hello from germany

[Darryl.Richman]

That Bonnie is a beauty! I am sure, however, that real pea shooter mufflers would not be TUV geprueft.

If you do have the opportunity to ride a Rohrrahmen bike, you should try! But it is a complicated affair -- no twist grip and three thumb levers! Also, 2nd gear is not constant mesh, so even with the clutch disengaged, you have to "feel" your way into it, or you'll get a horrible grinding sound.

[bmw-mechanic]

hi darryl

yes, the german tüv is phantastic.... you know these guys ???

if the motorbikes are older than the tüv testers, they check very accurate, but without any clue. this is a nightmare!!!

the last time i was there with my r90 with new tires he was in doubt if these tires (bridgestone bt45) are allowed for this motorbike.
1/2 hour of surfing in the internet and a lot of blablabla...i gave him the phone number of my tries dealer to call there.... one internet klick he did wrong and this was a very indecend homepage, lol... (maybe tüv engineers job stimulation when the prielli annual callender starts to get boring...).

will be interresting with this old triumph. mufflers with tüv abe?? what is this?

bmw rohrramen motorbikes are expensive. somme offers you`ll find are r25 or r26, but unrestored motorbikes are about 3000 - 4000 euros, the boxer r50 or r60 will be about the double.
r68 or r69s will be a dream. but to drive with such a rohrrahmen sounds interresting.
we did some kawasaki z900 work in the weekend.

regards

dieter

[Darryl.Richman]

Fortunately for me, I keep my California registration current on the bike I have in Karlsruhe, so I don't have to worry about the TÜV. But I have seen them and heard about them from my friend, and also seen some of the Fahrzeugbriefen with their detailed lists of allowed tires and accessories.

We often comment here about the amazing prices achieved by various bikes. Over the last several years they have been on a big upswing. I think it really started when they sold an R32 for $170,000 at the auction held in the BMW Museum in 2009. The day before you could have bought one for $75,000.

My R52 has been up on a frame straightening table for the last week. It's amazing how twisted it was. Now you can drop the rear axle through the left side and it falls into place through the final drive. Can't beat that!

[bmw-mechanic]

hello darryl

that`s a big advance to keep a motorbike in germany. is it the r65?

the list in the "fahrzeugbrief" and the "fahrzeugschein" is very important.

and if a tüv guy is bored, he checks everything, and he is eager to discover something wich is not listed.

with the tires i was really upset after half an hour of blablabla if the new tires are allowed now, but he was not aware to use rim tapes to protect the inner tubes of this /6 spoke wheels.
when i went to my tires-dealer just before the tüv date, i was next to the mechanic who dismatled the old tires
and i wondered why my front wheel was loosing air pressure over one week.... there was no rim tape present.

old motorbikes, i agree, this upswing can be a benefit and a motivation to start new projects

congratulations for successful straightening the rohrrahmen frame. did you need to heat up some parts of he frame?
some frame are easy to repair and some (complicated constructions like bimota or duc) are not. aluminum frames are very complicated. special work for specialists.

the kawasaki of my garage neighbour we measured very accurate with a small cord and we dropped a vertical perpendicular to check the distances of the drillings. 1 or 2 or 3 mm of tolerance is allowed there. so we are shure that this bike didn`t had an accident in the past. if you have a closer look at the naked kawa (or honda or suzuki) frames of the `70`s, they welded horrible- typical high volume production. thats a difference to bmw frames.

by the way, do you know this homepage?
http://motosantiguashd.com/motos-en-venta/

this is a vintage motorbike dealer in spain in membrilla, south of toledo.
sometimes they have wonderful beemers, nsu, and other vintage bikes.

i wait for saturday, there`s the veterama spring-sparepartmarket at the hockenheimring, and we`ll go there.

regards

dieter

[Darryl.Richman]

I hope you had fun at Veterama! I've been to the spring Veterama a couple times, and I find it difficult to believe what others have told me, that the Fall Veterama is 5X bigger. It's amazing!

I look at keeping a bike in Germany as a cheap way to be able to ride in Europe. If you rent a bike, they are generally > 100 euros/day with a 200km limit. For the cost of maintaining my registration in California, and even including the cost of an ADAC membership and the very expensive green card liability insurance, after 5 days of riding in Europe I am ahead of the game. The bike I keep there is my R1100RS.

That's a very interesting website you highlighted. Never seen it before. They seem to have a lot of pretty interesting bikes going through there!

[bmw-mechanic]

hi darryl,

yes it was an interresting saturday.

ve`ve been there very early when they openend, and we had the tickets, so there was no need to stay in a queue.

the spring market of the veterama moved from ludwigshafen to hockenheim, and ther is now only one weekende, cars and motorbikes and bicycles.

looking for spareparts, mainly honda and bmw, some kawasaki and suzuki. triumph and other british bikes was not very much.


i remember 10 or 20 years ago, there were many of restorable offers of "rohrramens", or /5 or cb750 and so on.
now, nearly nothing. restored motorbikes are the offers now.

siebenrock was the biggest booth, so i was happy to check the quality of the siebenrock seat benches. perfect.
probably i need a new one for my r90.

we`ve seen wonderful cars as well, vw bus t2 and t3 vanagon (they came from california ) an alfa romeo montreal, mercedes pagodas and of course volkswagen beetle.

many booths offered old bycicle equipment, so i could complete my old bianchi race bike.

the fall veterama is much bigger, yes, but i was never able to see the complete market in one day.

perfect idea to keep a motorbike here in germany, the rental prices are crazy. there is not only the price of the motorbike rentals, it is also the vollkasko ensurance and so on.
by the way, how is this in california (if you don`t want to rent a harley davidson)?

regards

dieter