On this date in 1979
I purchased my first BMW motorcycle.
I purchased my first BMW motorcycle.
Nada One is a 1974 R60/6.
The single best purchase I've ever made, by far.
One of the most profoundly important decisions of my life.
Nada One is the reason I met my wife Laurel, and thus why I have a son, John Raymond.
Nada One is why I have many of my oldest and dearest friends. I was literally in the saddle of Nada One when I met Larry and Jana Haruska. Too many to list, or even count, are my friends because we rode BMWs. You know who you are.
Because of Nada One I became a proficient mechanic.
An arrow-straight line can be drawn through Nada One to my training under Stan Clay, who quickly turned me into a skilled toolmaker and die designer. My machine shop experience is in large part why I became an engineer good enough to earn what has long been my most prized professional accolade when a forging press operator told me, "John, I like working with your tools. They don't explode."
That was a sincere and significant compliment.
Nada One is, in an only slightly indirect way, why I spent the better part of two decades as a rock star of minor magnitude, and that's why next Tuesday my old bandmates and I will get together once again to make a joyous and very loud noise.
The single best purchase I've ever made, by far.
One of the most profoundly important decisions of my life.
Nada One is the reason I met my wife Laurel, and thus why I have a son, John Raymond.
Nada One is why I have many of my oldest and dearest friends. I was literally in the saddle of Nada One when I met Larry and Jana Haruska. Too many to list, or even count, are my friends because we rode BMWs. You know who you are.
Because of Nada One I became a proficient mechanic.
An arrow-straight line can be drawn through Nada One to my training under Stan Clay, who quickly turned me into a skilled toolmaker and die designer. My machine shop experience is in large part why I became an engineer good enough to earn what has long been my most prized professional accolade when a forging press operator told me, "John, I like working with your tools. They don't explode."
That was a sincere and significant compliment.
Nada One is, in an only slightly indirect way, why I spent the better part of two decades as a rock star of minor magnitude, and that's why next Tuesday my old bandmates and I will get together once again to make a joyous and very loud noise.
I rode Nada One on my first two continent-spanning moto-tours, round trips between Arizona and Michigan with detours that took me from coast to coast and up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains.
On the second of those tours, while in Oxford Michigan working for Stan Clay, I'd walk over to the Country Coney for lunch and to flirt with the waitress. The following fall she earned herself a notorious reputation by jumping on the back of an exotic black motorcycle and riding off into the west with a dark and mysterious vagabond she barely knew.
On the second of those tours, while in Oxford Michigan working for Stan Clay, I'd walk over to the Country Coney for lunch and to flirt with the waitress. The following fall she earned herself a notorious reputation by jumping on the back of an exotic black motorcycle and riding off into the west with a dark and mysterious vagabond she barely knew.
Laurel, John, and Nada One at Boyce Thompson Southwest Arboretum, Arizona, 1985-03-17. Nada One's odometer had just rolled to 100,000 miles.
Flash forward to the mid '90s, when while riding Nada Three through Oxford I encountered Carl Anderson riding one of his collection of vintage BMW boxers. We struck up a friendship in which our musical tastes and talents -- his with keyboards, mine with bass, both with vocals -- combined with those of guitarist Mark Hale and the late Spike Marlin on drums to form the Pink Floyd tribute band Glazed Look. Glazed Look eventually included Jim Gillette on guitar and after Spike's tragic stroke, drummer Ken Dudek.
Glazed Look had a solid run playing a light schedule of gigs for years, including several as the entertainment at BMW rallies. The ensemble flamed out abruptly, but about a year later 2nd Look emerged from its ashes like a flapping, squawking phoenix. 2nd Look also had a great run, and Mark and Jim and I still get together regularly to continue grinding our set list into something ever smaller, but equally loud. Lately in those sessions my son JR has been behind the drum kit, and Carl even sits in from time to time.
Nada One was the first of a succession of three other BMW motorcycles which over the past four decades have carried me on dozens of epic journeys across the face of North America.
The avocation launched with Nada One has come to define me as a person, as a writer, and more recently as a filmmaker.
Glazed Look had a solid run playing a light schedule of gigs for years, including several as the entertainment at BMW rallies. The ensemble flamed out abruptly, but about a year later 2nd Look emerged from its ashes like a flapping, squawking phoenix. 2nd Look also had a great run, and Mark and Jim and I still get together regularly to continue grinding our set list into something ever smaller, but equally loud. Lately in those sessions my son JR has been behind the drum kit, and Carl even sits in from time to time.
Nada One was the first of a succession of three other BMW motorcycles which over the past four decades have carried me on dozens of epic journeys across the face of North America.
The avocation launched with Nada One has come to define me as a person, as a writer, and more recently as a filmmaker.
My history with BMW motorcycles is a bit longer than 40 years.
In 1977 my father purchased a barely-used and completely pristine 1975 R90S, which at the time was arguably the finest production motorcycle ever built.
In 1977 my father purchased a barely-used and completely pristine 1975 R90S, which at the time was arguably the finest production motorcycle ever built.
I'd been riding dirt bikes for years, and had fairly recently begun riding street bikes, but this was the first time I'd ever even heard of BMW.
Love at first sight.
