BADIA, ITALY -- The man with the passion and pedigree to perhaps one day run all of BMW's worldwide business -- just as his father did for almost 30 years -- is scorching up from the Grodner Valley to the Sella-Joch on the back of a new 2004 BMW R1200GS sport touring motorcycle.

This 12-kilometre stretch is all twists and hairpins, sharp braking, hard throttling, bending, rolling and leaning into corner after corner. It is exhausting, exhilarating, at times scary, and very challenging. Before long, I have lost sight of BMW Canada president and CEO Hendrik von Kuenheim.

He's good and that's a surprise. It is not often you find buttoned-down car company executives who take their riding so seriously. But here on the second day of what will become a three-day, 937.1-km tour of the Alps, von Kuenheim has been a revelation.

"I started riding when I was 16, but got serious in the 1980s when I lived in Cape Town [South Africa]," the 44-year-old says later that evening over dinner at Badia's Hotel La Majun at the foot of the magnificent Dolomite Mountains.

The Dolomites are staggeringly beautiful, turning a brilliant red just as the light fades at sunset.

"It is the minerals in the rocks," says von Kuenheim's close friend, the tall, suave and worldly Michael Hruska, who has been generous with his knowledge of the area during our tour.

Born in Bolzano of the South Tyrol, an area shared over the centuries by the Italians and Austrians, depending on who had won the most recent war, Hruska has a story to share with every cappuccino.

He tells us we are in Red Roman country -- "Not really Austria, not really Italy, but unique and its own" -- though the official name is Alta Badia.

Here in a large valley at an elevation of about 1,600 metres, surrounded by the craggy peaks of the Dolomites, there are six villages populated by perhaps 5,000 people, with accommodation for perhaps three times that.

This is now an avant-garde tourist area that boasts amazing skiing in the winter. In the warmer months, tourists flock here for the hiking, mountain biking and, of course, motorcycling.

Tonight, the second night of our ride, it seems as though we've been on the road for weeks. We left the day before from BMW's headquarters in Munich, headed south toward Innsbruck, Austria, then south further still into Italy, just north of Bolzano, before turning east and then north back to Munich.

The tour has been organized by Munchner Freiheit Motorrad-Reisen. Founded 24 years ago by burly Bavarian Hermine Weil, Munchner Freiheit (which means 'freedom') takes riders on fully-guided, all-inclusive (including supplying the motorcycle) tours for fees ranging from a few hundred euros to several thousand, depending on length, location and accommodations.

Our particular tour has been designed to expose us to a range of BMW motorcycles, including the brand-new R1200GS ($17,850) dual-purpose sport touring bike. But we're also spending a good deal of time riding BMW's mainstream touring bike, the R1150R ($14,990), and sportier R1100S ($18,225).

BMW, says Canadian sales manager Norm Wells, "is on the threshold of a new product offensive, starting with this new GS. We have all kinds of product that should boost interest."

It's been a long time coming.

Back in the mid-1990s, BMW's motorcycle business -- like the entire Canadian bike industry -- was essentially dead. In 1995, BMW Canada sold just 240 bikes, one-quarter of the 1,120 the company sold last year and one-tenth the number it would like to sell once the 12 bike variations in the current product line are updated.

The slow rebuilding of the business at BMW is reflected in the entire Canadian bike market. This year, total motorcycle sales will hit about 65,000 units, half the number of the peak years of the early 1980s, but still good compared to the pitiful 20,000 or so bikes sold during the "crash" years of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The cratering of the bike business was precipitated by dramatic hikes in insurance premiums and by baby boomers putting their bikes aside as they turned to raising families and building careers. The current growth is being fuelled by those boomers returning to motorcycling with more money, grown-up families and careers well-established.

And then there is the completely new growth spearheaded by female riders.

"We're seeing about 20 per cent of the new riders being women," Wells says.

Still, in terms of total sales, the motorcycle business is minuscule compared to the new-car market, which in 2003, boasted annual sales of about 1.6 million units.

In Canada, the motorcycle business is dominated by Harley-Davidson and Honda, who together control perhaps a third or more of street bike sales. Exact numbers are hard to come by, however, because unlike the car business, the motorcycle industry does not publish official sales data.

Yet because BMW is such a tiny player in a very small motorcycle marketplace, it is a wonder BMW bothers at all. That very suggestion proves offensive to von Kuenheim.

"BMW began as an aircraft engine company, then we did motorcycles, then cars," von Kuenheim says during one of the many cappuccino breaks on the tour. "It is what we do and it is a good business, a profitable business."

