Author: Calep Howard

After sitting in the corner of my workshop in Lawrence for about a year, and sitting quietly in the corner of the previous owner's garage since 2018 (that was the date of the last Missouri saftey inspection), and spurred on by an invitation to attend the 2026 Top of the Rockies rally in Paonia Colorado, I decided it was time to breath life back into Strix. So far I, along with the best friends a guy could ever hope to have, have performed the following maintenance:

• Re-plumbed the fuel system
• Changed the motor oil to Castrol GTX Classic
• Rebuilt the forks with new springs, seals, bumpers, and oil
• Rebuilt the front brake caliper and replaced the stock rubber hose with a stainless steel hose (which also required fresh brake fluid and a thorough bleed)
• Had new Michelin Road Classic tires (inch size to keep the motorcycle, not the purists, happy!), tubes, and rim strips installed by my new friends at Donnell's Motorcycles (I have yet to set up my tire machine as my new workshop is still in the planning phase)
• Had the machine Missouri state safety inpected (it passed without issue)
• Made it legal to ride (license plate + insurance)

With all these tasks completed, and because it was the second Saturday of the month (my motorcycle "gang" has a long-standing tradition of gathering for lunch on the second Saturday of each month), yesterday (July 11, 2026) was the "shakedown" ride to see if all this effort made Strix rideable.

We decided to mix things up a bit and agreed upon Smoked Creations BBQ as our ride destination. Because I didn't know how Strix would perform, I set Google Maps to avoid tolls and highways, and set out for our destination. Louisburg, KS was the half-way point and the friend that instigated this process would be passing through on his way to the restaurant, so we agreed to meet at Cowboy Coffee Post. Strix performed nearly flawlessly. The only complaints during the first leg of the journey were that he was a bit cold-blooded on startup and at one point I had a bit of a run-away idle, but both are simply side-effects of a decade of sitting unused. Neither issue required me to turn around.

The second leg of the ride to went off completely without incident. A straight shot across Kansas Highway 68 on a 48 year old motorcycle with the throttle almost wide open was glorious! Strix was solid and the Luftmeister full fairing made the ride very pleasant. I haven't ridden behind a full fairing for decades but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and intend to keep the fairing installed. I even have the lowers that go with the fairing. To install the lowers I'll be forced to remove the crash bars but that change can wait until we get closer to the Fall and cooler riding.

Lunch was fantastic, the conversation was fun, educational, and 100% about friendship, the love of being in the wind, and helping friends solve the problems that can arise when one chooses to ride vintage motorcycles. The time around the table was as meanigful and important as the wind therapy we enjoyed gettig there.

The ride home was equally uneventful and completed in a single stage. I rode the back roads home, this time because I wanted to, not because I had any doubts about the machines capabilities. Two-lane blacktops, twisties here-and-there, and the occassional encounter with shade from the mature trees that line the backroads make for my favorite kind of riding. For me, the journey is just important as the destination and yesterday's journey filled my cup as much as the time with friends. Glorious is the best word to descibe my yesterday!

With all this in mind I have a few tasks to attend to before heading to Top of the Rockies:

• Spline Lube - this is the biggest, and most important maintenance task that needs to be performed. It involves removing the transmission, is an all-day event, a requirement for these vintage machines, but also one that is often overlooked.
• Gear Oil Change - in conjunction with the spline lube I'll replace the gear oil in the transmission, swingarm, and final drive.
• Odometer Fix - the speedometer works (it reads about 10 mph fast, but it works) but the odometer does not. This is a common problem with these machines, the fix is straight-foward, and can for the most part be completed at the workbench. A working trip odometer matters a great deal on a machine with no fuel gauge!
• Inspecting, lubing, adjusting, and possibly replacing throttle cables - the temporary run-away idle is possibly a symptom of sticking or fraying throttle cables. I'll give them a once-over and adjust and lube or replace as necessary.

This list catches up the key maintenance items and puts me one step closer to this machine being ready for coast-to-coast adventures!

The R80 has been on the bubble since I picked it up last year. When I bought it I thought it might be a candidate for a resto-mod and re-sale but I never put that in motion. I've decided the R80 is one of the three motorcycles I'm going to keep in the fleet. Its a /7 (say SLASH SEVEN) but a 1978 instead of a 1977. In spite of not being of my signature year it is a /7, it is fully-faired - I have the lowers but they need to be installed - and it shows around 40,000 miles on the odometer which still appears to work. As with so may BMWs of this vintage, it has fallen out of reliable running condition. There is nothing singularly wrong with the machine but is is behind on all categories of maintenance and would be well served by udpating a few systems.

When I bought it the machine ran well but by the time I unloaded if from the trailer it was only running on one cylinder. I thought about what might be going on, thought about starting with a carburetor rebuild, and then noticed that the fuel was pretty dirty. I dumped some fuel system cleaner in, let it sit for a bit, and then the machine started up and ran on both cylinders. The petcocks were clunky and the fuel line was brittle (and not the right kind for an Airhead!) so I figured I'd start by cleaning up fuel delivery. Parts ordered, parts arrived, and then I moved to the new house. Now that I'm sort of settled I throught a motorcycle work day would be just the thing to make The Atomic Ranch feel more like home. A couple of the guys joined me, we took a break for lunch at The Courthouse Exhange, and wrapped it all up around 5:00 pm. I still need a couple of things to declare victory (overflow tubing and some fresh, non-ethanol fuel!) but today was a day well spent.

This machine needs more TLC but then don't we all?