift gear automatically does not bother me too much, as long as I can turn it off and change manually,a gear lever being my preference as that is how I have done it for the last 40 years, but the point is I want to get the power delivery to my preference, sometimes low throttle and low revs to gently ride away, but sometimes I enjoy a bloody great handful at low revs and let the Torque be felt and hurl me forward - and not have the bike kick down 3 gears and scream senseless etc.
My desire can change from one gearshit to the next depending on the road, what is in front of me at the time, and although predominantly I change up between 4k and 6k (probably 99% of the time on an open road) it is not always the case, if the bike can "learn" (AI will be next) your "riding style" it could probably get pretty close to changing as you do - just without the "whims" some of us have - and that is where a manual override comes in.
Like adaptive cruise, I can see auto-box being best for heavier traffic and commuting journeys predominantly and I would use it for that if available and almost certainly turn it of on nice twisties, an back on maybe if I was feeling knackered.
When I think of my touring I can see it being in Auto for the ~150 miles of almost exclusively dual carriageway and motorway miles to the Tunnel, and the 2-4 hours I typically spend clearing the clutter of Northern France after leaving the train, before turning it off for the X-country back roads that follow, but it may stay on here and there in "cruising" / "touring" mode, before being firmly ignored once in the Ardennes / Vosges / Black Forest / Alps / Pyrenees until the return journey.
My biggest put-off (apart from the cost of the bikes) is the additional shit to go wrong, all I had in ~25k on my 1190 was issues with error codes and after a service some of the clock display not working. On my 1290 I have replaced a fuel sender (they all do that sir) as well as a couple of error codes, one due to the battery getting a bit past it and causing an error on startup (needing dealer reset) and once when I turned the bike off mid way through a suspension adjustment and confused it - another trip to the dealer....
...and most recently a "brake switch failure" - which was a false alarm, not sure quite how the logic works as the switch was operating fine, had a mate behind me all day with the error coming and going and always confirmed the brake light was working, post replacement the old switch tested fine on a meter, even with much flexing of the cable and trying to get a failure situation, maybe the resistance in the wires increased a few % in the 7 years since new and the over-sensitive self-test system was the real issue....
....and this is the problem, with each new feature there is a host of electronics, sensors, solonoids, wiring all waiting to age a little, deteriorate slightly - or totally fail, the latter is probably easy enough to diagnose, but potentially expensive to fox, but some codes do not give an accurate report to the computer and you end up paying for a dealer to start randomly fitting sensors, switches, ECU's and wiring looms in a bid to fix a fault - all at your expense.
Now if KTM / BMW offered a bike with a traditional key, basic cruise (it is handy, and with fly-by-wire throttles just a few extra lines of computer code) basic ABS (no IMU to fuck up one day) no TC - I can use my right wrist and restraint thank you, manual suspension - which can easily be services or replaced with high quality fully rebuildeable conventional kit for a fraction of the cost, basic display - maybe some LCD segment like the 1190 clocks, but not the fucking laptops they fit now (and thieves love) - I can even check my stop lights work before / after each ride - in 40 years of riding I have never had a brake switch fail until this one did not fail but needed replacing anyway despite being fine, and without the additonal shift-cam and auto-boxes to go wrong I can see a very reliable machine if it was stripped of all that shit.
Basically go back about 10-15 years with the tech, knock £3k off the price and I am in, I was really keen on the CB1000GT until I heard it had semi-active suspension, until then I was half way to justifying one.