In fact, BMW turned to making motorcycles in the early part of the 20th century because it had no choice.

After the First World War, German companies were banned from producing aircraft engines under the Peace Treaty of Versailles. So instead of building 19-litre, six-cylinder aircraft engines putting out 226 horsepower, BMW turned to 500-cc, 6.5-hp "boxer" units with two cylinders arranged opposite to one another to lower the centre of gravity.

The first BMW motorcycle with this engine was the 1920 R32, and BMW remains committed to the boxer design to this day.

Motorcycles sustained the company during those postwar years, and now, von Kuenheim sees them as a growth business. At present, BMW sells about 100,000 bikes a year, but that should grow to 150,000 in the next few years, he says confidently.

There will be some sales increases in Europe, but with an already commanding 18.7 per cent share of the European market, there are limits to what is possible.

That leaves North America, where BMW is a bit player with less than 2 per cent of the market. The company is aiming to double its share in the next few years.

The key to that is an updated product line and entry into new segments.

The first salvo is the updated R1200GS, a sport touring or adventure touring bike that is BMW's bread-and-butter and overall best-selling model. Capable of both highway and off-road use, the 2004 R1200GS (which went on sale in March) has undergone the typical -- in the bike business -- more power/less weight makeover.

BMW says weight is down by 12 per cent to 199 kg, while power is up 15 per cent to 100 hp at 7,000 rpm.

The updated Boxer motor is the first with an internal balance shaft to help smooth vibrations and buzzing, and the six-speed gearbox has been revamped for smoother shifting, says BMW. The whole drive train is stronger, weighs less and offers more ground clearance.

The updates seem interesting enough to the local bike nuts in the Alps, all of whom come dressed head-to-toe in the latest biker gear. At one particular stop at the tallest point in Austria, the Grossglockner glacier, dozens of riders doffed their full-face helmets to stop by and look over the 1200GS bikes we are riding.

And from my perspective as an experienced but not expert rider, the 1200GS is comfortable over hours and hours of riding and is easy to ride -- even on the tight hairpins with the occasional pucker moments leading up to the top of the Grossglockner.

However, if BMW wants to grow in North America, there is a limit to how far adventure touring bikes can take the company. Sport and lumbering touring bikes are big sellers in Canada and the United States, so that is where BMW is heading with its new models. But the company will also field a lineup of smaller, lighter bikes aimed at the female buyer.

On the racy side of things, last month, BMW announced it would begin production of a new K1200S high-performance sport bike with a 1,157-cc, four-cylinder, inline engine rated at 167 hp at 10,250 rpm.

"That's pretty sporty," says Wells, adding that changes to the other 12 bike variations will be all about "more power and less weight. We are a sport touring company. What we're going to do is push more on the sport side."

At the Montreal Motorcycle Show last February, BMW showed off face-lifted versions of its K1200LT, F650GS and F650 Dakar bikes. The latter two are lighter models that should interest some of those new female riders.

"Women today want to do what men do, and that means riding motorcycles," Wells says.

Perhaps. But the numbers remain small. One way to reel in some of those potential buyers, though, is to send them out touring new places on the back of a motorcycle, as we did through the Alps.

This type of adventure travel is growing in popularity.

According to the Travel Industry Association of America, half of U.S. adults, or 98 million people, have taken an "adventure" trip in the past five years. This includes 31 million, who engaged in "hard adventure" activities. Not surprisingly, BMW and other motorcycle companies are linking up with touring companies such as Munchner Freiheit as a form of one-to-one relationship marketing.

"We see this as one way to reach customers," Wells says.

And as we saw in the Grodner Valley to the Sella-Joch, it put a fat grin on the face of at least one car company president, too.

BMW R1150R

A mainstream "roadster" with comfortable seating and handlebar placement. The two-cylinder, four-stroke boxer engine develops 85 hp and has a top speed of 197 km/h. Fuel consumption over 100 km at constant 90 km/h is rated at 4.6 litres. Fuel consumption over 100 km at constant 120 km/h is rated at 5.7 litres.

List price: $14,990

BMW R1200GS

The "bread-and-butter" BMW adventure touring motorcycle, the R1200GS is capable of both on- and off-road riding. Its relatively upright seating position is very comfortable on long rides. The two-cylinder, four-stroke boxer engine is rated at 98 hp and the bike has a top speed of more than 200 km/h. Fuel consumption over 100 km at constant 90 km/h is rated at 4.5 litres. Fuel consumption over 100 km at constant 120 km/h is rated at 6.0 litres.

List price: $17,850

BMW R1100S

List price: $18,225