The Carburetor Chronicles

The Bikes

It started with an old Honda but it led to a pair of old BMW's.

The first bike I ever owned was a 1976 Honda XL 350. I was in my mid-twenties, in the middle of an ugly divorce.  I was going  to take my drinking from the amateur level to the pro ranks or find some way to keep some perspective on life, the bike was it.  The old Honda handled like a one legged pig, but it had plenty of torque and a pretty flat power band.  Mine was much, much, more ratted out than this one, but it is the closest picture I could find to my  XL350.  There are some pics of my bike in the "Baja in the 90's" section of Ride Reports.  I still have that bike in my buddy's garage. He says it still runs.

I bought it to go down to Baja for weekends whenever my friends and I got a chance.  We spent a lot of weekends in the deserts around San Felipe.  I have always loved deserts, odd that a place so bad for your body can be so good for your head.  There are some pics in the ride reports section.

I still manage to hang out with a couple of those guys even though I live about 2,500 miles away now.  If you can find somebody that you can spend a few days in a desert with, on unreliable machinery that is nearly guaranteed to have a breakdown and still manage to have a really good time without fighting you would do well to keep these friends for the rest of your life.  A good road dog is more valuable than a good road bike.

That was in the mid-90's.  In 1996 I moved back to the Midwest, got a little more formal education, graduated, got married to an amazing woman, quit being a single parent, and bought a house.  It was grown up time.  Bikes became little more than a wish for a long time.

The deal was buy the house, get it pretty close to outfitted and then get back to motorcycles.  All through the last few years of college I used the really good wireless internet connection on campus (only place for broadband then) to sit in class, surf around, and get educated on bikes when I was supposed to be listening to professors.  I can't really remember the sites I went to then, some of the ones I mention throughout this sight were in their infancy or did not exist when I was finishing my education.  Some of the major sites I went to then or go to now;  Advriders (a collection of well spoken, well informed, hopelessly misguided miscreants, from all walks of life with some of the best ride reports going, great site, but those with low pain thresholds and/or refined tastes probably will not like it), the Airheads Beemer Club, a site with lots of great tech info (I am now a member),  Boxerworks is an Airhead shop in GA (the message boards are very informative), Duane Ausherman's site (an absolute treasure trove of info, mostly for /2's and /5's). Chris Bynum's site (he has redone a few airheads and has a few on the road right now) also had a hand in helping me talk myself into starting on the "airhead" path.

 I wanted a marque that fit the way I like to ride.  I have no desire to be Kenny Roberts, but I will be damned if that guy on the Goldwing with a stuffed squirrel on the back is going to pass me on the next curve.  I want a bike that I can actually work on, my mechanical ability is limited to having kept crappy cars on the road through high school.  I want a bike that will fit my idea of aesthetics;  form comes way behind function, effective beats pretty, durable beats shiny, middle tech beats high tech every time.  When I was in the Navy I developed a healthy respect for using proven technology over testing cutting edge technology.

The more I learned about BMW's the more I liked them, especially the Airhead models with the famed Type 247 engine shown below.  The engine is a thing of utilitarian beauty.  I like them so much that I now have two, and as long as wife does not leave me, I am going to have at least two more. If you have a /2 and a /7 you really need a /5 and a /6.

I will document the work that gets done to each bike, and there will be work.  You don't start buying old motorcycles and not work on them.  For God's sake do not rely on how I do anything as  guide, I have no fucking idea what I am doing.

What I won't try to do is compile information on BMW's or put up detailed tech articles. I do not have the skill or the knowledge and so many others are already doing it and are doing so with great skill.  

For each bike I am putting up a price list for parts purchased and work done to the bike so other can get a realistic idea of the costs and efforts involved.  I just hope my wife doesn't look at it very often.  I have deliberately left the cost of the bike out.  It doesn't matter what you paid, or I paid, for a bike.  If you are happy with the purchase it was a fair deal.  

I live in the mid-west so bad weather and winter is part of the deal. "Garage therapy" is damn near as important as getting to ride the things because the season here is limited.  Over the summer I will start on the ride reports section. It will have some pictures, routes, maybe maps if I can figure out how to do it, and hopefully help you find some nice rides.  If you have any roads or suggestions for rides around Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and/or Kentucky please send me an email.

dp 01/04

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