Airhead Love...Let's Hear About It

Cords. You can't see the cowboy boots....

Brotownboy

Any links to info on your your bike or a build up thread?

Morningsideforlife

For most of the reasons already given, particulary Plaka's little tribute on the first page. I recognized some real fellowship in that.


For spending 2200 dollars on it back in '92 and no matter how many other 10 to 20 thousand dollar bikes are in in front of the bar everyone goes out of the way to ask about this one. That always pisses riding friends off.

For being the first bike to get back on after a 10 year absence and never reallly wanting more almost 20 years later.

For being a work of art on its own mechanical merits with barely a hint of embellishment. Among finest examples of "form following function" as I've come across in any design.




Something I can't help noticing though is how poorly treated some of these bikes appear to be. Most, really, of the older airheads I see on the road are dirty and appear poorly maintained. Anyone else ever notice this? I live between Detroit and Chicago. Is it simply that other bikes that are this old are generally in landfills? Does that explain it? Even if they're not well cared for they still keep ticking?

There are a few mentions of the R80s being exceptionally smooth. This is an R65. With all these years of learning my own tuning and maintenance, and getting pretty good at using my DIY aquarium tube and fork oil manometer (thank you advrider!) I almost can't believe that anything could be smoother. At 5000rpm the engine virtually disappears and is only barely noticeable anywhere else in the range. When I first got the bike I paniced on the way to Chicago when I looked down and noticed that the tach was nearly redlined and I hadn't even noticed! I don't know how long I was in fourth, but the engine certainly wasn't letting me know about it.

I found my first airhead rotting away in a garage behind a pile of old doors. I knew it's full ownership history but the guy wouldn't sell it for weeks. I finally went to work on his wife; she wanted money for a new kitchen, he didn't ride it....

I was a poor social worker living in a basement dive and the bike lived out back under a tarp. Over a few years I fixed I up, painted it , polished stuff, rode it all over the country, fixed stuff that needed it, did a LWB conversion, dual plugging, bigger alternator, konis, a 900cc build out, etc. It was a pretty bike in polished aluminum and Back Imron. I had found another and parted it out to myself so I had two of everything. It always ran perfectly.

Then I went back to school. 5 years of no money and less time. Sometimes the bike lived outdoors under plastic. Sometimes I had a corner of a garage. It was an urban commuter in a tough climate. More things got patched than fixed. There was no time for polishing or touching up frame paint. it acquired white rust. I used tractor batteries and Chinese tires. I didn't tour anywhere. The bike got pretty ratty. It (and my finances) never recovered. It went a whole lot faster than it stopped or handled and was a hazard and a half to ride. I eventually parted it out. I really never wanted to see someone else riding what I had built and owned for 20 years.


An airhead is a good poverty riders bike. If it came with a factory toolkit you don't need much else to keep it going. It's easy to understand and wrench for a newbie. It's long lived, long legged and tough---it keeps going even when very worn. It's a two wheeled Volkswagen that burns less gas and picks up more babes. It's got brand cachet even if it isn't real pretty (like a rusty old BMW 2002). You feel OK on it and when you're poor and there are so many tastes you might have but can't afford , it's a bright spot. And it's reliable. When it's all you got to get you there it does.. But you can't take it off the road to do a bunch of restoration because it's all you got to ride.

Looks like there's a lot to be happening soon Please do keep us updated

Man, that looks like more fun than Xmas

Word.

On ya, Plaka.

I came to Airheads about 6 years ago after a long affair with old Harleys and Triumphs. It started when a friend's life -- and motorcycle preferences -- were forever changed by a wayward woman BMW rider. He got hooked on BMWs, and married to a great lady.

As his enthusiasm for horizontal twins grew, he repeatedly suggested I try
one. True to my undying love of older, simple motorcycles, I gravitated toward a 1978 R100S. I rode it for a few years, traded for an early 80s R100RT, but found I missed the S, save the vague steering at
high speeds, presumably caused by air lifting that stunning bubble fairing.

Enter my latest and probably last BMW: a 1977 R100RS. I love everything about this bike. The simplicity. The sound. The feel. The fuel
economy. The fairing!!! It is still a relevant, capable design, a claim few 30+ year old bikes can make. The BMW always seems fresh and ready to pile on the miles.

The Brit bikes are history. And I still own and love my panhead. But the Airhead has my deepest, ever-growing admiration.

Man-O-Man... You really said it!

I was a poor social worker living in a basement dive and the bike lived out back under a tarp.

Mmmm...perhaps a passage from Calvino sums it up:

Cities and Memory, 2

When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city. Finally he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between to women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories.


Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Cities

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cit...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278028362&sr=8-1

What he said.

That fairing turns a wobbly old airhead into a cruise missile. "Aerodynamic stability" and stunning good looks that have stood the test of time.

Form and function beautifully wedded like never before in motorcycledom. (except maybe a dustbin Guzzi GP bike...)



imho, ymmv, fwiw,
Bob Loblaw (say it out loud)

Poetry, that.


Thanks for the great posts on this subject, Plaka. You've really got a gift for expression.

Because my first memories are on the back of the /6, smiling, riding the 5 miles twice a week to one of my dad's appointments, sitting quietly reading for over an hour, then smiling the whole 5 miles back.

Because he sold it to me for a dollar and a cup of ice cream.

Because riding it is the closest thing I've ever had to a religious experience.

I've had mine for 9 years now, put about 30,000 miles on it and still don't know if I like it...... but I can't imagine ever selling it.

If you double or triple the 3K miles that you ride every year, you'll almost certainly come to love your Airhead!

Airheads are for riders!

Fuel economy????!!!!???? What fuel economy????!!!!????

But +1 on just about every other response here. Simplicity, ease of maintenance, reliability, cool-factor, attentiongetter, exclusivity, goanywhereability......

Every time I don my leathers I grin
Every time I get on my R100RS, I grin.
Every time I twist that throttle, wether I am doing 40 or 100 mph, I grin.
Every time I switch her off, having arrived at my destination, I grin..... Actually I feel sad that the journey had to end so soon!

She`s like my wife....If I do not ride her regularly, I suffer!

Excuse me. I am off to plant a big kiss on my R100RS and my R80ST.

Mike

I get mid-high 40s mpg on the R100RS, which is way better than my friends get with their fuel-injected oilheads, a far cry better than the low 30s mpg I get with my panhead, and at least 5 mpg better than my 82 R100RT. So, yes, relatively decent fuel economy for a litre bike with carbs and points.

The way people have expressed themselves in this thread is interestingly reflective of the bikes. Spare, elegant, unadorned.... functionally beautiful.

I was dirt poor when I bought mine. New in 1978. But it was transportation, grocery hauler, a hobby, a sport, all rolled into one. I had no car for the first 5 years. After the initial 600 mile break-in I did all the service work and I wasn't a motorhead.

It has survived to this day, almost 170,000 miles later. A lesser machine wouldn't have made it. If I had the time, space and money, I would buy old neglected airheads and fix em up just for grins.