BMW Sport/Touring Windshield 650 X-Country

In October 2007, BMW of North America dropped off a new X-Country motorcycle to Parabellum Ltd. for windshield development. This project was initiated by Ron McMillan, a Scot living and working in Bangkok Thailand, whose plan is to circumnavigate the 48 continental United States and do a documentary film about the quest. His film project is continuing.

Back here in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia , the standard BMW X-Country got 67 mpg on our realistic, 60 mph average, 30 mile test loop. A prototype Parabellum shield was developed and fuel economy leaped to 81.5 mpg!*

Parabellum is now selling the exact same X-Country Sport Touring shield. The windshield is made from D.O.T. approved 5mm (3/16 in.) thick cast military aircraft grade acrylic for optical clarity and is 19 in wide.

* We discovered something interesting in our fuel economy testing: A 20 degree reduction in ambient temperature yielded a 10% reduction in fuel economy: The standard, unmodified X-country achieved 67 mpg at 80 degrees F., but only got 61 mpg at 60 degrees F. The 81.5 mpg test was conducted at 80 degrees F. Why the difference?

Air density: The air is thicker at lower temperatures. Amazingly we never noticed this effect in all of our previous California testing. The ambient temperature on our previous Central California Coast test loop never varied much.