Motorcycle Love

Let’s just get all the motorcycle talk out of the way… I commute 60 miles to and from work each day on my 1987 BMW K75S. That motorcycle is my number one passion, besides my wife Sharon. You’re going to hear many stories about it in the future, so you should know about its history. This is my third motorcycle in 3 years. My first two bikes were a 1977 Kawasaki KZ400 and a 1980 KZ750. I bought the BMW for $2100 in August 2003 off of a guy in San Francisco. It had 72,000 miles on it. That’s quite a bit for a motorcycle, but not for a BMW motorcycle. These 3 cylinder “Flying Brick” engines are know to go for over 300,000 miles without a rebuild. In the past year and 3 months I have put 20,000 miles on the bike. I’ve given it a major rehaul since I’ve had it. I installed heated grips right away. I’ve replaced the front fork springs with Progressive springs to give it a more sportier ride. I had Cal BMW replace the steering head bearings. It was painted metallic blue, was banged up a bit so I had it painted Classic Metallic Black by my new friend Jeff at Mountain View Cycle Paint. I chose this color from BMW’s official paint colors for that bike. The splines on the rear drive shaft and final or bevel drive were worn so I brought the final drive and drive shaft to Kitchener, Ontario this past July to be rebuilt by Bruno’s Machine & Repair. He rebuilt the parts to better than new BMW parts for less then half the price; $400 Canadian. It was interesting going through customs with a 25 pound chunk of metal in my suitcase. While I had the rear end off of the bike, I replaced the swing arm bearings. The old stock shock was not working that great anymore so I replaced it with a fully adjustable Wilbers Shock. When I ordered it they asked my weight, my wife’s weight and my luggage weight. They tuned the shock to my riding style. This shock totally changed the ride of the bike. It now handles like a brand new machine. The bike is quite easy to work on and I do most of my wrenching myself, except for the big time consuming jobs. I had San Jose BMW replace the clutch and the rear main seals in September. This bike has a dry clutch. Through craigslist, ebay and Peter, I’ve obtained all the BMW luggage for the bike including full size integral cases, slim city cases and a 22 liter top case that attaches to the rear tail rack. I recently upgraded the the alternator from a 32 amp to a 50 amp one I bought on ebay. I bought Sharon an heated electric vest for those cool rides and the extra power was needed. I also installed a switch for the high altitude loop and and extra power socket for Sharon’s vest. On Thanksgiving weekend Sharon rode down with me to Los Angeles and the front brake master cylinder started to leak. I ordered a new one and it will be installed this Saturday along with three new air intake hoses. The previous owners obviously were’nt as loving a I am. If you don’t change your brake fluid yearly, water gets into it and starts rusting away at the master cylinder, which causes pitting. I’ve put so much time and money into this bike that I’ve decided I will never sell it. It’s just not worth it. In the future I would like to purchase my dream bike, a new BMW R1200 GS. On that note, sweet dreams.