The first thoughts

I bought my first BMW bike, a new R75/7, in September 1977 as a teenager. Many bikes have passed through my possession since and many of them have been BMW, but only two have been the K series, known as the brick.

The first K was a K100RT ex-police bike that I owned in the early 1990’s. It was a very capable machine even being a little boring due to the ability of being very reliable despite the high mileage.

The second one was a K1200GT bought brand new in 2004. It had the heated seat and grips, electric windscreen and loads of toys to play with. There cannot be a better bike for tearing down the French motorways at illegal speeds, in company with my wife on her Honda Blackbird, looking for a potential new home.

Both of those bikes were changed for a brace of BMW R1100S’s just before we moved to France at the end of 2004. The R1100S’s were eventually sold a couple of years ago, but last year my wife bought herself a very smart BMW F800ST. The ST is a nice light bike built to the standard high quality expected from BMW with 85 bhp.

The hunt was then on for a bike for me. An F800 would also suit me but I needed a hobby too. Just before Christmas we answered an advert for a 1991 BMW K100RS 16 valve. The first sight of the bike laying on its side in a barn was very sad and I realised that there was plenty of work to do to it, but such a classic bike deserved it. I left having made an offer to the owner.