1971 R75/5 SWB- to lengthen or not?

I am far from an expert, but my personal experience agrees with the gentleman above. My '72 R60/5 definitely pinged (I always run premium fuel in my bikes), my 75/5 never does. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

experience from 5 decades ago

I bought a 1972 R/75 nearly 50 years ago. It was the 2nd bike that I had owned, the previous being an 80cc Suzuki 2 stroke. I hadn't been on a bike for 6 years, so going to what seemed like a much larger bike with full fairing, side bags, and top case was a bit intimidating. There was no motorcycle license requirements back then, no rider training courses, nothing but get on and ride...and that was what I did. I put many thousands of miles on that bike, through the Rocky Mountains of western Canada, down the east coast of Canada into Maine and New Hampshire, and into the White Mountains, that bike never gave me a problem. I rode in wind, rain, even had 6" of snow on one trip through the Rockies. I rode single, 2 up, and with tent and camping gear stowed on it, although it was never overloaded. I thought that bike handled great.... so great that I just bought another one, and it's even the same colour.

I started looking at replacing the fairing/shield that's on it with just a windshield and that is where I discovered that bar mounted screens can cause stability issues with the SWB 75/5's. I couldn't find anything on line that was suitable until I saw an add for Parabellum windshields in an old issue of BMW ON. I did a search on line and they have a frame mounted screen that has a proven design as they did the research over 40 years ago. I am going to order it soon. I don't know if I would ever have a stability issue with the bike, but I don't want to take that chance. I have never ridden either of my 75/5's without the fairing mounted windshields, so I can't speak to stability with anything else, but I do know that I have never had any problems with the SWB bike.

It's changed

VIEJO said:

very serendipitous indeed..... I have a place in Utopia, TX, not far from New Braunfels (by Texas reckoning) and I used to live in Taipei ('58-'61) and often traveled to Taichung and Tainan for Boy Scout outings including the incredible Silver Trail from Taichung over the mountains on foot to Hualien.
One of my favorite places, although I probably wouldn't recognize it now.

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I've only been here since '99 but it's changed considerable even since then. I used to be able to look out my window and see rice fields for a mile or so and now nothing but hi-rises.

I've ridden over Hehuan Shan to Hualien on a 150cc Kymco in the winter; lots of fun. There was ice and snow on top and a line of cars leading down the mountain trying to get up, slipping and sliding. I putted along on the side with no problems with my girlfriend at the time on the back.

Utopia is a nice part of Texas; New Braunfels is a traffic jam.

22600 said:

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I've only been here since '99 but it's changed considerable even since then. I used to be able to look out my window and see rice fields for a mile or so and now nothing but hi-rises.

I've ridden over Hehuan Shan to Hualien on a 150cc Kymco in the winter; lots of fun. There was ice and snow on top and a line of cars leading down the mountain trying to get up, slipping and sliding. I putted along on the side with no problems with my girlfriend at the time on the back.

Utopia is a nice part of Texas; New Braunfels is a traffic jam.

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My hike with the Boy Scouts in 1960 over the Silver Trail from the mountain crest above Taichung down to Hualien followed the route the Japanese occupation forces used to string the first power lines across the center of island in the late 1930's. Once you started walking east the only way to get to Hualien was to keep walking.... vehicle access by anything other than a bicycle was impossible and there were several very narrow pedestrian suspension bridges over some fairy significant gorges (that evidently hadn't seen much maintenance since the Japanese left). All the poles and cables were man-handled into place by forced labor.

PGlaves said:

I only had an issue with wobble on a short frame /5 once and it was actually funny. Voni was riding her R65 and I was riding an R60/5 back in 1985. We were in Colorado on a two-lane highway that was following and intermittently crossing a small river. At most such crossings there was what was called a fishing access. At a stop I told Voni that the next time we got to one of those I wanted to stop and have a cup of coffee. So the next one I saw I turned downhill into the parking area among the trees on the river bank. I had just swung my leg over to get off when zoom - down the highway, past the fishing access she went.

At this point she thought I was ahead of her and was trying to catch me, and I was behind her trying to catch her. I had camping gear rather haphazardly strapped on the rear of the bike. Somewhere about 80 or 85 mph the /5 started to wobble. It wasn't really violent so backing off corrected things but I couldn't go fast enough to catch her while she was trying to catch me.

Eventually she just stopped, figuring I would eventually wake up and come back to find her. She was surprised when I came zooming up from behind her. After I got chewed out we had a good laugh.

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Paul,

Memory is a great interpreter of history.... my previous wobbles and full fledged tank-slapper (only one, thankfully) are far enough behind me that I can get a good chuckle out of remembering them these days. My only fear is that the memories might start to seem docile enough that I'm tempted to tease the dragon again

Dave