rene, that's quite a story and just gorgeous pictures of a lovely ride! The only BMW I've ridden is a single cylinder F650 with a Rotax engine, maybe not the quintessential BMW experience but that's about all I've been able to get my hands on. Needless to say they are wonderful machines!
I'll out up a video very soon, but in the meantime here's a sound-byte from my 1985 Yamaha RD350 twin right after I restored her.
Here's that post:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1022&message=36626349
And here's the sound-clip:
http://justyamahard350.com/myRD350.wma
Raj Sarma
thank you for that Yamaha soundfile! Sounds familiar and brings back nice memories! Must have been in 1975 when a girlfriend had an older RD 250 while I had just sold my R27 but had not bought the 50/5 yet. So I´m sure you can imagine who was riding that Yamaha most the time during that summer, lol?!
32 PS (hp), if I remember correctly. And pretty thirsty, 8 liters for a distance of 100km (that´s how we measure it, not miles per gallon) was no problem for the 2 little cylinders! What was funny, when she bought it, it was a 5-speed, until a friend told us it actually was a 6-speed; took him a few minutes and it really was a 6-speed! Was fun chaseing bigger bikes with that lightweight Yamaha, at least up and down our hills. But you really had to keep it somewhere between 6000 and 9000 rpm, below it felt like a 50cc! Your 350 must have been even better when it was against bigger bikes! One of my friends had that 350, he had no problems in following a 900 cc BMW!
What was pretty embarrassing on my first ride: Waiting in front of a red traffic light I must have accidentally touched that kill switch, something I was not used to from my old BMW. Were some very frustrating minutes, trying to start the engine again without any success, while people were watching me! Good thing was a friend coming by who knew about Japanese technology, lol!
I guess this lousy print is the only picture I have of this bike, the one with the ED 43 license plate. The bike in the background was a friend´s RD 250, a much newer version. Must have been a really hot day, judging from the way I´m dressed, lol! The skinny person on the left with the longer hair is my younger brother.
René
