Found this on RideApart.com this mornin'. Skip to :50 seconds if you wish to avoid the 'plug' at the beginning. The K bike stuff starts just before 3 minutes. Enjoy.

K Bike & General BMW history

Yep that was enjoyable. The purists only cared about the R bike and didn't give a shit bout the K bikes, he he Funny but maybe that's what the world thinks.

I'm totally okay with the world looking down on my bikes.  The cheap market value lets me own three of these great machines on a limited budget. 

It's very satisfying to run cross country at 85-90 mph with bikes that have prices well north of $10K and have no problem leading the way.

I get a great deal of satisfaction out of turning up to work on a filthy dirty bike that's older than many of the people I work with!

Once I was asked in earnest by a rider, who strode up to me as I dismounted an old K bike, how it felt to have the coolest bike on the lot. I looked around and at him, his smiling face not displaying even a hint of sarcasm as he surveyed my machine. We were surrounded by shiny red Ducatis, Japanese litre bikes, modern Beemers dripping with tech, and a few chrome bedecked Harleys.

The white RS-SE was cool to see in action. The styling still seems current to me even though I know it is from 30+ years ago.  Shall we say timeless?  It was also cool to see the motor assembly in the factory.

We have a rather newish person at work and recently one of the girls was asking which year we were all born.  Trying to work out who was who with Chinese New Year.  I just said year of the Ox.  

Meanwhile the newish person whose name is Thomas (which we usually pronounce with a harsh German accent for some reason, instead of calling him Tom) said he was born in 1992.  

So the next day I was working with him and I took him downstairs to the basement where my K75S was parked.  I asked him to read the year of manufacture on the compliance plate.  

He came back with the reply "1991".  

So I said, "Get some time up, buddy".

TacKler wrote:We have a rather newish person at work and recently one of the girls was asking which year we were all born.  Trying to work out who was who with Chinese New Year.  I just said year of the Ox.  

At least a change from when people always asked your star sign. 
As always, I didn’t think quickly enough at the time to suggest I was a Taurus because I was full of bullshit. 

Bill

indian036 wrote:As always, I didn’t think quickly enough at the time to suggest I was a Taurus because I was full of bullshit. 

Bill

I'm glad I'd just put my mug of tea down...

The idea of turning up on an old bike, in my case at the time an 84 K100RT and then folk asking questions unable to take in fuel injection and then realising you are using an almost 35 year old bike as reliable everyday transport.....not to mention take it abroad.....

Incredible machinery indeed......

I love them and love the folk that ride them too!!!!

Someone should tell MotorWeek that it's a Special Edition, not a Special.
Fume fume

nvboy

I was heavily entrenched with Airheads when K Bikes hit the rally scene, which I've frequented in my riding life. At first I had a bad taste in my mouth. They whined, they smoked upon start-up, they were...so...complicated. I preferred the reliable, quiet tick of an Airheads analog clock in the early morning dew at sunrise, across a campground full of Beemers. 

Then I rode one.

It was an '85 RS with a trailer behind it. It was under the guise of riding a bike which pulled a trailer that I got to try a K out. I came away impressed with both pieces of the experience.

Now I couldn't care less what anyone thinks of my choice of ride. I've ridden right round Australia on a K100RS without so much as a flat tyre or a drop of oil burnt, travelled North America, US Pacific Northwest to Guatemala, the Canadian Maritimes to the tip of Baja, even ridden them in the snow in Germany and the Winter rain of the southern UK. 

I will always own a Mighty K, even if it's subtly modded to better suit me, the basic architecture is there, in all of its quirks and strengths, the engineers, however oddly, put some Teutonic magic into the beast.