I try not to have regrets, but I do rather wish there was a vintage BMW R90S or R75/5 with a Vetter fairing in my garage—or at least in my memory banks. Both were at various times my all-time lust objects. But no; it just didn’t happen and it won’t. My life went from broke and chaotic to settled down with kids very quickly; ideally I’d have had some years with a BMW in between and could now share my memories of long-distance trips to the Yucatan Peninsula on the R75 or canyon carving on the R90S. Instead all I have to share is the rather pathetic story of my brief life of some six months with a little Bridgestone 90S and some illicit summer evening rides on a tired Yamaha 305 Big Bear Scrambler that I “borrowed”.
I had always had an interest in bikes—along with anything else that was self-propelled and had wheels (or wings). This interest was intensified when I arrived back in Iowa City in 1971; as a town dominated by the University, bikes of all sorts were everywhere. The town was crawling with them; they were mostly used to tool around campus and town and to be seen on them. They were invariably Japanese bikes of all sorts or sizes, most commonly Honda 350s and such. I was jealous as I trudged around or later rode my 10-speed bike.
But there was a whole other contingent of bikers in town, a rather small but close-knit group of BMW owners who were into serious long distance rides. Watching them really got my jealousy meter pegged, especially one fine spring morning when I ran into them downtown just as they were getting ready to depart for the Yucatan peninsula to get away from Iowa’s dreary and endless winter.
They almost all had air head Bimmers, mostly 600s and 750s, and most had Vetter Windjammer fairings like this one. I would have given my left testicle to have one and go with them. Life is cruel…but these guys were older and had made it one way or another (the ringleader owned the popular The Mill restaurant in town).
One guy in the group drove an older style R69S with a sidecar. He owned the coolest store in town, Things, Things and Things. He was the epitome of cool tooling around town in this rig.
I’d had a thing for BMW motorcycles since I was a wee kid in Austria, and seeing them being used for long distance road trips was a very compelling fantasy. But one that I would not ever fulfill, certainly not in 1972, working for minimum wage as a busboy.
One exceptionally nice early spring morning in 1972 I opened up the local paper and went to the classified section for motorcycles. I found an ad for a Bridgestone 90 for a price that was within my meager saving I had that day. So I called and went over to the seller’s house, a typical older house full of students. He opened the outside cellar door and we hauled the little red Bridgestone 90 up the stairs and into the sunshine. I was dazzled by the chrome on its tank, handed the seller my hard-earned savings and…I forgot to mention that I had never actually ridden a motorcycle of any kind before.
No problem! The seller showed me where the shifter was and the shifting sequence, and how to start the little buzz bomb, which it did almost instantly with a kick or two. I got on it, put it in gear, and rode off. This is easy! And fun!
The Bridgestone 90 was a very nicely and well-built little bike. Bridgestone, the dominant tire manufacturer in Japan, entered the booming motorcycle business in 1958. When the Japanese domestic motorcycle industry took a tumble in the early ’60s, Bridgestone hired some top engineers from the failed Lilac and Tohatsu companies and set out to design a new line of bikes, which would result in the BS 90 in 1965, then the BS 50 and BS 175 in 1966 and the BS 350 in 1967. These machines were all powered by state of the art disc valve two strokes which Tohatsu had previously been involved in. Disc valves were more sophisticated and expensive to build than port valve 2-strokes, but they typically produced more power and they generally ran a bit better. My 90 always started instantly and ran very smoothly and cleanly for a 2-stroke.
And it had oil injection, meaning no need to mix the oil and gas in the tank.
The uprated S90 made a whopping 8.8 hp at 8000 rpm (of course sounding like it was revving twice as fast as all 2-strokes do), and 6.14 lb.ft. of torque at 6,000 rpm. It had a top speed of 65 mph, which I confirmed a number of times on Iowa’s country highways, tucked down to minimize drag given how tall I was. That’s not to say that driving this little bike at 60-65 on a highway with cars and big rucks was actually fun; it wasn’t really, but it could do it to get me somewhere a bit further away. Never mind what it did to my long hair (helmet? You must be kidding).
