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Classic Vintage Ride

Visian

look out!!!
It was a Classic day... and probably the last day this year for a ride in the mountains on a bike with no heated grips and no electric jacket (6V, 35+ year-old charging systems don't like those...)

The Classic/Vintage group of the BMW Motorcycle Owners of Georgia rode to a few covered bridges up in the hills, and I thought you'd enjoy a few pics.

clubride_johnsr69s.jpg

We got an early start, the rider's meeting was held in the parking lot of Ruby Lee's restaurant in Cumming. As you can see, I was easily distracted...

The ride to the meeting was a bit brisk... temps in the mid-40s. The idea was to ride to a few covered bridges in preparation for the Covered Bridge Grand Tour that our vintage group is planning for 2004.

We mounted up, and man, I wish my R69S had cruise control because I would have loved to have gotten a few shots of all that gorgeous iron rolling down the road.

clubride1.jpg

The first stop was only 10-15 miles away, this is a shot of about 3/4 of the group. Yeah, that's a Suzuki Samurai in the lineup... while not quite vintage, we let Dave come along anyway!

After we found the first bridge, it became my turn to lead because I knew the good back roads to the next destination... lunch at Turner's Corner cafe, outside of Cleveland.

Rolling along Matt Highway to Old Federal, up to Ophir, east on Eagles Perch, north on Cowart Road, west on GA53, north on Steve Tate "Highway" and east on Afton... which is a peg-scraper for the K-bike, so I had to wick it up on the R69S.

clubride_airplane.jpg

We stopped at an airfield along the way... check out this vintage Eastern Airlines plane that was on the runway.

clubride_airplane1.jpg

King Kong was also present... no wait... it was an R/C club's flying field!

GA 183 north to GA52 east past Amicalola, left on 9, left on Siloam Church, right on Oak Grove, left on Washrider Road, right on Camp Wahsega and we intersect with GA60, which we ride north to the Stonepile, and then take 19 over to Turner's Corner Store for lunch.

clubride_john.jpg

Can you tell that I really like John Landstrom's red 68 R69S US? We were attracting a lot of looks at the Turner's Corner Store.

After lunch, (and much ribbing about my speed... even on the R69S... I keep forgetting that *some* vintage bikes & riders like to go slow!) the group split up, with four of us continuing on to the second covered bridge of the day, Stovall Mill, just east of Helen.

clubride_bridge.jpg

Tim on his R75/5, me on my R69S, and Mark on his /7 do the poser thing in front of the Stovall Mill covered bridge.

clubride_r69s.jpg

Just had to slip in one pic of my R69S

Judging by the good participation in today's ride, our newly formed Vintage sub-chapter is going to be quite active in 2004. You can count on some interesting bikes at the show we hold during the Georgia Mountain Rally. It will be held April 29th, 30th and May 1st, 2004.

Ian
 
Last edited:
Visian said:
clubride1.jpg

The first stop was only 10-15 miles away, this is a shot of about 3/4 of the group. Yeah, that's a Suzuki Samurai in the lineup... while not quite vintage, we let Dave come along anyway!

That's actually a 1982 Suzuki Katana. It's the rarest of the Katanas, which were produced for a few years in the early 80s. The 1000, pictured here, was only produced for one year. It evolved into an 1150 with Suzukis TSCC engine in it.

There's a BMW story behind that bike as well. It was designed by Hans Muth. For those that know, Hans also designed the R65LS, the R90S, the R100RT and the R100RS.

They're truly rare and exotic bikes.

14010.jpg
 
At what point is something "vintage"? That Katana is a beautiful beast, and, at 21 years, an old one. :)

Ian, so when are you going to ride that R69S out my way?

Two things brought me into BMW's...
1. (and most important) My neighbor had a K100RS. He showed me photos of trips out through Colorado. At the time I had a little disposable Honda. What a contrast! His K had 130k+ miles on it. I was bit and bit hard.

2. reading a story reprinted in Classic Bike about an R69S. The writer had more than 200k on his R69S and had ridden it to every corner of Europe.

If a certain rider hadn't tried to mate with the front of a certain truck, I would have started with an R1100R. Instead, a few years later, I started with a K75s.

babbling...
the whole point? Good stuff Ian. Thanks for sharing and dredging up some good memories.
 
Re: Re: Classic Vintage Ride

KBasa said:
That's actually a 1982 Suzuki Katana.

DOH! I knew that.... the Samurai is that little pocket jeep. What was I thinking?

It was a pretty clean example... the only thing obviously missing was the stock exhaust... replaced with a Super-crap.

Ian
 
knary said:
At what point is something "vintage"? That Katana is a beautiful beast, and, at 21 years, an old one. :)

Ian, so when are you going to ride that R69S out my way?

Scott -- different people have different interpretations of Classic and Vintage. The one I've heard most often is 25 years old for Classic, 30+ for Vintage.

This winter, I am going to try to upgrade the electrics on the R69S to Vech's 12V system... and maybe add some of those cool bar-end turn signals. That might make it cross-country worthy. I'd love to take a long camping trip with that thing!

Your comment about what got you into BMWs is a similar story to mine. The R69S was a prime motivator for me. When I was about 8-9 years old, I used to visit my Opa's house (Opa is german for grandfather...) and he always had magazines from Germany next to his chair. He would read them to me in English... and I really liked the look of the BMW advertisements, especially the ones for the R69S.

Then out came his car magazines, and my Opa would also tell me about the times when he was a little boy back in Ulm and Stuttgart, Germany where he grew up with Ferdinand Porsche...

... which is the source of my desire for that other thing with a boxer motor that I can't quite cost-justify at the moment.... :)

Ian
 
Really like 'em

I like those 69's. i really like the looks of the luggage on them. the red one really jumps (no offense Ian). thanks for the pics.
 
Yeah, Phactory Phil showed a red one all nicely restored at Rhinebeck back in 99. It was one of the nicest bikes I have ever seen.

Although, you can say that about just about any bike Phil does.

The red ones are really hard to come by.

Ian

BTW... that luggage is not a factory accessory. They're called Enduro Bags, and they were made by an american company back in the 60s. They have recently become available again, and Bob's BMW has them in stock from time to time. I bought mine from Bob's a couple of years ago... they cost less than those made back in the day... and they are functionally better, too.
 
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