Unlike many of my childhood friends, I’ve never been fond of motorcycles. Well, some of them look cool and I heard some of them are really fast but while all of my mates spent hours drooling over pictures of bikes in auto magazines I was pretty content with a huge yellow pneumatic tractor from LEGO Technic on a table in my room. And now, 15 years later, here I am, feasting my eyes on the new LEGO Technic 42063 BMW R 1200 GS Adventure on my table, thinking that I’ve been missing something in my life till this very moment. Although there have been plenty of LEGO Technic motorcycles before it, this 603-piece beauty is the first licensed motorcycle released, and the retail price of $59.99 / 49.99€ makes this BMW a solid bargain among all the licensed LEGO Technic sets.

Reviewing a BMW R 1200 GS set gives a lot of opportunity for reflection upon the licensed models in the Technic theme, as well as comparing them to the old Model Team sets, and this is what I’d planned to base my review on until I got my hands on the set. The problem is this BMW doesn’t need to be compared to other bikes, cars, or cranes. It stands out against every other 2017 Technic set. Its announcement was highlighted by several official press releases, emphasizing that this bike is a self-contained and stand alone model. It’s not a primarily meant as toy, nor is it merely a sophisticated mechanism or a dodgy Technic machine by Billund’s designers. Rather, it’s a decent, scaled copy of a BMW motorcycle made of Technic pieces — and this is what makes it genuinely beautiful.

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