One hallmark of a good custom builder, is the ability to put a fresh spin on a motorcycle that’s been customized a thousand times before. By that standard, ?iga Petek is at the top of his class. His take on the classic BMW R80 is refreshingly contemporary?a sharp street tracker that maintains very little of the original bike.
?iga runs his workshop, Gas&Retro, out of an old barn in the small Slovenian town of Notranje Gorice. He’s been tinkering on bikes since he left high school, but only went full-time within the last three years. And he’s already developed a signature style?favoring modern designs with cohesive lines.

?iga actually picked an old boxer for this project specifically because he wanted to prove a point. ?I’d seen so many old BMW R-models,? he tells us, ?and I had a vision to do something different than what I’d seen.? ?I suggested it to a friend of mine, Ales Peljhan, and he said he’s in. So we started looking for a bike to buy and found a 1989 BMW R80RT. We went to test it out… and after a few beers, we bought it.?

Once the bike was stripped down, ?iga set himself a challenge of changing as much of the donor bike as possible. All that remains now are the BMW’s engine, main frame, swingarm, wheels and rear brake. Everything else is either custom, new, or scalped from another bike?making this one of the cleanest bitsas we’ve ever seen.
The first piece of the puzzle was an old Honda FT500 Ascot fu...