It was much more pleasant bopping around town and out on a country road at 40-45 mph to a local quarry to go skinny dipping or out the Dairy Queen on a hot night or just riding around. The countryside around Iowa City was perfect for summer evening rides, preferably with someone on the back half of its seat. Yes, two-up riding on a 90 works, even if my 6’4″ tall frame was a bit scrunched up and my crotch was a bit too friendly with the back of the gas tank. I even pretended it had off-road capability—which it didn’t, but it was light enough that I could help it out if needed.
No, it wasn’t riding off to the Yucatan, or even to the Rocky Mountains (which I actually regret not doing, on the smaller back highways), but my overactive imagination had fun pretending.
The little Bridgestone exuded quality, and I never had to do a thing to it; it ran—and hummed—like the proverbial sewing machine. I didn’t keep it very long, because that fall my brother gifted me a ’63 Corvair Monza sedan with the 4-speed that he had bought for $75, as he was going off to Thule AFB as a contractor to make some money. No need for a bike, especially in the fall. Bike riding in Iowa was strictly a summer time activity.
Bridgestone excited the motorcycle market in 1970 after the other Japanese bike manufacturers pressured it to do so. They were not happy with Bridgestone’s effective monopoly on tires as well as competing against them. The weak sales of the expensive 350GTR/GTO (above) was another factor; it was ambitious, physically big, fast (40 hp) and also exuded quality, but it was priced too high to be competitive, especially against the all-dominating Honda 350.
Fast forward to the summer of 1974. By this time I had already owned two cars; the Corvair followed by a very sweet ’64 VW Beetle. But I sold that in the fall of 1973 when I was accepted as a performer in a very experimental theater company sponsored by the university. I didn’t really need the VW anymore as I lived in an old house nearby where we did our “theater” thing and I had a 10-speed bike to get around town. That summer I wanted to do some work on my bicycle and asked the landlord if I could use the detached garage; Sure!
Deep in the bowels of other stored stuff I found a Yamaha 305 Big Bear with a heavy coating of dust. I asked the landlord about it and he said a friend had stored it there a few years back and hadn’t yet ever come back for it. Hmmm.
When summer and its long languid nights rolled around, I couldn’t resist the temptation. The landlord had moved to Colorado where he had bought an old house in Aspen to fix up and rent out rooms (probably worth many millions now). So using old skills from my hot-wiring days, I figured out how to bypass the ignition switch, pushed it out into the alley and…sure enough, it started up after some vigorous kicking. And off I drove into the Iowa sunset…
It didn’t run as cleanly and crisply as my BS 90 and smoked a bit (the carbs probably could have used a cleaning), but it had a lot more low-end grunt. A much more pleasant bike for the purposes. No wonder most bike owners traded up from their little entry-level bikes to a 300-350 cc class bike, which was by far the most popular at the time.
I was a bit nervous about taking it out much, but I had some very memorable rides that summer, especially those that involved a certain back seat passenger. Who needs the Yucatan Peninsula when there’s little back roads and deserted county parks with giant swings and quarries to go swimming in, and…
The Yamaha 305 was a development of their YD250, with bigger bore and stroke. The parallel-twin, port-timed two-stroke came with a compression ratio of 7.2 to 1, and the factory was claiming an output of over 30 horsepower at 7,000 rpm and a top speed of over 80 mph. You might be surprised to know that I did not confirm that; the tires were old, the engine was not really in good tune, the shocks felt flaccid and I simply didn’t feel like pushing it. But it was very happy doing what I wanted to do with it on those summer nights. And then it went back to hibernation mode in its garage; no one was the wiser for its getting some exercise that summer.
Yes, I’ve had regrets about not having a BMW later in life when I could have readily afforded it. But I had a lot going on all the time, between work, three kids, a very old house, a garden, hiking, etc.. It just didn’t fit in and I wasn’t the kind of guy who was going to get on his bike and say goodbye to the rest of the family on Saturday or Sunday mornings to head off on a long fast bike ride. Instead I took the whole family on long, fast car rides… You can’t have it all; I’m still struggling a bit with that reality.
I too had a Bridgestone, a 175 in 1970 as a 16 year old in Madison. It was a great bike. And I too lusted after an airhead BMW. And I never owned one either. Oh well.
