Erlkönig: BMW R100RT

The Second Beemer Of course, having owned a Beemer very like this one, most of my impression of it is in terms of differences from the R80RT that got squished.

A lerger picture exists.

Background

This BMW became available when the 70-year-old owner, who used to corner so steeply he'd had the engine protection bars removed so they wouldn't scrape, ran into a deer after putting about sixty thousand miles on the bike in less than three years. Apparently he died due to a heart attack while waiting for assistance, rather than from the collision or its immediate resultant injuries.

About this particular beemer...

Good Things

• Looks wonderful, I've taken some digital pictures of it.
• Really nice panniers and an extra top carrier.
• Replacing the default windshield with the leftover Parabellum was easy.

Problems

• Intermittant to simply inactive lights on some instruments.
• Fuel leak (corrected)
• Gummed-up shifter footlever hinge (cleaned).
• Bad electrical relay (renewed).
• The usual too-many-keys-needed problem, four this time.
• Fairing fracture, less-than-obvious but easily reparable.
• Missing nut on one of the fairing bolts.
• Degraded points (renewed).

Mishaps

• Ground off the top outside corner of the left pannier on the highway when it fell open. It takes a clueless engineer to fasten a retention strap using just a snap, but they designed it that way and now the corner's gone. Replacement's expensive, although repair is certainly feasible. The funny thing is the 3x5 (or so) cm hole is actually useful at times.