Glory Days: Paying tribute to BMW?s ISDT enduro racers
Everyone knows the story of the BMW R80 G/S. It?s the bike that ignited the dual sport market, and created ripples that are still felt in showrooms today.
Conventional wisdom says that the launch of the G/S in 1980 saved BMW Motorrad from extinction. But the story goes further back than that, because the idea for the G/S came from BMW?s successes in European off-road events.
BMW fielded a full works team for the 1979 season, and the team dominated the unlimited classes of the International Six Days Trial and Enduro Championship. These exploits tend to be overshadowed by BMW?s Paris Dakar history, but they are not forgotten by all Enthusiasten.
This history is well known to a group of five friends from the Cataluña region in northeastern Spain. So they approached Efraón Triana of UFO Garage in Madrid, and asked him to build five identical machines as a tribute to the Six Days BMWs.
Many builders would baulk at the idea of creating five bikes at the same time, but Triana has a lot of experience?he was the co-founder of Café Racer Dreams, which has always had a prodigious output.
?The clients wanted five exactly-the-same motorcycles, with the original numbers used in the race of ?79,? says Efraón. ?We have taken things from the originals?but we have also used current components to improve aspects of the bikes.?
Still, this was no easy task. Spain was the first European country to pass one million COVID-19 cases, triggering a State of Emergency?and exacerbating the...
-------------------------------- |
|
Speed Read: RSD’s nitrous-fueled BMW R18 drag bike and more
20-05-2024 07:56 - (
motorcycle )
Honda CB550 By Kaspeed Custom Motorcycles
19-05-2024 08:40 - (
motorcycle )