BMW K75RS

In July 2001 I saw this bike advertised in the BMW Club journal. It had panniers and a top box, was low mileage, in good condition and was not too far away from me at Norton near Malton. I had some spare cash as I had just been made redundant after 25 years but had walked straight into another job so another bike seemed like a good way to spend some of it.

I had done lots of miles on my R100RS and I loved the fairing which kept my hands warm and dry. The K75RS was a special built by Ongar Motorcycles using the top fairing from an R series bike with a custom made lower fairing panel.

The K75 engine is a 750cc flat three cylinder which likes to be revved but still manages to be good on fuel. The one that I had was based on a K75C which had low gearing, but as any of the later, pre paralever real bevels would fit, you could gear it up quite easily, at a price. I never bothered though so you could put it into top gear once you got going and just leave it there.

My first long run on it was up to the Antler rally where I made a spectacular entrance. It was the old site which was pretty rocky. While still sitting on the bike I put the side stand down and leant it over. Before I could stop it the bike fell over and spat me off, the stand had gone down a rabbit hole! It took half a dozen of us to pick it up and extract the stand from the hole.

Later that year, on my way down to the Tamar rally the weather was awful and I was disappointed with the way the bike was slipping and sliding all over. This was the first time I had ridden any distance in the rain since I'd bought it. The Tamar was to be the start of a holiday with Jim Waugh. On the way home we went to Pendine then to Fishguard for the Rosslare ferry. We did all the West Coast of Ireland the following week then up into the north and over to Larne for the ferry to Cairnryan. Then we went to the Tartan rally. I was lucky as the weather was fairly kind but the handling on wet roads had me worried. The tyres looked like new but as the bike had been stood for years they must have 'gone off'. New rubber cured that though and it was back to being a good handling bike, wet or dry.

I never had any problems with this bike during my ownership. I used it for lots of rallies and would have been quite happy to keep it for longer but my former Project Manager was looking for a bike and I made the mistake of visiting him and showing him my new bike. He offered me more than I had paid for it so it got moved on. I sold it in May 2002 after just over 10,000 free miles!

- Ted Trett

PS: A few years later a friend who was a taxi driver told me about a bike in storage at the taxi depot. He said it was a BMW but didn't know what model. It had to be moved so it was up for sale. It was another K75 Ongar RS but a lot more 'used' than mine had been. I bought it but just recommissioned it and sold it on to Fat Barry. He ran it for a few years then sold it another Dean Valley member who as far as I know still has it. Its strange to have owned two examples of a quite rare bike.