OK Phil, since you asked....this is a post that I put up on the XS650 Yamaha forum XS650.com when I decided to sell Sylvia - my 2007 ST1300. XS650.com is very similar to
NT Owners and
ST Owners but with some "extended" vocabulary permitted and a tiny bit of tasteful nudity here and there.....
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Dear buddies:
Well, it is now time for me to reveal my latest love...
Gretel. She is a big, buxom Bavarian - born in 1983 in Berlin in the heart of Prussia (so...like....she is....you know...
German - in case you hadn't picked that up), and I have been lusting after her for more than 40 years.
She is a
BMW R100RS which is IMO, one of the most beautiful motorcycles, or any type of vehicle, ever offered for sale to the general public. The R100RS was introduced in 1977 when I was 19 years old and I was totally smitten. When everyone else had posters of Farah Fawcett and Cheryl Tiegs on their walls (or bedroom ceilings....
), I had a poster of a matt powder blue BMW R100RS on mine (the...wall, that is....needless to say).
When the RS model was introduced in 1977, I went to a BMW dealership in Ottawa, ON and walked in - simply captivated - and sat on their floor model. The salescreep came running over yelling at me about
"ACHTUNG - no grubby students allowed to sit on the expensive German motorcycles - those are for wealthy gentlemen!!". While he was hustling me out the door, I pointed to the back of my jacket which said
"Queen's Applied Science" and told him that meant
"Engineering" and that some day I
would be a wealthy gentleman - and I would be
buying one of those bikes - but it sure as he!! wouldn't be from HIM! Unfortunately however, he was correct. The new-bike cost of the R100RS was about $7K CDN as I recall it, which was about four-five times the price of an XS650 (if not more) and was simply out of my reach as a starving student. Marriage, children, mortgages, education and other irrelevancies interfered in the interim - but after 43 years, I decided that while I may not be a "wealthy gentleman", I could afford to buck-up and buy my dream.
Gretel has gone about 95,115 km (around 59,000 miles) but these bikes are reputed to go 2-300,000 km before major work is needed. She actually has had a top-end refresh plus the frame has been powder coated and she has been repainted black and red. The colour scheme is, frankly, not my first choice, but the work has been done to a top-notch standard and it is growing on me. The blue & white BMW emblems are missing off the tank and the
R100RS sidecover decals are missing too - but both are on their way so she will be complete soon. I have had new tires installed (interestingly, they are the same size as those on the XS650 Standards - a 3.50x19 on the front and a 4.00x18 on the rear) and there are
zero leaks or stains on the engine or transmission cases. Her shaft drive rear end is dry and quiet and she rides like a dream at...well....
pretty frickin' fast speeds.
She came to me very nicely equipped with both the usual dual and the relatively rare solo (actually 3/4 length) seat - both in mint condition, a tool kit, a complete spare exhaust system in solid condition with good chrome, a bunch of other spares and a very nice set of BMW (
aka Krauser) bags with chrome brackets. She has air-assisted rear shocks which give a nice steady ride and she also has a beautiful leather
Bagster tank cloak (see photo below) to which I can clip the very nice tank bag without risking a scratch on the tank. The one wrinkle is that I only have one key to the ignition and one key to each bag - and BMW key blanks are not easy to come-by - but I have a bunch of blank keys on order.
EDIT: after a trip to the locksmith I have several ignition keys and an epic search on the web has brought me a spare set of luggage keys.
TECHNICAL & RIDING IMPRESSIONS:
The 1000cc BMW airhead is obviously a big twin so she has a pleasant sort of thumpy exhaust note, not unlike an XS650 but she runs
much smoother. She's no Gold Wing but vibration is, in my view, not a factor here.
The starting drill is about the same as an XS650: fuel - ON (two petcocks), choke - ON, hit the button (no kicker) and thumpity-thumpity....she is running. She cranks slowly, like a car - but she always goes and settles down to a nice idle at about 1000 RPM. The idle has a gentle side-to-side motion as the horizontally-opposed boxer engine pistons go in and out together - firing on alternate revolutions. She has a cartridge type oil filer ($7.95 USD) inside the RH side of the crankcase and a factory oilcooler in the fairing right behind the front wheel. The valve adjustments are even easier than on an XS650 - remove valve cover, loosen locknut and adjust the screw-type lash adjuster. Even doing the top-end rebuild is an easy (if somewhat expensive) task with no need to remove the engine from the frame (even for a lower-end job the engine can stay in as the crankshaft comes out through the front cover). In any event, the engine isn't that heavy, particularly if you separate the transmission first. She is sort of like a good sized garden tractor - definitely at the other end of the complication scale from the ST1300.