A college riding buddy in Tulsa bought a Bridgestone 350 with some of his student loan money. I had a Yamaha RD 350 at the time. I considered my RD to be the top performer in the 350 class, but that I think that Bridgestone was actually a bit quicker out of the hole. Luckily it didn’t seem to handle as well as the RD. Most times I could keep a step ahead by virtue of the corners.
Those were some fun times exploring the roads all around Tulsa. Never strayed too far though. My riding buddy didn’t keep the Bridgestone too long. He had to sell it towards the end of the semester to get part of his tuition money back.
Riding alone towards the end of that summer, I did take the RD on a memorable trip through the West. Started that trip alone, but soon teamed up with another guy I met on the road in Utah. At a certain age, exploring life and terrain on a bike could be like that. You met someone on the road, traveled, camped, and got high together like you’ve known each other for years. Then you parted company and went your separate ways never to meet again.
Like me, my new riding buddy was headed back to Oklahoma for the start of another semester at Stillwater. He had a Honda 450 with some of the worst tires I’ve ever seen on a motorcycle – which led to an interesting story about a flat on some backroad outside of Farmington New Mexico. Doesn’t involve a Bridgestone, so perhaps a story for another time.
It’s great to read about long trips on an RD. As sporty as they were, they also seemed much better suited to highway speeds than a CB350 twin. Nowadays an 800-900 cc bike is considered a lightweight.
The Bridgestone motorcycles were highly regarded – as were their bicycles sold in the US in the Eighties and Nineties. Innovative and refined. Even more than the other Japenese two-strokes of the time, as nice as most of those were.
But sorry, I’m not a BMW airhead fan, though by their last years they had smoothed out some of their warts. But when I excitedly got to ride a /5 in the mid 70’s, I was disappointed. It felt like a tractor. Maybe refined compared to a contemporary Harley, but not so much compared to a Honda. And totally unsporting compared to a Norton. Even the R90 or R100S weren’t exactly sport bikes; in my experiences on friends’ bikes, nice on Hwy 395 but not so much Sonora Pass.
My attraction to them is the same as other things that attract me: they way they are designed and built more than how they take a curve. There’s something so fundamentally “right” about the basic configuration of the BMW twin, with its cylinders in the air and its driveshaft and all. It just really speaks to me, as does the configuration of the air cooled VW. They may not be genuine sport bikes, but their reputation for quality and durability is certainly not a myth.
There’s a very ragged 75/5 survivor with a Vetter fairing in my neighborhood that was the owner’s daily driver for the first 25 years we lived here. It’s finally been pushed to the back of the carport in favor of some cheap Japanese car. I pay my respects every time I walk by it. I’m sure someday it will get fixed up again, either by its current owner or the next.
Paul,You are welcome to ride my R75/6 to give you a better idea of what these are about. I think you would like it. Even though it’s still a project I ride it up and down the old McKenzie pass regularly and it has a satisfying tightness in it’s handling and enough power to give some thrills. I’ve owned dozens of bikes and a half dozen were the opposed twin airheads – my first took me from Salem, OR to Key West and back. If you’re looking for a restored bike for reasonable money, attend a BMWMOA rally and you may be smitten.
Thank you Alfred; that’s a very generous offer. I’d certainly like to at least take a closer look.
email me when you’d like a test ride.
My R60/5 was a long distance comfort bike, not a canyon carver, which sounds like your interest. Yes it was a bit heavy feeling, especially the transmission shifting. Most of my traveling companions were on Harley’s and I was way ahead of them on reliability and comfort. On long rides, the son of one of the Harley riders followed in a van full of parts, tools and even welding equipment. 1970’s were HD’s dark days, quality wise.
Bridgestone also made some legendary bicycles with a lot of the later US models designed by Grant Petersen who started Rivendell after Bridgestone left the US in 1994.
I skipped a step, my firtst motorcycle was a Kawasaki KZ400, and I almost immediately followed it with a BMW. I almost bought an R75/7 with a Windjammer, but ended up with an R100S which did a few trips but nothing epic before settling down to commuting and the occasional weekend blast. My R100S benefits from upgraded suspensionand a more open exhaust but really needs new brake disks. While the Airhead is not as refined as a contemporary Japanese four it’s lighter, simpler and built to last. BMW steering heads and swingarms ride on adjustable tapered roller bearings, a CB750 has loose ball bearing for the steering and bushings for the swingarm. In 1991 I met a rider with 400.000 miles on an R75 still on the original crank and main bearings, although he had run out of cylinder rebores and was on his second set.
