If you want to read about the build of this bike with photos, check out this link:

Resurrecting Forty

This blog/journal will be updated as the R77 makes it's round through the rally circuit.  Hopefully these rallies will continue, sadly the crowd is getting older and younger riders aren't joining the BMW Riding Community.

2015

​Finger Lakes BMW Rally #41 (Sep):

UncaNorm sees the R77 back on the road at his rally. Asks me how I was getting home. Todd brought Karl Duffner's R90S with the 13 gallon Heinrich tank.  Ken (MOA) tasked me to capture the "Essence Of Rallying Catering to the younger crowd 5 years from now".  Holy crap, how do I do THAT?  Met lot's of nice folks, Poverty Riders, GS Girls, met two Party Riders (Don & Karl Anderson) I never met before. Great weekend overall, superb weather, entered her into the Vintage Bike Contest, missed winning by 1 vote, (Craig brought a really nice early R77 (#208)), in fact it pulled in as I went to register. Really nice bike.  Todd Trumbore brought Karl Duffner's R90Spezial to the rally with the huge Heinrich tank. So nice to see karl's bike on the rally circuit. Chatted with Todd a bit, what a nice guy! Odometer and tripmeter quit on the way home, Lew's coil crapped out, he had a spare, an hour later we were back on the road.  I ended up finding a good instrument cluster on eBay, used the circuit board out of my cluster, trip and odometer now working.  Mileage on "new" one indicates 67k, mine was at 62k, so not too bad.

RA National Rally, Harrison, AR (Oct):

Great trip with RJ after we completed the fairing (installed lowers and center piece). Nice ride west (first stop: Mr Ed's candy store) then on to the Motel 79 in WV.  Welcome From West Virginia Motel 79 Postcard - a truly funny moment. From there on to Cave City, KY for a night at the Wigwam Village.  Great spot for viewing the Supermoon Eclipse while indulging in a few adult beverages. I believe from there we hit Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, MO and then saw the famous Duck March at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis TN.  Onto the farm near Texarkana, TX where we spent some relaxing downtime and a nice day in Jefferson. The morning of us getting ready to head to the rally, RJ's bike wouldn't start. Bumped started him to the rally, while a new Starter was being shipped to the Motel near rally site. Uneventful ride to Harrison, AR. Had a couple of nice days there, hung out with a few Party & Poverty Riders. Ride home via quite a bit of old Route 66. Stayed at the Munger Moss Motel on night, great Seafood Dinner and some Moonshine tasting at a local Liquor Store.  Next day had a stop at the infamous Elbow Inn and finding John's Modern Cabins.  We were going to do the arch in St. Louis, but RT 66 kept us from doing the usual brisk pace.  Saw the Worlds largest Ketchup Bottle and Rocking Chair.  The bike uses about 1Qt for 600mi or so, and possibly the oil consumption is slowing down a bit. Overall it was a great trip!

2016

2nd Annual Workers Rally, Gettysburg, PA  (May):

Beautiful day, left in the morning, then about 2 hours into the ride, the bike suddenly died while stopping for slow traffic on 15N.  Horrible place to be in the left lane, dead in the water, no shoulder to work with.  Bike will not start at all.  Pushed it backwards a few hundred yards, then pushed it across 15 and up an on-ramp (against traffic).  Parked the bike in the shade, called RJ, he talked me through a couple of checks and then said that he would buy a battery and head my way. What a guy. However, as luck would have it, there was a CarQuest Auto place just over the guardrail and maybe a 100 yards away.  Went inside, the fine folks assisted with a jump start (to rule in/out battery failure).  Bike fired right up, and of course would not restart. Took battery out, had it tested (its dead) , purchased a new battery (close in size) - but still extremely valuable that we cut the stock battery tray in half to be able to accept a bigger battery!  (Thank YOU again RJ)! Installed it and I was on my way again, maybe an hour downtime total.  Got to the campground, set up camp, beautiful afternoon.  Hung out and watched the rally goers roll in.  As a group, rode to a nice place for dinner and had a good time hanging out at the campground afterwards.  And in the middle of the night, the rains came ... and it poured - seemingly for hours.  The rains finally let up just a bit late morning, we headed to the Battlefield and met the Park Rangers to receive our work assignment, which was to tear down split rail fencing on both sides of the road, maybe a distance of half a mile. We had this knocked out in no-time, Sam gave us a great insight about what occurred at the location of where on the battlefield we were.  Had a nice pizza lunch and then the rains came again.  I am still worried about my bike a bit, Voltmeter is a bit erratic.  Of course I am never really getting up to speed, just slow poking around town or on the battlefield trails.  Took an Uber into town for Dinner and drinks, that was a lot of fun.  Rained again at night, and also when breaking camp the next morning.  Rained the entire ride home.  Still not 100% sure that I may not be cooking this new battery, decided to buy and install a new voltage regulator.  Monitoring now - erratic voltage readings of 14+ are now gone.

50th Annual Four Winds Rally (Aug):