Jcarrazau

Four years ago, Bill Costello became a big name in the classic BMW world. He’d restored a 1958 BMW R50 as a tribute to his father, and before he knew it, the bike was on the cover of three magazines. Bill was even flown to Germany to meet BMW’s top brass.

“Then people started asking me about my next project,” says Bill, faced with Second Album Syndrome. And here it is, revealed for the first time—an absolutely beautiful 1981 R100RT. It also serves as Bill’s daily ride.

“I’m not one of those people who desires a stable full of motorcycles, but there was something else I wanted. When restoring a classic bike, one has to pretty much stick with a factory spec set of options. One does not normally chop up and customize a 1958 BMW. I had a desire to build a custom bike, one that suited my personality.”

The first requirement was more power. “My R50 has only 26 hp, and riding on the highway with a 1958 bike is not something you want to do all the time. So I found a full-faired R100RT donor bike which made a great base for the project; My focus was on building a reliable daily rider, an urban style bike—which is a great excuse to not spend a lot of time cleaning and polishing all the engine parts!”

With 70 hp on tap, the R100RT has all the power Bill needs. But he’s put the bike on a diet, dropping the wet weight from around 525 lbs to 430. Handling is much improved too, thanks to fork internals by Race Tech, including adjustable gold-valve emulators. At the back, suspension duties are now handled by Works Performance shocks.

The custom spoked wheels, with sealed rims and fitted with Avon tubeless tires, were built by Woody’s Wheel Works. There’s a new triple tree from BMW specialist Toaster Tan, hooked up to Tarozzi clip-ons. The rearsets are from Boxer Metal, who helped out with the build.

Under the seat hump is a tiny li-ion battery, matched to an equally compact Acewell gauge up front. Bill also mounts his iPhone 5 to the bars for navigation, and if the worst ever came to the worst, he can call upon the full BMW toolkit hidden under the custom seat.

“The same week the bike was finished, I took it for its maiden voyage—a 1,600-mile round trip ride from New York to North Carolina,” says Bill. “The bike proved itself to me on that ride. It really is a blast on the highway: To test the stability, I took it up to 115 mph, which feels like 200 on a naked bike. The bike is everything I hoped it would be.”

Bill’s not 100% satisfied, though. He plans to lengthen and soften the rear shocks a fraction, and dial-in the adjustable front forks, so they’re a little softer too. Then his BMW will be just perfect.

Who can wait to see what Bill’s #3 build will be?

If you want to know more about Bill Costello’s 1958 BMW R50, watch the marvelous video ‘A BMW Motorcycle Story.‘ Or head over to our Google+ page for more high-resolution images.

© Bike EXIF 2013. The world authority on custom motorcycles.

The engine is completely rebuild, new cylinders and pistons, new valve and springs, new camchain, modern charging system, runs like a champ! new tires, new wheel bearings, new chain and sprockets, new bearings in the steering neck, new brakepads and cleaned the brake system, this thing is brand-new. led-rear lights, including brake light, new electrics, single coil, points ignition.
starts with a single kick. every time!

http://www.limpeiven.com/en/

Most custom BMWs are resto-mods or café racer conversions. But Ian Solley of 7 Ages in the UK likes to take the strasse less travelled. On this BMW R80 custom, virtually every part has been modified: the frame has been converted to a hardtail, and the forks are from a Harley-Davidson FXD.

Solley is known as a Harley man, but when he spotted a restored 1982 R80 on eBay for just £1350, he couldn’t resist. “After spending so much time on Harleys, I really wanted to make something different.”

And different Romeo 80 certainly is. The heavy lifting on the frame was done by Dave Batchelar of P&D, one of England’s most renowned fabricators. The tank was reshaped a little to fit the lines of the new frame, and Batchelar also created the side panels, front fender and rear fender/seat unit—which is a work of art.

Solley reconditioned the motor and carbs before cleaning and detailing them and installing the powerplant back in the frame. He added Supertrapp race mufflers to the stock header pipes, and installed custom-made bars, Oberon indicators and mirrors, and a modified Harley headlight. Sitting in the headlight bowl is a tiny Motogadget speedo.

The 23” wheels are a whopping 5” larger in diameter than the stock BMW R80 hoops, but Solley has retained hints of the classic BMW snowflake pattern. The rims were built by Steve Taylor of Taylor-Made Wheels and the two-tone paint, echoing the traditional BMW colors, was applied by Classic Cycle Works.

It’s one of those bikes that on paper shouldn’t work, but in the metal, it somehow does. To see more of Ian’s inspired creations, head over to the classy 7 Ages website.

Location image by Merry Michau | Studio shots by Mike Prior.