There’s a definite sense of freedom to be out in the country and feeling every little thing. There used to be a large stand of trees on Hall Boulevard in Beaverton where you could feel a change in air temperature when you rode past. Then they were cleared and replaced by apartments, so no cool air as you turned the corner
I bought a Bridgestone MB1 new in 1989. I rode it for about 20 years, first serious single track then commuting. It’s still in my family, refurbished by our daughter’s partner, mostly ridden by our son. I rode it recently and it was wonderful.
Nice .
A BMW with two wheels is a BEEMER ‘bimmer’ is the four wheeled variety .
Way back when I had a nice little Bridgestone 175C.C. single, it -may- have been the model with the chrome lined cylinder, it never broke so I never opened it up . they certainly made good quality Motocycles .
In high school a buddy had a Yamaha Big Bear, in time to up graded to a Honda CB450 twin, offered me the Yamaha for $35, running and registered, was angry I turned him down but I was never a big two stroke fan .
Too bad you never got a /5 Beemer ~ the first three years were shorter wheel base and if the wrong tires were used had a tendency to get high speed wobbles that spit the rider off like a watermelon seed =8-^ .
My first BMW was William Shatner’s Irish Green ’73 R75/5 long wheel base, wow what a machine .
I’m getting older and ever more broken so in February of 2024 I bought a nasty scrap 1972 BMW R75/5 short wheel base, spent most of that year making it go, stop and have lights et cetera .
I’m now riding it pretty much daily, lord how I love it and it handles better than most folks realize, they’re afraid the cylinder heads will touch in hard cornering, they won’t =8-) .
-Nate
I may have been turned off the /5 when my friend, an accomplished road racer, got into a speed wobble on his dad’s early R75 – on a freeway. In a tunnel. I saw his road rash and it was awful. If I remember right the bike was totaled, but his dad bought another one. My friend pretty much stuck to the track, in full leathers, after that. It was probably another ten years before I rode another airhead with the new chassis and swingarm, and FINALLY disc brakes.
Nate, If the chassis is tight and tires good, you can touch the heads down and bounce back up, sort of like built in crash bars; it does scuff the valve covers somewhat. My R60/5 SWB did start to wobble in fast sweepers but handled tight turns better than the LWB. It had an updated 5 speed transmission which shifted pretty well. The bike was prepped by racer, Art Piels of Zap Motors in Portland who swapped to obtain the original 4 speed because he preferred its durability. Art must have swapped in some very good brake shoes because they worked better than the /7 and RTs with double discs I have owned. From my association with these bikes and their owners I have to believe that the design has saved more riders than spit them off. Hats off to you for saving a worthy old bike!
I love reading your stories.i believe you and I are about the same age paul.my life pales in comparison .robert s.
This was a good article with lots to think about.
I do as much as I can on a small motorcycle now. Everything takes longer. Getting dressed, parking, attaching cargo and if I go for a recreational ride the prep and unpacking take me all afternoon it seems. Plus talking with people who come over to tell me they started on a tiny Honda at every second gas station visit. Most of my outdoor pursuits involve a large dog companion so I can’t do all those adventures with a bike either. Big trucks and campers going by as well as inattentive drivers are a constant worry.
On the other hand, a lower speed back road, especially a dirt one is as head clearing as anything I have ever done. It is a special time.
I know two people who had airheads and both loved them immensely, putting crazy miles on them. There is a big BMW R18 boxer in my carport and it is distinctive with the cylinders out the side and a giant chromed driveshaft. The details on the bike are really incredible. That being said, I am just not a fan of BMW Motorrad. Everything is so locked down service-wise, that home servicing is very difficult. The recalls and warranty bill on that bike is more than our other two bikes cost new. I happily do the service on the Yamaha and Honda. Doing things to the Harley didn’t bother me either.
I think that there may be a 300 in my future. Riding 125s and 250s on the highway is a bit tedious after a while.
Fun trips are being had though.
