Chris had been thinking about an old boxer with modern suspension & brakes above & beyond using parts from our friends at Cognito Moto (which we did). He figured if he started thinking about it the right bike would come along.
He received a phone call from the president of the local BMW club asking if he was interested in a wrecked 1975 R90S? Yes, he was! He put him in contact with the owner of the bike. Bill, the owner, had been restoring this bike he has had for 30 years for the past 20 years. This was his end all BMW & the last bike he would ever ride or own. Only a few months after he completed the bike a car turned in front of him & the rest is history. The bike was totaled, fourtnatly Bill was overall ok. We drove down to the Sacramento area to pick the bike up. Bill had a pile of spares, books & tools to go along with the now wrecked bike. He had been a BMW tech & had his own shop in the 1980’s. We brought enough parts down with us to make the bike a roller -rolling wheels/handlebars/etc. We loaded everything up & back to the shop we went!
Over the next few months Chris started taking inventory of what was salvageable on the bike, what parts we had in the shop & what he needed to source. Like all of our custom BMW bike builds it had to be different, cool, fast & rideable (most important). Chris had seen a few bikes in Europe where they converted a twin shock to a Paralever rear suspension like you would see on a BMW R1100GS & that was the beginning....
Spoke wheels were a must. In our opionion -there is nothing worse than building a vintage bike with cast wheels. No sooner than he had collected enough bits to start the build he received a phone call from a new customer asking if we could build him an Urban Scrambler. Chris said - We have the bike for you!
This was the second time he had started a personal project & it went to some else before he finished it.
Dan (the customer) lives in a part of the country that gets only a couple months a year of riding weather, not that stops him from getting on his modern BMW & riding South in the Winter. Dan had only a few requirements -the seat had to fit his 5 year old son so they could rie around their small town & it had to make him feel like there was no reason to ride his modern BMW bike. Pretty simple requirements!
We first showed this bike at the Bay Classic in San Francisco & then at the 1 Moto Show in Portland, Oregon.
SPECS
The base bike is a 1975 BMW R90S
Modern Japanese forks
Spoke wheels with Sun rims
BMW paralever rear suspension from a R1100GS
Custom shock from TFX
The motor, transmission & rear drive only had a few thousand miles on them so we did not have to do much there.
The gas tank is from a late 70’s BMW /7 series, the seat & rear frame is custom made at Boxer Metal
Some of the visible parts are from Motone & Motogadget
We pulled it off! The customer loved the bike so much we are redoing his 1976 R75/6 & he won't get back on his newer BMW.
PARTS USED ON THE BIKE YOU CAN FIND IN OUR STORE
When we built this bike there were a lot more parts we carried like the Motogadget M Unit and switches, Ohlins shocks.... Many of these parts have been diffacuslt to source reliably so we have found alternative parts. Please look through our online store to see our latest offerings.