Bill Costello's BMW

Just over a year ago I posted a fantastic video on a bike restoration, made by New Yorker Bill Costello. Bill contacted me last week via this blog an was so kind to send me some more photo's and info on the bike.

The bike is a 1958 R50, 500cc and 26 HP. Bill's farther bought the bike when it was only 2 years old. Bill's father was involved in a pretty bad accident in 1969 and was never allowed to ride the bike again, so it just sat in the garage. When Bill's farther passed away, Bill decided to completely restore the bike. These words don't do the restoration justice, again, just watch the video.

I hope Bill can pass this bike on to his children and they to their children. This bike is worth way more than just money. I'll stop writing about it, just enjoy these photo's:

And the helmet his wife gave him for Christmas:

You can contact Bill via his Youtube channel.

Because pretty much any old machine is cool

A WW2 Il-2 Ground attack aircraft that was pulled from a swamp was restored to flying condition in Russia. Just love old machines like this and it's a good to see pieces of history like this working again, even if the purpose of the machine is inhuman. Maybe even more so in that case, because people shouldn't forget the horror of war.

More photo's hereVia airliners.net.

Adventure riding in the past

Check out this very cool story. Via PSB.

again via ADV-rider

Classic races Rockanje (via motor-forum.nl)

Peel on a plunjer

Found this BMW on advrider. I hope I'm not repeating myself too much, but: WOW.

First daylight for the Virago

We did our first daylight test with the Virago, it was necessary to check the ground play when oing over (speed) bumps. The bike didn't run too good, in the end it turned out that the bolts that hold the inlet manifold in place had come lose, but by that time the battery was already gone (the battery is very weak). But at least we have some daylight images.

The Virago: Wrapping it up

The final stages of a build always take way too long, but we are getting there. Did a ton of invisible stuff and we wrapped the exhaust. Many people say (sometimes jealously) that wrapping exhaust is just for hiding ugly welds. Well, in this case, they are right. We made the exhaust with a very, very old stick welder without even an on/off switch, it didn't help that all the pieces used for the exhaust were slightly different in material, thickness and size. So we knew we had to wrap them, but we had postponed it to the last stage of the build as not to damage the wrapping while working on the bike. We are not too happy with the result, the exhaust are difficult to wrap and they look a bit too big now, but we expect it to start looking better as the wrapping will slowly turn brownish over time.

The bike runs great now, sounds great too (bit loud, but f*ck that). Idling sound is spot on. We really have to find some time during the daylight to do some further testing, filming and a photo shoot.

Peace of mind

tunnel of love

Good old times

Found a guy who digitalized a few of his seventies smal film films. They are video's of motorcycle holidays to Spain, France and Switzerland. One video is of the TT races in Assen and not just the races, but also the whole happening around the circuit and town. Absolutely fantastic footage, enjoy!!

The music (singing) is mostly done by his daughter!

Virago update

These are busy times..... We found some time to work on the Virago though. Not too much to show for it, most has been 'invisible' work. One of the more noticeable things is the brake pedal. We didn't like the golfclub-pedal, so we made a new one.

We also tried to start it, but as you can see: we still have some problems to solve....

Jacqui van Ham

Jacqui van Ham from America rides the world on her vintage BMW. You can see the photo's en read the stories of her journeys on het website

Girls on bikes

The dumb way round

They call it dumb, I call it heroic! These guys are going arond the world on 70 year old motorbikes.

See their adventures here: http://kccd.no/home_en.html

1939 BMW TT Wins.

70 years ago BMW won with this bike. The pictures are just too cool not to post.