I rode dad's bike every chance I got. We moved from Michigan to Phoenix, and during Christmas break of my senior year I rode it on my first visit to California to hang with Ken Clay near L.A., then back to Phoenix via San Diego. It was the first time I'd ever done a ride of anywhere near that distance; the R90S and I fit each other perfectly and the experience lit in me a passion for cross-country motorcycle riding that has never diminished.
After I returned dad informed me he was going to sell it. I told him I'd rather borrow the BMW than have a lesser machine of my own, but sell it he did. He presented me with a Honda CB400F for a graduation present, and bought himself a Yamaha.
The Honda was great for cruising Central, but not for long rides. And whenever I had to work on it I'd curse it was made with Japanese mechanics in mind. I have somewhat thick and stubby Germanic fingers that work best on big parts sticking right out where you can get at them.
I pined for the R90S that had suited me so perfectly.
I asked dad to keep an eye out for any BMWs for sale.
One day during my first semester at Arizona State University, dad was at a Yamaha shop in north Phoenix where he noted a BMW parked out front. On his next visit some days later, the bike was parked there again. He asked if it was for sale. It was. He let me know and I rode up from Tempe to take a look.
I was disappointed.
It wasn't an R90S, the alpha dog of that generation of BMW boxer twins.
It was the runt of the litter.
The R60/6 displaced only 600cc compared to her 750cc big sister, let alone two 900cc models -- one with a hot cam and DellOrto carbs with accelerator pumps. The R60 did not have dual front disc brakes like the S, not even a single disc like the other two models of the line -- or for that matter, the Honda.
Nor did this somewhat homely machine have a stunning cafe fairing and sculpted gas tank in airbrushed "Silver Smoke" two tone paint. Beneath a substantial layer of road grime, it was black with white pinstripes, black Wixom saddlebags, an inexplicably white Wixom fairing. I wasn't impressed, but I took a test ride anyway.
"Sold", I pronounced upon my return.
Aside from cosmetics, front brakes, and of course maximum power output, the R60/6 was the same machine as the R90S; all the things that fit me on dad's bike fit me on this one. With just over 14,000 miles on the odometer, I knew the motor was barely broken in. I also knew the cafe fairing from dad's R90S, which I'd damaged just before he sold the bike, was in his garage awaiting a reason for me to learn fiberglass repair.
As a surprising bonus, the bike had a pair of aftermarket mufflers -- stainless steel and excellent quality -- that made it sound just like a Triumph Bonneville.
I got back to dad's, pulled off the white Wixom fairing, gave her a good wash.
She would have passed for new.
To cover the $1350 price I sold the Honda, and made up the balance from the modest sum I'd inherited from my grandparents which was otherwise going toward college... where I now had what was unquestionably the coolest bike on campus.
Love at first sight.
I rode dad's bike every chance I got. We moved from Michigan to Phoenix, and during Christmas break of my senior year I rode it on my first visit to California to hang with Ken Clay near L.A., then back to Phoenix via San Diego. It was the first time I'd ever done a ride of anywhere near that distance; the R90S and I fit each other perfectly and the experience lit in me a passion for cross-country motorcycle riding that has never diminished.
After I returned dad informed me he was going to sell it. I told him I'd rather borrow the BMW than have a lesser machine of my own, but sell it he did. He presented me with a Honda CB400F for a graduation present, and bought himself a Yamaha.
The Honda was great for cruising Central, but not for long rides. And whenever I had to work on it I'd curse it was made with Japanese mechanics in mind. I have somewhat thick and stubby Germanic fingers that work best on big parts sticking right out where you can get at them.
I pined for the R90S that had suited me so perfectly.
I asked dad to keep an eye out for any BMWs for sale.
One day during my first semester at Arizona State University, dad was at a Yamaha shop in north Phoenix where he noted a BMW parked out front. On his next visit some days later, the bike was parked there again. He asked if it was for sale. It was. He let me know and I rode up from Tempe to take a look.
I was disappointed.
It wasn't an R90S, the alpha dog of that generation of BMW boxer twins.
It was the runt of the litter.
The R60/6 displaced only 600cc compared to her 750cc big sister, let alone two 900cc models -- one with a hot cam and DellOrto carbs with accelerator pumps. The R60 did not have dual front disc brakes like the S, not even a single disc like the other two models of the line -- or for that matter, the Honda.
Nor did this somewhat homely machine have a stunning cafe fairing and sculpted gas tank in airbrushed "Silver Smoke" two tone paint. Beneath a substantial layer of road grime, it was black with white pinstripes, black Wixom saddlebags, an inexplicably white Wixom fairing. I wasn't impressed, but I took a test ride anyway.
"Sold", I pronounced upon my return.
Aside from cosmetics, front brakes, and of course maximum power output, the R60/6 was the same machine as the R90S; all the things that fit me on dad's bike fit me on this one. With just over 14,000 miles on the odometer, I knew the motor was barely broken in. I also knew the cafe fairing from dad's R90S, which I'd damaged just before he sold the bike, was in his garage awaiting a reason for me to learn fiberglass repair.
As a surprising bonus, the bike had a pair of aftermarket mufflers -- stainless steel and excellent quality -- that made it sound just like a Triumph Bonneville.
I got back to dad's, pulled off the white Wixom fairing, gave her a good wash.
She would have passed for new.
To cover the $1350 price I sold the Honda, and made up the balance from the modest sum I'd inherited from my grandparents which was otherwise going toward college... where I now had what was unquestionably the coolest bike on campus.
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