BMW has taken the wraps off their Concept Path 22

BMW Concept Path 22

 Named the “Concept Path 22”, this awesome looking bike was created for the Wheels & Waves Festival – a meeting of custom bikes, surfing and art at Biarritz. Because the German manufacturer can’t stay too far away from arts and design, the Motorrad division presented the first BMW interpretation of a “scrambler”, within the beautiful atmosphere of the Wheels & Waves Festival.

Judging by the details, I could’ve easily mistook it for a café-racer (with apologies to motorcycle aficionados), but thankfully, BMW pointed out its origin, even though the R nineT which it is based on, is a roadster type motorcycle. 

Here’s the deal; scramblers originated in the 1950s as modified road bikes for off-road riding. Back in the day, such machines usually featured deep-tread tires, increased spring travel and raised exhausts - one could call them the ancestors of modern-day dirt bikes. 

BMW Concept Path 22

Nowadays, just like café-racers, a scrambler is a modern-classic bike that has been stripped down of unnecessary parts and modded to look like a vintage racer/motorcycle. 

Furthermore, BMW Motorrad thinks that a scrambler is an epitome of a motorcycle built beyond established standards and conventions and that’s why they came up with one. The bike even comes with a special leather jacket and two surfboards, courtesy of artist Ornamental Conifer and surfboard shaper Mason Dyer, of Dyer Brand – the two also worked on some visual style cues found on the motorcycle. 

As the name states, the Concept Path 22 is just a Concept, but it shows a glimpse of what can be done with an R nineT model. In fact, the R nineT was actually designed from factory to be highly customizable. Nowadays, a Scrambler, like café-racers, relies on aesthetics, so a powerful engine is not a highly desirable element. Even so, the two cylinder boxer with cardan drive delivers 110 horses. 

As BMW says, in contrast to the “rustic” elements, there are some high-end Öhlins and Gilles Tooling parts mounted on it, Akrapovic tailpipes, MotoGadget instrument panel and milled parts created by Roland Sands Design.