© Bike EXIF 2013. The world authority on custom motorcycles, brought to you by Icon 1000.

Low self-discharge (LSD) NiMH batteries have been mentioned at least 3 times before on Cool Tools under the Eneloop brand name. These batteries retain 85% of their charge after a year in storage, making them almost as convenient as alkalines (keep a few charged ones on-hand, ready to go). At about $2 each, they pay for themselves after 4 or 5 uses.

This review is about chargers, which are not all made equal. The Duracell CEF23 is superior to other chargers in several ways:

• “Smart” charger – doesn’t just use a timer, but looks for specific behavior of the battery voltage to determine when charging is done
• Independently charges each battery – can mix AA and AAA’s and start/stop each battery independently.
• Charge speed of about 4 hours is a happy medium between reducing the life if your cells (very rapid charge) vs. having to wait very long
•  Ability to charge from an AC outlet -or- 12VDC (e.g. car plug or solar panel)
• Ability to act as a USB device charger – powered by AC, 12VDC, -or- the 4 batteries in the charger

Those last 2 points put this charger above most others. In emergency situations, you can recharge batteries without needing AC, and you can use any 4 AA’s (NiMH or Alkaline) to top off your cellphone or other USB devices. You could pop one of these in an emergency kit and give it a recharge every year or so.

Unfortunately, Duracell stopped making the US version of this charger. But you can get the Australian-plug version (CEF23AU), bundled with a US-plug adapter and 4 AA LSD NiMH batteries, for about $20. That’s cheaper than most other chargers, which don’t have the extra features this one does. Not bad!

If you add a generic 12V car power cable (e.g. from Radio Shack), a few extra LSD AA/AAA’s batteries (consider Tenergy brand), and some “AA spacers” that let you use the AA batteries to replace C/D batteries, you’d be totally outfitted with LSD batteries for about $60.

-- Adam Berson

Duracell Mobile Charger with 4 AA Rechargeable NiMH Batteries, CEF23AU
$20

Available from Amazon

Like Gulf Oil, Martini is a brand inextricably associated with speed. The blue and red stripes are one of the most distinctive liveries in motorsport, and forever associated with the Martini Racing Porsches from the 1970s.

Martini hits its 150th anniversary in 2013, and the English shop Shaw Speed & Custom has joined the celebrations by creating a pair of hot-rodded Harley Sportster XL883Rs—one in white, and one in silver, as shown here.

Each bike has a rebuilt motor with a tuned Screamin’ Eagle 1200 conversion, race-spec heads and pistons, and a custom-fabbed exhaust system. The forks have been fitted with Öhlins internals and finished in gold to match the rear shocks.

A lean Roland Sands Design gas tank and RSD bars add a little attitude, and the stock XL883R brake rotors have been replaced with larger versions fore and aft, beefing up stopping power.

The original fender rails have gone, with the frames modified to accept kicked-up rear fenders. The wheels are also custom built, with modified Dyna rims taking 180mm tires at the rear.

Head over to the Shaw Speed & Custom site for more images of both Martini bikes, and a thorough rundown on the technical details.

© Bike EXIF 2013. The world authority on custom motorcycles, brought to you by Icon 1000.

This raw and brutal BMW K100 was built, very aptly, by a master blacksmith and metalworker. Faced with a long German winter, Marc Robrock decided to enliven his evenings and weekends and build himself a bike. “After 25 years of riding bikes, I felt I was missing something,” he says. “And life is too short to have un-customized stuff.”

Robrock started to look for a ‘nice’ bike but soon switched direction. “Why take a nice bike and rebuild it? Why not take an ugly one? So I chose the ugliest bike I know: The BMW K100.”

Marc found a 1984 model and stripped it down, removing everything that was not necessary and cleaning what was left. But not too much—he was keen to retain the patina of three decades.

After weeks of grinding, cutting and welding, the BMW K100 took shape. Everything was done with an eye to TÜV approval: no sharp or open-ended parts, small aluminum fenders were added, and the original exhaust pipe retained.

Marc added a new aluminum subframe to support a custom-made seat unit, and mounted the Bosch ignition and tiny gel battery underneath. The rims, forks and a multitude of smaller pieces were sandblasted and powdercoated black. Then the bars were replaced with an aftermarket item, again resized to fit.

Marc calls the machine the BMW K-fé, and it took him five weeks to complete. TÜV certification took longer—six weeks. But the BMW is road-legal.

Now that Marc has all the paperwork sorted, he has just one job left to do—replace the exhaust system.

Images courtesy of Thomas Riese. Marc is at Robrock.de [German language only].

© Bike EXIF 2013. The world authority on custom motorcycles, brought to you by Icon 1000.