My tale of re-enty to motorcycling and entry into Vintage BMW is similar to yours, although I had a long hiatus with no bikes (my wife was strongly anti bike after an unpleasant experience before I met her). We saw a vintage rig one day and she said it looked like fun. Pandora's box opened!
My entry was a 1937 R6 with a sidecar....which was great for the backroads around Barcelona...not so good for expressways with only 18PS. I also plan to mount a chair on my 1935 R12 eventually.
While the /5 and later were not made to haul a a sidecar, subframe mounts ARE available and you do see them. Dauntless (google on it) is a sidecar specialist and can help with this.
A /2 conversion with a 750 or bigger motor makes a good sidecar machine. There are forums for conversions (Kurt...??) and a yahoo forum called Sidecar talk that is also good.
An R60/2 and a Steib S350 is a great (and very good looking) rig, but it is probably no faster than a Ural...marginal for extended highway use. The Ural sidecars are, well, molto brutto.
If you need highway capability, go for a /2 conversion or rig a car to a newer machine.
Also, if you have not driven a sidecar, it is a VERY different experience (not instinctive) and it is not for everyone. Do some homework and make sure you like it before making a big investment.
Bruce
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N00b with questions
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schrader7032
- Posts: 9082
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- Location: San Antonio, TX
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N00b with questions
This was posted on a different thread for a Yahoo forum on conversions:
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/slash2conversions/
Kurt in S.A.
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/slash2conversions/
Kurt in S.A.
Kurt in S.A.
'78 R100/7 '69 R69S '52 R25/2
Fast. Neat. Average. Friendly. Good. Good.
'78 R100/7 '69 R69S '52 R25/2
Fast. Neat. Average. Friendly. Good. Good.
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ScottMellor
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 6:05 pm
N00b with questions
Excellent! That is the exact bike I was looking at. It confirmed my gut feeling that the bike was too high.
I'll keep looking. If anyone knows of a nice rig for sale pop me an email please.
Oh and yes I'm going to take a course on how to ride one and live.
I'll keep looking. If anyone knows of a nice rig for sale pop me an email please.
Oh and yes I'm going to take a course on how to ride one and live.
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ScottMellor
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 6:05 pm
N00b with questions
So what would be a reasonable ballpark price for a nicely done conversion /2 with a bigger motor and a small Steib 350 or ls200?
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Allan.Atherton
- Posts: 503
- Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:00 am
N00b with questions
I sold a restored R60/2 with a restored LS200 copy for $12K in Feb 2006.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roundel/sets/859687/
I think a comparable-condition conversion with a real Steib would be worth $15-18K.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roundel/sets/859687/
I think a comparable-condition conversion with a real Steib would be worth $15-18K.
N00b with questions
Hi there,
My name is Scott Mellor. (My screen name is a clever alias.)
A little bit of history to establish my motorcycle-funky quotient street cred:
I grew up in England, and my hall of shame reads thusly:
1965 BSA C15 250 which I sold after one week because it caught fire when I tried to start it.
1968 Triumph T200 Tiger cub. Much better. Hardly caught fire at all.
1957 James Captain 200 with a chopped hoover vacuum cleaner body for a headlight, no kick start and a bungy cord holding the center stand. (My nadir)
196x TRIBSA 3TA 350 Triumph motor in a C15 frame. Evil. Handled awfully.
1975 T120 Boneville. Not so bad.
1974 Laverda SF2 750. Sublime. BUT the exhaust balance pipe was as big as a sewer pipe and hung really low causing a few high sided tumbles, one in front of the Jaguar factory in Browns Lane Coventry.
1978 Suzuki GS1000. Nice, fast quiet smooth. Shrug.
Moved to Texas.
1976 Laverda 3C 1000 triple. BEAST! Nearly hit an Armadillo doing 125 mph.
Moved to California
1992 Harley Davidson FatBoy. Girlfriend and I loved tooling around on this.
Married aforementioned girlfriend had child and sold biike.
Ten years later I am 5x something, and wifey and daughter espy a Ural and fall in love. Karen pulled out her old leather jacket and said we should get one of those......
Well heck I'm ALL over this BUT:
I know bugger all about them.
I do a little webvestigating and contact me old biker mates in England for advice.
I live in SOCAL and I need to go on the freeway so the Ural seems to be out of the question as it can barely get out of it's own way.
I do like retro, and have no real interest in JAP (unless it is attached to a Brough Superior, which I can't afford.)
So I'm thinking that leaves BMW. But I'm told everything after a /2 is not set up for a chair.
Now:
I have found a collector selling an r60/2 with a mid 70s 900cc motor. (The original motor is not available.) He also has an R60/2 with a Steib 350 that he wants to sell. He says they are both rebuilt with under 4k miles. (He seems to be a total BMW wonk and knows all of these arcane cool facts about his bikes.) He says either would be fine to pull the 350 and would be OK for the freeway for short periods.
Since I am new to this world, I have no idea of a fair price for these. Any caveates or advice?
Thanks for you forbearance.
Scott
My name is Scott Mellor. (My screen name is a clever alias.)
A little bit of history to establish my motorcycle-funky quotient street cred:
I grew up in England, and my hall of shame reads thusly:
1965 BSA C15 250 which I sold after one week because it caught fire when I tried to start it.
1968 Triumph T200 Tiger cub. Much better. Hardly caught fire at all.
1957 James Captain 200 with a chopped hoover vacuum cleaner body for a headlight, no kick start and a bungy cord holding the center stand. (My nadir)
196x TRIBSA 3TA 350 Triumph motor in a C15 frame. Evil. Handled awfully.
1975 T120 Boneville. Not so bad.
1974 Laverda SF2 750. Sublime. BUT the exhaust balance pipe was as big as a sewer pipe and hung really low causing a few high sided tumbles, one in front of the Jaguar factory in Browns Lane Coventry.
1978 Suzuki GS1000. Nice, fast quiet smooth. Shrug.
Moved to Texas.
1976 Laverda 3C 1000 triple. BEAST! Nearly hit an Armadillo doing 125 mph.
Moved to California
1992 Harley Davidson FatBoy. Girlfriend and I loved tooling around on this.
Married aforementioned girlfriend had child and sold biike.
Ten years later I am 5x something, and wifey and daughter espy a Ural and fall in love. Karen pulled out her old leather jacket and said we should get one of those......
Well heck I'm ALL over this BUT:
I know bugger all about them.
I do a little webvestigating and contact me old biker mates in England for advice.
I live in SOCAL and I need to go on the freeway so the Ural seems to be out of the question as it can barely get out of it's own way.
I do like retro, and have no real interest in JAP (unless it is attached to a Brough Superior, which I can't afford.)
So I'm thinking that leaves BMW. But I'm told everything after a /2 is not set up for a chair.
Now:
I have found a collector selling an r60/2 with a mid 70s 900cc motor. (The original motor is not available.) He also has an R60/2 with a Steib 350 that he wants to sell. He says they are both rebuilt with under 4k miles. (He seems to be a total BMW wonk and knows all of these arcane cool facts about his bikes.) He says either would be fine to pull the 350 and would be OK for the freeway for short periods.
Since I am new to this world, I have no idea of a fair price for these. Any caveates or advice?
Thanks for you forbearance.
Scott
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