When I say Modern Bikes, I mean to imply motorcycles with the essential package of features that pretty much all street bikes in the last 25 years or so have had. That means a 12 volt electrical system with an alternator and an electric start; a plain bearing motor with OHV or OHC design and a high pressure oiling system with an inline pleated paper filter; neutral steering frame that's suspended at both ends with damped and sprung components and disc front brakes. That's my personal metric to divide what's modern from what's vintage, and I think it's a better yardstick than just arbitrarily saying 35 years old (for example) is the demarcation.

In this group of pages, however, what I'm really covering are my personal bikes that I've bought when they were current models. That tells you that I'm from the modern era, and any dalliances with vintage bikes is just me being a dilettante. That's because I didn't get my motorcycle endorsement until I was 21, and didn't buy a bike until 1981, when I got my BMW R65, a thoroughly modern bike by my standards.

I recall noting at the time that though the R65's 50ish horsepower was less than all the Japanese 650s, it's light weight (about 410 lbs.) made it lighter, too. In fact, it compared well with the 500s in those two categories. And it was fun to ride. In fact, when BMW brought out the F650 Funduro a few years ago, I complained that that bike had essentially the same specs as the R65!

In 1985 I was in a low speed accident where a car T boned me. I had a chip in my ankle that required 4 weeks in a cast, but the frame was tweaked and the bike declared a total. So, I bought a shiny red R80 with the new monolever single sided swingarm, and had it accessorized with an S fairing and bars. I put over 90,000 miles on it in the succeeding 9 years, selling it only when Laurie made me an offer I couldn't refuse on her demonstrator R1100RS. I still have that bike, though now it has over 200,000 miles and, after shipping to Europe with Stefan Knopf's help, I keep it at my friend Sascha's place in Karlsruhe, Germany. In 2002 I bought an R1150RS, and now I have an R1200ST that's my current daily driver.

Today I have ridden over half a million miles on BMW motorcycles, and enjoy it more than when I started.