BMW Cafe Racers - post a pic?

Sounds good. I leave next Sunday for ride out to California. I work as a flagger at Laguna Seca for the motogp races. I'll be back the beginning of August.

Adrian-

Are you still making that hugger?
That would be a nice addition to the bike...

Aric

Apologies Aric, been away from the forum for a while.
Only ever made one of those huggers, it was quite a process. I have a mould for it but the hugger was designed to go on bikes with the rear disk brake since it uses the brake torque arm as a mounting point.

If your bike was the same then I might have been persuaded...

Gotcha- no worries!

Don't think I've added my current project to this post, so here it is. I don't have a huge budget for this one, so many of the mods include using parts from the original bike (For example, the cowl cover was made from part of the original seat unit)

Love it - has a great used patina. I also really enjoy the adaptation of the original seat cowl - great to see this ad hocism/ invention.

Love the treatment of the tank- is it bare metal? spray paint? looks great!

Its bare metal. The blue is the original paint. Used some cheap white pinstriping tape from autozone to clean up the transition.

When I was a kid some of my friends would try to put motorcycle seats on their minibikes. Now people are putting minibike seats on their motorcycles. I think some of these seats are right of a Rupp or Bandit?

This bike has some nice features .



R80 frame
Single swing arm with central mounted shock with link system.
R80 rear drive(R1200C internals) (33:13)
Rear disc brake
VFR rear wheel (180/55-17 tire) Front and back wheel are in line.(strange for a BMW)
R1100S exhaust
Triumph fuel tank
ZXR fork

That's cool. I'd like to see the build thread on this one.

I'm sorry its not my bike and the owner/builder is not a show off type..(I stole his photo...sssssst)

I'd like to hear the story about the conversion to the 4LS Grimeca.

I would hope a lot of those modes where done for looks! They would make better sense that way!

That bike is too low. He has already gotten into the valve cover a bit and I can tell he hasn't been cornering that hard. See those 1/4" wanker strips on the back tire? I know from many a ride that it takes nothing to get those to completely disappear on modern rear tires. The front tires are a completely different story but . . . .

The easy rider front fender is a laugh! At least this one is actually being ridden.

You can't generalize that.
Mounting a 120/90-18 tire on my 3" rim I have no stripe at all. With a 130/80-18 ~3mm remain.
And the front always shows the same wear.

I think your right. I have seen him chase a VTR SP2 and that one was using every inch of both the tires. And was Not cornering faster than this bike....

I still think I can. I might be wrong but I doubt it. I have run 120/90s, 120/80's, 130/80's, and 130/70's on my 2.5" rims. Never noticed any difference but I know from experience that a 180/55 is NOTHING like a 130 anything. Their profiles are a lot more square and subsequently a lot easier to get up on the edge. Plus you have to lean the bike over further to do the same line with a 180 on back. Those two aspects add up real quick to zero wanker strips on 180 back tires. Besides, I highly suspect that those forks don't have enough ride height for very aggressive corning for getting into the valve covers too much. There is no way to tell form the photo if the back has too much sag or not enough ride height or a combination of the two but the whole thing looks too low to me. I am not saying I know these things for sure but I am saying that my opinions are based in a lot of experience with such matters. If I am off it can't be by much.

Running a 180 on an airhead is yet another way to eat into your already severely limited cornering clearance. That I know IS a fact which gets me back to looks.

Question on the tyres, on my twin shock the 120 rubs on the big tube swingarm, does the mono swingarm allow wider tyres? or are the wheels offset to the left?

Wanker Strips....thats a new one for me....we call them chicken strips....