This started out as a rendering Roland did based on the 1937 r5 out of a new BMW R9T. We wanted to draw from the classic, beautiful lines of the early BMW machines. They really had a very clean, chopped look that I think is tough to duplicate with a new machine. Luckily the 9T is a pretty simple machine to cut up and this was the first one we dissected since the concept 90. The function of the bike, outside the 19” Hutch front wheel is pretty much as it was in stock trim. But we used GP suspension to rebuild an amazing fork and fully black it out. We also used an Ohlins shock in the back. The suspension on this bike is a few notches above the stock bike even with the slightly larger front wheel. I like the fact the silhouette echo’s the R5 but has sticky tires and aggressive suspension and brakes. It’s what customizing today is really about for us.

The sheet metal was all ditched and we rebuilt the back of the frame to accept stock shock mounting positions, but changed the seating position and drastically narrowed the sub frame for a simple solo seat covered by bitchin Rich.

We wanted to do crazy frame work around the fenders and had been talking to Sosa Metal Works as he specialized in that type of work. Cristian is really an amazing fabricator and solid human being and we were very busy so it was a great time to do something different. So after almost ten years of doing only in house fabrication we brought in Cristian and spent a few days building a frame work that reshaped the machine into the R5 shape. This proved to be a challenging task for me personally because I’m used to having my hands on things and that wasn’t the case with this bike when it was gone. So we got the bike back sometime later and the work was really beautiful. The fenders and trim were exactly as I’d hoped they’d be. The tank got a bit large, so we carved it up to get it back to the classic R5 idea but utilized Cristians shape completely. We also added the port holes as it’s something we’d been wanting to do.

When we build one off exhaust and intake for custom bikes it can take some tweaking to get them to run right. Not quite sure why, but this is the fastest R9T I’ve ridden to date and straight out of the shop with no tuning. We built a clean dual exhaust with our new Track pipe in stainless and added our velocity stacks and that was it for the motor. All the RSD radial parts made it on the bike and clean up the motor package and give the bike that custom feel.

It was really interesting, we’d been building this bike for quite a while and the performance was really a thing for me, to keep it all intact and to improve it. I knew Ola was working on a throwback concept bike for BMW as we helped him with a few pieces. It's wild how these builds which came from the same place and with similar inspiration, ended up having completely different outcomes. I think I always want to build something that echo’s history but when it’s a modern machine, the racer kid in me still takes over and wants to get his knee down on everything.