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It goes way back into early childhood, so get
ready for a long story.
It started
with a car. In 1971 may parents took a vacation in
Europe. They had been planning to bring home one
of the new Super Beetles, but when they got there
they found a better exchange rate than
expected...so they bought a BMW instead, a cute
little red 1600 (basically a 2002 with less
engine). The following year we moved to a small
town in Alabama. BMW was a realtively unknown
brand in USA at the time, and ours was the only
one in town, at least the only car. My dad worked
at the state hospital, and he worked with a guy
who rode a motorbike. They guy came over to our
house from time to time, and I remember my mom
pointing out to me one day that it was a BMW too,
the same brand as our car. I thought that was
pretty cool! It was a sort of red colour, but my
memory is foggy. I'm guessing that it was a /5.
Over the years of my childhood I would see a few
more BMWs and learn that they were expensive and
very highly regarded for their quality and
reliability.
I forgot about motorbikes for
the most part though, growing up as a car-nut. But
then in the late 1980s I was becoming disenchanted
with the automotive world. Just around this time,
I was in the army and listening to a lot of heavy
metal and somehow that got me wanting a Harley
Davidson. This sat on the mental back-burner for a
few years, and then one day I got to sit on a
Harley...and knew it was NOT the bike for me! The
ergos were totally wrong. I wan't even a
motorcyclist yet and I knew it. I also started to
dislike the amount of hubris and image-crap that
went with them. During college I thought maybe I'd
get a bike once I graduate and get a real job. I
remembered the BMW reputation and knew that I
loved German engineering, and I figured BMW was
about as far from a Harley as you can get...I
filed this all away for future reference.
Fast forward several more years to 2001. I was
four years out of college, had a somewhat decent
job, and thoguh I didn't realise it, I was in need
of a hobby.
One day I was talking to a
friend I hadn't seen in a while. He had just
bought a new car. I remembered a year or two
before, he had briefly been riding a motorbike-
and I recognised it as a BMW K100 (in this case,
an RT). I knew the K100 because back when I was a
high-school car nut, BMW had taken out big glossy
two-page-spread ads for it in all my car
magazines. With no more motive than idle curiosity
I asked him if he still had the bike. He did, but
was thinking of donating it to one of those
charities that take old vehicles. My mental gears
never spun faster. I said I'd take it if it was
all the same to him, and he said OK without a
second thought. It turns out that we both saw the
charitable donation route as a slow cruise to the
junkyard for the poor bike.
So I got the
bike for free, but the usual wisdom in such
situations applied...it had been parked uncovered
under a tree for 18 months, and that was after a
long life of being less than adequately
maintained. Both stands were broken, and the bike
had to be leaned against the garage-wall. Lucky
for me that I had just moved into an apartment
with a garage.
My initial goal was to change
the fluids, clean it up as much as I could, and
see if I could get it to start. But the more I
cleaned, the further I went, pulling parts off to
get at more and more grime and decay. Next thing I
knew, I had stripped it to the frame. I had the
frame blasted and powdercoated and worked from
there. I spent countless hours cleaning all the
parts as I reassembled. I had to buy lots of parts
too, both new and used. And I had to learn to
ride.
I was in flight school at the time,
and knew the value of good professional
instruction for anything in which safety played an
important role. A quick check of the phonebook
turned up a place that could teach me to ride, and
I signed up. This turned out to be an MSF BRC, and
I am eternally thankful that such instruction
exists.
In the course of learning about my
new toy, I did lots of internet research about BMW
motorcycles and in the process, I found the BMWMOA
and a local club too, the Lone Star BMW Riders. I
joined both, and over the years both have become
sources of great friendships and connections to so
much of the greater world of motorcycling.
I
rode the K for around a year and about 10K miles.
I crashed it once, a fairly benign lowside that
cracked up the fairing. Not having enough cash to
repair the fairing I set about converting it into
a big heavy cafe-racer...but that fell by the
wayside when the bike developed the dreaded
starter-clutch failure. I sold it and got myself
an airhead.
It was October of 2003 and I
flew out to Raleigh NC to buy a
gorgeously-maintained 1995 R100R. Five years and
30K miles later I still have it, but it's been
dismantled for over a year due to a valve failure.
I figured it was a great opportunity to tear down
the whole bike and do a nice refurb on it, which
it needed after five years of me learning all the
airhead lessons with it. It is currently
mothballed and packed away in boxes due to budget
constraints. Someday it will be unpacked and gone
through and fixed up very nicely, and even
customised a bit.
In the summer of 2007 I
bought my current main bike, a brand-new R1200GS.
I love this bike on so many levels and it just
keeps getting better.
So now that I'm on my
third BMW and have owned nothing but BMW, I think
I made a good choice of brands.
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