The electrical system is also pretty simple - no EFI, no electrically powered windscreen, no microprocessor-anything, no on-board galley, steerable headlight, variable valve-lift or cam-timing, no built-in cappuccino machine or entertainment systems. The alternator is adequate and it uses external excitation which requires carbon brushes, just like our XS650s (and upgrades to higher output PMA units are widely available for the heated gear crowd). Like the later XS650s, the 1980+ R100RS came with an electronic ignition system which is reportedly very reliable and since
Gretel is an '83, I will not be messing with ignition points on her.
She has a fully synchromesh 5-speed gearbox which can be separated from the engine and removed - leaving the engine in the bike. The clutch is a dry single disc unit (again, just like a car), so there is no wet clutch drag at idle. The clutch pull is quite light and the controls, while a bit quirky, all come to hand easily and work just fine. The stock horns are pretty fearsome (twin Fiamms within the fairing) but, Germans do have a somewhat...shall we say,
aggressive reputation in certain circles, for some reason. The Brembo brakes are good (triple disks - all drilled) and the suspension, while quite soft with a long travel, is well damped so you don't get the feeling that she is going to go wobbling off into some Alpine meadow for a yodeling session. The fuel economy is good - upwards of 50 MPImpG with the 40mm Bing CV carbs (very similar to our Mikunis on the Yamahas) and there is no bucking or hesitation anywhere in the RPM range.
Overall, you get the impression of a very well designed and built motorcycle that has been carefully tuned to work well at high speeds for long distances without any fuss. I am told that 100+ MPH all day is not a problem (
at least for the bike....).
The first thing I noticed on sitting is that she is pretty tall. I am just under 6' and she is about as tall as I would be comfortable with. However, she is also quite light for a big motorcycle - around 503 lbs wet (around 50 lbs more than an XS650), which is more than
230 lbs less than my Honda ST1300. That huge weight difference could be a factor for me as I had a knee replacement last year and I ain't getting any younger or any taller. Right now, I can handle the ST1300, but someday.... The R100RS seating position is pretty low and forward (the bars are waayy out there and nearly flat) - but I am getting used to it.
The BMW airheads were built in several displacement classes (from 450 through 1000cc) for nearly 20 years and so many OEM parts are still available. In fact, the horizontally opposed boxer engine, dry clutch and shaft-drive tranny design originated well before WW-2 and it has not fundamentally changed in more than 80 years. It has proven to be durable, easy to repair and very reliable. In the aftermarket, there are several very good parts suppliers and while bits seem to be somewhat more costly than for the XS650, the supply is good and nobody is beefing about quality. These bikes were expensive when new and they are very durable even over incredibly long distances - so most of them seem to be in nice shape and people keep them going.
The one real problem (and it truly
IS f@cking annoying) is the sidestand. Some nitwit in the German Ministry of Transport decided that all motorcycle sidestands should fold up as soon as weight is removed from the stand - so, when you get on the bike and stand it up vertical, you hear "
CLANG" as the sidestand folds up. That is annoying enough - but when you look down to re-extend the stand, you cannot (and I do mean
CANNOT) see any part of the stand from the riding position. As carefully designed by some
twit in Bavaria, the sidestand is
completely obscured under the carb and cylinder assembly and so you fish around with the your left toe trying to find the foot-tang while balancing the bike and once successful, you push it push it down, but usually, you cannot get it far enough forward and down to get the weight back on the stand before it goes "
CLANG" again.
The first few times I rode her it must have taken me 4-5 minutes of faffing around with the invisible sidestand - plus no small amount of "
extended vocabulary" - to get the bike securely parked. In fact, these bikes are rather famous for simply falling over without warning - particularly if the wind is blowing from the left side (
think about it and you'll understand).
EDIT: Many people in the airhead community have installed an aftermarket sidestand called a "Brown Stand" which is much easier to deploy and does keep the bike secure. I have installed one and, while it looks like something you'd find on a Harley, it works and I'm keepin' it. I have also upgraded the instrument lights with LEDs and installed a headlight modulator (she came with one on the brake light) as well as a USB charger module and a handlebar bracket for my GPS etc. I will also be changing all three brake rotors and the hydraulic brake hoses and caliper pads in the spring and I have some other farkles planned as I want to do some trips after I retire in the late summer.
Other than that, Gretel is nearly perfect and every bit as pretty to me as she was in 1977. I guess an old gal as beautiful as this has a right to be a bit of hag the odd time. Don't worry fellas, I am not
in any way abandoning my XS650s - but
Gretel is a bike I have wanted since I was a teenager and at 62, there's no time like the present.
Anyhow, here she is....
