Dad's R100RT rebuild (5)
Created on: April 12, 2026
An R100 With A History.
After a guided bicycle trip, my Dad concluded that motorcycling might fit his retirement recreation better. He had ridden a 1949 Harley 125 between his school bus driving job and pre-med at Willamette University, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. After looking at a few ‘rough’ BMWs, I had mentioned, ‘let’s keep looking Dad, you want to ride, not suddenly become a motorcycle mechanic.’ Then we found an ’83 R100RT that had been stored a few years. When we checked it out I was leery of the low odometer reading, so, dutifully, I was down on my knees peering to see what the brake pads might reveal. I laughed when I looked up and my Dad already had his checkbook out. It was a good decision. The bike, the ‘60th Anniversary Edition’, was sweet.
He was a cautious student, practicing in a closed business parking lot on a brother’s Honda 350 before stepping up to the R100. From there he did team Oregon trainings, and soon we were circling Oregon, Washington & northern California, he on the R100 and me on my ’85 K100RT. At one lakeside camp spot he mused, ‘which one of us is going to meet a girl and these rides will get cut short?’ Well, it was always him. But he kept riding. He did 2 or 3 Edelweiss tours, really enjoying the Canadian Rockies where he had hiked & climbed in his teens.
In 2006 or 2007, my Denver brother got a call. Dad had slid the bike on a Wyoming overpass, still icy on his early morning departure. He was mostly ok, & stated, ‘the best thing about sliding on ice is….well, it’s ice!’ The bike? Not so much. It had flopped & slid on both sides & it was pretty banged up with both valve covers punctured, plastic bits & mounts broken and maybe the forks? Brother Ben fetched Dad & the bike back to Denver where a dealer rang up two estimates; one, doing a full dealer re-build & two, doing minimums to get it back on the road. Neither option stirred brother Ben’s desires, so eventually Dad trucked it back to Portland and my bother Doug’s house. Doug is a pretty accomplished guy and welding & filing on the head covers he brought them to a favorable level of repair. He also said he had bought $16 in parts from Parkrose Hardware, built a jig, & straightened the fork tubes. (Really!?) But he did get it running & riding, and then lost interest. And there it sat. For another 12 years. I began letting him know I’d take it off his hands…
This is where the photo essay takes over….