bmw

The latest from our old friend Murph!

Sorry Murph (and a LOT of other folks) for missing this originally but apparently my spam filter has gone insane.  I now check it almost more often than my inbox.  Here’s the latest on our old friend.  If you’re new here, do yourself a favor and bookmark his site and check in on it often.  Murph’s a renowned world traveler, adventurer and photographer par excellence!   Here’s his latest on the sidecar build and on his travels.  I especially enjoyed the Leno interview!  Looking good Murph!  Nice workspace too!

 

 

 

 

Steve, hi.

Hope this finds you well my Florida friend and fellow mosquito swatter.

I had been meaning to send you some of my BMW 1150 Duo-Drive build pics, but then I slipped and fell down some stairs with Macbook in hand, needless to say the laptop did not fare well. Screen is bust. I have an article on the blog explaining what happened. I’m trying to offset the repair cost by selling some decals, maybe some of your readers would like to get a cool sticker set for their moto’s.

Meanwhile, in other news we’re 1/3 of the way into my Duo-Drive sidecar conversion, so here’s a few pics to show the difference from when I started to now.
The first pic is right before teardown, second pic is a shop overview, and third pic is a mock-up we did yesterday to see how the whole outfit is shaping up.
I can’t give too many detail pics at this stage Steve, as the build article is already sold to another publication, but you, MPOTD and your readers have always been very supportive of my blog, so I’m happy to share these with you. Nobody else has these yet, not even the ‘other’ publication.

The second “Murph’s Mobec Duo-Drive BMW Sidecar Conversion” is now posted here on the blog.
There’s a lot of trick stuff that we decided to add, one of which is a locking hub on the sidecar wheel taken from a Suzuki Vitara 4X4.

Steve, best regards as always, and greetings from LBS Sidecars here in Elsendorp in the Netherlands and a big thank you to all who are reading this.

Murph.

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Published picture links:

A nice reader ride “Wanderlust” BMW R100S

Bob Writes in:
Love the site, always one of the first I visit every morning with my coffee- kudos to you!
 But I thought I’d send in a pic of a barn-find I snagged last year.
It’s a 1977 BMW R100S in the hills by my house here in Colorado… and obviously, I dig it!
It’s my daily driver and after a fair amount of work (after sitting for years) it runs like a champ!
 Cheers! And keep up the good work!

Wow!  that is some “barn find”!  As a Florida native I get so jealous of you folks living in the hills.  Great stuff!

 

More assorted bikes from JAY

Too much good stuff here not to post it all.

I have two more r65 and I am building another one as a bobber.I hope to purchase two more ls this week as i need to create a giantkiller.I’ll try to send you pictures of my balkans trip r100gs,dick tracy r75/5,the virago 240 bobber,The black r100rs/5 was just completed 2 months ago and has just turned 3000 miles

Here we are in no particular order. Great Stuff!

Reader Submittals. A sweet BMW and a fantastic album link.

Update:  All links to his previous posts now included in the post.  After looking at them all… All I can say is wow! You have some great taste!

 

A fantastic album and a sweet R65LS form JAY who wrote in:

Included are pictures of my r65ls,a bike i fell in love with when i met my first wife at laconia at the time she was dating manny’s brother ralph.Thanks for posting my others bikes,the red engine BMW,the blue and white HP1 scrambler and Caroline ,the burgundy café racer,la reine du circuit du castelet.Regards,JAY

Here is just a small taste of the Photo Album he sent in. Do yourself a favor and click over.

And here is a stunning BMW R65LS he included.  What a swee bike.

Really cool converted BMW dualsport K75 “Brick”

There’s an interesting thread over on ADV rider called “converted dual sports” where folks convert all manner of unusual rides into some form of off roar or dual sport bike. A lot of it can be nothing more than thick tread tires on a UJM inline four but every once in a while there’s a really inspired and well crafted creation. Todd was kind enough to give me permission to re-post pics of his work in progress here. He mentioned that there’s a sturdy piece of aluminum waiting to be bent into a bash plate for under the engine. He says there’s more on the way so this post may get updated a little in the near future.

It’s such a nice fit for the style that I’m surprised that BMW never built one themselves. Great build Todd. Thanks!

An (almost) half million mile Beemer, a stunning Indian a Triumphs (for scale) and a nice ride report from our old friend Chuck Lathe.

First of all sorry for the delay Chuck. Your e-mail got tangled up in the usual laundry somehow and I just found it after doing some inbox cleanup. Not sure what happened. Anyway Chuck sends in a ride report from a recent trip along with some interesting shots.

Hey Steve,

I’m attaching a few shots of a couple of bikes we saw on the Blue Ridge Parkway — Virginia — on Tuesday morning.

I continue to check your site daily — except when I’m out riding around looking for photo ops.

I didn’t get the name of the fellow with the Indian. There was a Honda Rebel parked next to it and the Rebel had been crashed. It turns out it was the wife who crashed. She is going to be alright, but if she is as old as he is, she’ll be sore. His father owned an Indian dealership and he has his Dad’s old bike, but it isn’t this one. He has several other Indians. The one in the truck belongs to a friend and was going back to Ohio for some work. I don’t know what it needed since it looked pretty good to me. The Triumph is my Bearshark. I put him in the picture to show how small some of those old bikes were. I’ve been on three or four stock Knuckleheads in the past year and I’m always surprised how small they are. The V-Twin Indian is a 1941 Sport Scout. I don’t remember which model the Indian vertical twin is.

The BMW is kind of special for me. I bought a 1974 R90/6 in 1983 when my ’68 Shovelhead was stolen — I rode the bejeebers out of that Shovel for seven years and when it went, I said, “I’m gonna to try a BMW.” My R90 had the same Vetter fairing and it was also black. I called him Fritz. He had some funky teardrop shaped saddlebags and a flatter seat. My T100 shares a lot of the same riding characteristics except I popped lots of wheelies on the Beemer by dropping the clutch in second and I don’t do that on the Triumph. The R90 in the photo is owned by the guy standing with it. His name is, Steve. He bought the bike used in 1982 and it has 451,000 miles on the clock. He totaled it on the Interstate and bought it back from the insurance company for $250. He had to replace one head and a few other things, but he says the cylinders and pistons are original. He did put new rings in after the crash.

Bearshark took Nina and me into West Virginia last weekend — I had Monday and Tuesday off. We found some great roads, a cool little town with a bed and breakfast, and we watched a bunch of people parachute off the New River Gorge bridge — 800+ foot drop. They were supposed to hit a mark next to the river, but it was very windy and most of them landed in the river — shiver — and were picked up by boats. It was weird to watch people free-fall from above and then see their chutes open. I’m not interested: 80 miles and hour on a motorcycle is enough thrill for me anymore.

Regards, Chuck Lathe, North Carolina

Hell of a nice trip Chuck. I’ve got to get back to the mountains this spring and get in on some of this. I’m way overdue.

 

That looks great for the equivalent of almost 20 times around the planet and a bad wreck!

 

 

The thing that gets me the most about this picture is that the Triumph isn’t exactly a large bike either.

 

If I’m not mistaken I believe that this is the rebadged Royal Enfield?  Can someone correct me on that?

RIP Steve Jobs. A classic photo of the man and his BMW.

I’m not personally an “apple” guy (more work related than anything) but I certainly have appreciation for his life.  He was always about good taste in design an this shot of him in his younger days on his BMW certainly shows that.   Not sure about the riding gear but I love the bike.