When in college in the mid ’60’s, a friend had a Yamaha 305 that I would borrow from time to time. I loved riding it (usually pretty agressively) and had made up my mind that when I graduated, I would buy a really fast bike. Then one afternoon on the freeway I glanced at the speedometer (who knows how accurate they were) and it read 90 mph! I realized that if I owned a bike it would be a lot more powerful than that 305 and my life expentancy would be about two weeks. I never rode again.
Of my 73 bikes, two were BMW Airheads. Both looked better than they were vs my many Japanese bikes! Now the modern “oilheads” I owned, starting with my ’94 R1100RS was a very capable bike. Altho the Wisconsin HP tended to DI$$agree one Saturday morning on I-43 nothbound to Sheboygan…OWCHH. BTW, I still own a red 305 Yamaha Scrambler; purchased in Sheboygan many years ago. I’ve never bothered to get it running, now it’s a bit too late for me. The RD Yamahas were probably THE BEST handling small Japanese bikes. I still have my ’74 RD-250 that I bought in Madison, Wi as my ACCD graduation present from, me to me!! 🙂 Attached is my R-65 between one of my 1200 Sportsters and my big Vtwin Suzuki. DFO
Like a beautiful woman, the fantasy of owning a BMW is better than the reality. As was mentioned, servicing is problematic because many special tools are required. Going on long road trips are difficult to pull off if you have a family. Then there is the ever increasing idiot factor of cell phone distraction and senior citizens not seeing you.
IMO the best way to experience motorcycling is a dual sport bike on a country road at low speed with occasional excursions down dirt roads. Back home in time to spend with the family. The Yamaha 305 was an early attempt at that kind of bike. Later the air cooled Yamaha XT500 (which I own) and Honda XL500 and XL600 were perfect models for this.
If you have the touring itch and it has to be scratched, I would vote for a Moto Guzzi Eldorado or Ambassador. They are easy to work on and what they have that BMW doesn’t have is a great 90 degree V-twin sound!! I owned one for awhile and they are very reliable.
First motorcycle was a Suzuki TS90, dirt and street capable. Commuted to college on it. Not freeway legal, but able to keep up with the 55mph national speed limit, trailing a cloud of blue smoke at full throttle. It had oil injection and a disc valve, giving it more low-end, not peaky like my brother’s Yamaha.
Next was a Honda CB175 with amazing 11,000 rpm redline. Engine wear took its toll and at about 10,000 miles lots of oil was leaking past the rings, weekly spark plug cleanings.
When I was making enough money I bought a new BMW R60/5. No Vetter fairing but a handlebar mounted one, and saddle bags. Traveled all over California, mostly with a group of Harley riders from work. BMW was an obvious choice, since I had been driving a ’67 VW since high school.
Smaller displacement bikes provide a lot of fun for the dollar. Back in the 1960’s a 125cc machine was perfect for around town and lower speed country roads. A 250-350cc machine was adequate for highway and freeway use. They were also powerful enough to take on longer trips. The Japanese companies built these bikes with quality and reliability in mind and they were usually trouble free. There is also less ego involvement with them, riders are usually seen as people that just enjoy riding and they are not concerned with projecting some kind of image. Smaller bikes are also perfect for the more mature rider, as they are easier to handle.
Despite all that, I have recently been getting involved with bikes again as an old guy. While I don’t have any real desire for long range touring like I used to, I will just ride reasonable distances when I have the desire to get out..
Another great PN original, thanks for filling that gap in long form.
I’d known about the Bridgestone but not the Yamaha. Despite my mother’s hatred of motorcycles (or perhaps because of it) I bought a cheap motorcycle in 1992 after I left home and have always had one or two since; first cheap Hondas and later cheap Kawasakis. Like the Bridgestone 90 my current 250 Super Sherpa will do 100km/hr but is much more fun under 80 and especially on winding gravel roads.
But I too have some regrets. Long trips stopped after kids started in 2000, now I have more free time but my back dictates when and how far I can ride. I had been scheming to bring Sherpa to the Kettle Valley Railway (see JOGRAD’s excellent article at the link below) but to my great surprise my graduating daughter didn’t return to Trail British Columbia, instead she has taken an engineering job in downtown Toronto which is not full of motorcycle trail riding. Maybe I can manage it after retirement?
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/two-wheelers/turning-60-on-two-wheels-part-2-my-honda-trail-125-journey-on-the-kettle-valley-railway/