MOTORCYCLETRADER 69
it reallyshowedmewashowmuchBMW
knew about ergonomics back in the 1970s
and onwards. I know you’ve set your bike up
specifically for your weird body shape (fat
neck, short legs and arms, rotund centre of
gravity) but it was still comfortable for me (long
arms and legs, increasingly rotund centre of
gravity, fat head). You’ve got the ’bars set back
for an upright riding position but the whole
bike made me feel like I could ride it to Darwin
immediately and only have to stop for fuel.
I also really liked its handling. It’s a bit ‘old
school’, but you can throw it into a corner
and know that it would be predictable in its
response. Good suspension, too, although the
front end felt a little taut.
ROOT H Y: Yeah, well you’re right about your fat
head, mate. And that front suspension. Steve out
at Suspension Improvements worked those forks
and I reckon as an old race mechanic he went for
stiff over BM fat-cat luxurious. I’m going to pluck
the fairing and back off the valving, maybe try
a lighter grade oil. I’ll talk to him first though,
that bloody fairing is fantastic but it’s a pain to
get on and off. I rushed it a bit last time anyway
because the only things I need to sort on the
bike are the clock and the ammeter wiring. The
things almost bloody perfect.
S PA N N E R : Have you seen the letter in the
Spannerman column this month from the bloke
who wants you to go into production with your
variousexhaust
systems? Is there
any science in
them or is it just allaboutthe
sound?
ROOT H Y: Geesus, this’ll open a flood gate of
protest. Okay, with four-stroke singles and
maybe slower-revving twins, I reckon it’s
just about getting the gases out with the least
restriction possible. Multi-cylinder engines
can benefit from matching pipe lengths to take
advantage of exhaust scavenging, when one
cylinder’s exhaust helps suck the next one’s out
sort of thing, but here in simple world a lot of
blokes over-complicate something that’s not very
complicated. Mind you, it took three cracks at
the Himalayan pipe before we got it right.
I spend a lot of time hanging out with a mate,
Steve Cook from Cookies Custom Pipes in
Wynnum. Cookie sourced some heavy-walled
pipe and hot dog-style mufflers, we copied the
old Matchless Scrambler exhaust lengths for
the Enfield and now it sounds great and goes
hard too. Ever noticed how old-school mufflers
are all heavy-walled pipe? Made the same sort
of mufflers for the LT and, hey presto, best-
sounding air-cooled BMW ever. We left the
balance pipe in but we’re building one now for
Tom’s R65 without it. I know nothing about the
rules so maybe production might be limited to
ringing Cookie up to ask for some Roothy ‘off-
road use only’ mufflers. The exhaust on the bikeMAINThere’s been a
bit of a changing
of the guard in the
BMW styling studio
between these two.If you can pass a white rag up a bore or
across a shaft without it showing any
change, it’s clean enough to go together