Pacific Coast Photo Gallery: The Wrong Way Home

Last summer a chance email from an old friend in Southern California with “barn find” in the subject line sparked a series of events that culminated in a full blown motorcycle adventure.

This fly-and-ride started with a manic marathon garage session to get the bikes road ready; and then spun into a pipe-dream bucketb list trip up the Pacific Coast on two iconic vintage motorcycles.

Attached to that original email were photos showing a dusty pair of orphaned air-cooled BMW “S” bikes, languishing in a warehouse in the arid desert foothills of the Ortega mountains in Southern California.

These were two of BMW’s most iconic production models from the halcyon 1970s: a 1974 R90S, and a 1977 R100S—both first year models; both bought new and lovingly maintained by the same original owner, who kept them registered and roadworthy until his dying day in early 2021.

The idea evolved into double-header fly-and-ride, except rather than pointing the bikes back east, for a long slog home across country, we decided to look them north, and test these two 50-year-old sport touring thoroughbreds on our own modest moonshot mission, up the entire length of the west coast from San Diego to Seattle.

Thanks to the BMWMOA anonymous book, this fly-and-ride mission found a patron saint when a retired yacht captain living in Oceanside, California, answered a phone call from an unknown number, entertained a wild proposition, and then generously agreed to offer up his hilltop home garage for storage and workspace. (Will, you rule!)

After a few near all-nighters of recommissioning work—flushing brake fluid, motor and drive oils, replacing critical seals, fuel lines, batteries and tires, the bikes were just about ready for the road.



But not before a second trip to California to do some fine tuning, with some help from the Airheads Beemer Club, and which rallied an ad-hoc Tech Day with its Southern California chapter, and a few intrepid members showed up to Will's garage for an afternoon of helping wrench on and pore over the bikes.

Special thanks to member Bob Hardacker, who insisted we go through the wheel bearings, which led to discovering a nearly spun race in the 220,000-mile R90S, which required replacement before we safely set off.

Finally on the last weekend in September we departed from damn near the Mexican border with a target of Cape Flattery on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, the furthest navigable northwest point in the USA.

Spoiler alert: we made it.

*We being myself, Chris Lesser, proprietor and chief adventure officer at Union Garage; and my mercenary copilot Dave Dunn, who to his everlasting credit came on this trip with just a few weeks notice, and practically zero BMW Airhead experience. 

If you were around the shop in 2019 you'll remember we helped sponsor Dave's amateur run at the Baja 500. 

Want to see the full video of the trip? So do we! It’s still in final editing. We accidentally shot too much footage, on two Insta 360 cameras, multiplied by 8 days, not even counting Dave's drone or DSLR, and our very patient editor friend is just about finished making sense of it all.

Until then, the best catalog of the trip existing in the saved story on Instagram, where we were live posting from the road.

AND - as of this week there’s also now an audio interview about the trip, thanks to the excellent Airheads 247 Podcast.

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Until then, here are a smattering of favorite photos from the trip.