BMW R100 Cafe Racer - The story behind the bike

I have been riding motorcycles since I was 18. But when kids came along and I am always away from home during the week I decided to sell my Suzuki 1000 GSXR motorcycle 10 years ago. But all these years I have looked back when a motorcycle passed by. And so I never said goodbye to riding.

Purchase BMW R100 Cafe Racer

In the meantime, I looked at what's on the market in terms of motorcycles. And so I saw a picture of a BMW R100 Cafe Racer, and I was sold. And so I saw one for sale 10 km from the door. They started it but didn't finish it, it looked great in the picture but when I stood next to it it was hanging together with tyraps. But still, I bought it. When I showed it to my oldest son (14) he was disappointed, he could not ride in the back. Why do you buy something like that he said, and then I told him I was going to make a BMW R100 scrambler out of it. He agreed.

Rebuild

Actually, I didn't have to change that much on the BMW R100 Cafe Racer. I ordered a subframe, buddy seat, and fender and did my own thing with it. So I ordered a blank subframe and did some welding on it to bend a bracket over the buddy seat, some better alignment some details welded on it for some small lettering. I made the bracket at the back so my son can sit a little further back. I liked the look of the original instrument cluster but moved it a little further down. I ordered the rear light from Amazon and hammered the fasteners into the right angles in the vise at home. I shortened the rear fender to my liking. Looked for some more brackets and welded a provision on it to put some headlights on it. I found some headlights from an old-timer, but while mounting one glass broke (fell from 5cm height). Then I decided to put 1 on it.

Colour choice 

All the controls on the steering wheel I left original only to have everything powder coated along with the rest. I also took the bolts to the coater. A good friend of mine has a paint shop and is occasionally busy. When he asked me to help him with the paint job, I liked the idea of helping each other out. I was working for him and he for me. He made the tank smooth and ordered special paint to coat the inside as well. This was necessary because in one spot it looked like a coffee filter. Picking the color is always a thing I think, I knew I wanted it green but when he showed me 4 pages of green I needed a little more time. In the end, I just went ahead and gave him the number. This of course later turned out to be the right choice I think. When I said that I wanted to paint the tank and the rest myself he happily allowed me to do so. And the result was there.

Result BMW R100 Scrambler

Now it is ready and it is a wonderful BMW Scrambler R100 to tour around with. With regularly one of my rascals on the back. The only thing I miss now and then is the power of my last bike but I think this has to wear off.

YouTube video

Raymond uploaded a video of his BMW R100 Scrambler on YouTube!