Setting your cruise control system to actively follow the car ahead and adjust your speed accordingly has been available in passenger vehicles for over a decade.
Now however, BMW and Bosch have teamed up in order to deploy this type of rider assistance system in motorcycles, thus maximizing comfort and safety on long journeys as the rider can simply let the bike maintain a set distance to the vehicle in front.
The distance set can be varied in three stages. Both the riding speed and the distance to the vehicle in front are then set using a button. Ultimately, individual settings are displayed on your bike’s TFT instrument cluster.
The German company’s ACC system boasts two control characteristics: comfortable or dynamic – each with its own acceleration and deceleration behavior. The distance control can also be deactivated so that the rider can use the Dynamic Cruise Control (DCC).
If you’re wondering how the system handles cornering, BMW Motorrad says that the ACC can automatically reduce speed if required, aiming for a “comfortable lean angle”.
“With an increasing lean angle, however, the braking and acceleration dynamics are limited in order to maintain a stable rideability and not to unsettle the rider by abrupt braking or acceleration.”
The rider can still intervene at all times, which is of course vital seen as how this new ACC system only responds to moving vehicles, ignoring stationary ones, like at the end of a traffic jam or while approaching traffic lights.