Some of you know I started to restore a 1983 R80ST from the estate of Clem Cykowski, the original owner of BMW Of Denver that he started in the early 1970’s. I bought my first BMW from Clem in 1975, an R75/6, which my son Branden now owns. Clem and I stayed friends and he helped me when I started rebuilding airheads back in 2009.
My goal was to auction the bike and donate the proceeds to the Motorcycle Relief Project in Colorado. They use a week long motorcycle ride with therapy sessions to help military and first responders suffering from PTSD. Their success rate is amazing.
Ted Moyer, Executive Director of the BMW MOA heard about this project from Daren Dortin’s “Type 247” podcast about the project and contacted me. He offered to have the BMW MOA Foundation raffle the bike and donate all proceeds to the MRP. I agreed.
Tonight, is the MRP annual fund raiser and they are going to display the completed R80ST to start the BMW MOA raffle for their friends and followers today. The official start of the raffle is in January, but Ted is making it available in December to anyone who knows about the MRP, and is offering a discount during December of six tickets for $100 instead of the standard five tickets. So, you can take advantage of the discount if you are interested.
You can visit my website and see all the work I did to restore this bike:
1983 BMW R80ST Charity Rebuild: Project Index
And you can use this link to buy raffle tickets.
Amazing documentation feat. Congratulations on a fantastic achievement. Happy Holidays. We bought a 1/6 dozen raffle tickets. All the best to you and your garage in 2024
Henry,
I hope you win the bike. 🙂
Best.
Brook.
Brook – I didn’t know how to contact you so I’ll drop this in here. I wanted to deeply thank you for all of your wisdom and outstanding video and print resources. I can only imagine the time and dedication it took to procure the excellent tutorials. You did this for the benefit of the community – a heartfelt thank you! I have an 89GS and had never rebuilt a motorcycle before. I found a metal dowel pin in my oil pan which Bud Provin let me know was from the front bearing carrier and held the bearing in place. He said he has seen more and more of this issue, sadly. Nonetheless a full disassembly was in order. At the time I thought woe is me, but the paradox of struggle is real. Opportunity knocked. I found your youtube channel and that was the mana I needed to believe that I could do it. I know you understand the stress and self doubt involved in a first rebuild. I would not have made the attempt without your resources. What a gift! I made a number of mistakes, spent way too much money, created a lot of friction with my wife, but in the end I have a beautiful, properly functioning and happy motorcycle. It was one of the most challenging and rewarding things I have done in my life. The GS is truly MY bike and the relationship I have with it is different and more complete that any other bike I have owned as a result of this experience. A friend of mine who is a legendary Harley Davidson mechanic in these parts, who provided a lot of guidance, talked about the “soft hand” of experienced and astute mechanics. Down the home stretch on the rebuild I realized that I had in deed acquired the soft hand. So many of the early costly mistakes almost could not be avoided until I developed some sense of touch and patience. I have so many incredible lessons from this experience and I hope to do some writing about it. Brook I’m here in large part because of your thoughtful and generative videos, writing, wisdom and lessons. I want you to know that I greatly appreciate you.
Rob