There clearly was no reason to be looking for a third BMW R100 RS. Our garage already is home to a pair of my favorites, a 1977 non-CFO RS that was once owned by Malcolm Forbes, and a smoked red ‘82 which was a Euro delivery Beemer for a U.S. Army Officer stationed in West Germany.
And yet, classified ads continue a siren song of sorts that requires periodic attention. A handsome picture of a two-toned 1979 RS caught my attention last summer. It was a complete machine, in a great livery, that had already covered 100,000 miles. It had a level of patina worthy of the journeys she had been on. She was available at a modest price, having gone from her original owner in Pennsylvania to a home in Indiana, where some possibility of becoming a bobber was considered. Owner No. 2 concluded that this would be akin to cutting up a piece of art and decided to sell rather than customize her.
I was drawn into this by the pictures, by the story of an original owner who kept meticulous records, and the need for a project to distract me from the natural grieving that came from selling a business I’d spent more than a decade building. So, building something else seemed like a good idea.
I probably could have found a garage queen bike like this one, but there was a certain appeal to finding one that was nice but not too nice to be ridden anywhere, anytime, irrespective of the weather. One that could get dirty and not cause my OCD needle to be pegged. The other ones are close to perfect. This one’s charm came in part through it’s imperfections.
So, a deal was done, and the RS was shipped to a good friend and master BMW mechanic, Peter Bombar of Bombar’s Beemers in Wilmington, North Carolina. We found many mechanical things that needed to be addressed, so the project got bigger than planned. Going through the Beemer became something of an archeological effort as we discovered things that had been modified along the way. And then, it all got more interesting.
The first part of this Beemer’s story was narrated in stunning detail by records maintained by that original owner. Purchased at a Kawasaki dealer in Sellersville, Pennsylvania, in 1979, the bike never had a chance to rest on her laurels. She became an immediate highway and byway star, apparently part of a Walter Mitty-like plan to see the United States from sea to shining sea.
Her first year on the road covered more than 15,000 miles. The next another 14,000. The list of BMW MOA national rallies that she attended in the 1980s was extensive. Several of them I enjoyed along with my trusty LWB R60/5. I had sold that Toaster Tank in 1993 and regretted it almost from day one.
Amid all the records for the RS, I found aging invoices that included the owner’s name and phone number. On a chance, I called the number and was reunited with the person who bought the bike 45 years ago. Many times, I wished that whoever has that R60 now would give me a ring. Now the roles were reversed. I was able to get the bike’s history from someone who was thrilled to know she was still on the road and in the process of going through a preservation, not a restoration.
It turned out he wasn’t actually the first owner. Whoever that was found the RS fairing intimidating. So, my new contact got her with 1,000 miles on the clock for the princely sum of $5,200, a dramatic discount from the sticker price at the time. He was working for the Department of Defense as a helicopter mechanic. He lived close to Three Mile Island at the time of the reactor disaster and decided that the best thing to do was get out of town. That explained the first-year drive across the country and around the West Coast. He’d had so much fun the first time, he decided to do it again in 1980.
On one of his trips, he decided to go to Fairbanks, Alaska, traveling the full length of the ALCAN Highway before it was paved. He’d rigged outriggers to carry knobby tires strapped to the saddle bags to help navigate the roads that had been cut by the Army in the 1940s. This trip covered almost 13,000 miles, including almost 1,000 on ferries.
As our call progressed, the stories unfolded. What happened to the original side covers? He kept them with all his rally memorabilia attached. How did the dent get in the tank? It fell over against a garage door years ago and he decided that leaving the dent and saving the paint was the best course of action.
Was the oil pan replaced with a deeper one? Yes, it was to help dissipate heat when he was traveling in places like Death Valley. What happened to the steering damper? He took it off because it was leaking and didn’t seem to do anything anyway.
Then the questions were reversed. Does it still have the San Jose BMW fork brace? Yes, it does. Will the bike be going on long trips again? Yes, it will.
We talked for a long time, and each twist of the conversation opened new things that we could further explore. An hour was great for a first call. I hope there are many more to come. At the end he shared that arthritis eventually caused him to stop riding, but in the last year he owned the bike he managed to ride the final 3,000 miles to flip the odometer to a full 100,000. He got the plaque from the BMW MOA, which he plans to share a picture of soon.
If I couldn’t recover the old Toaster Tank R60/5, finding a storied RS with an amazing lineage was a terrific alternative. The fact that they shared a color scheme seemed poetic. I may never find that long lost R60/5 but writing a new chapter for this RS may be even better. My first long ride on that BMW was to Front Royal, Virginia, then a cruise down the Skyline Drive.
We ride for the adventures and the chances to meet new and interesting people. We ride to maintain old friendships as well as to make new ones. We ride to help script our own life’s story.
Adding this RS’s story to my own is already checking many of those boxes. Our first big trip together will be to meet up with a group of friends who rode with me to the BMW MOA rally in Lake Placid, New York, in 1983.
We were all there — and so was this RS. Our meeting site will be Front Royal for a cruise down the Skyline Drive.
Game on….
— Robert McIsaac
