Half a century of glory, tinged with the thrill of uncertainty By Peter Egan

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Great article by one of the great moto writers!

I have to say that my original '71 Commando back in the day never left me stranded. I don't count the one (and only time -it was a learning experience) time I ran out of gas because I ASSUMED that when I switched to reserve on my roadster, I had at least 1/2 gallon of gas. Turned out that when I switched to reserve, there was about one cup of fuel... ;)
 
Fantastic read! Thanks for posting. I tend to agree with EVERYTHING they wrote about each bike (though I never owned an R90S, but did own a later model BMW R1100RT , does that kind of count?) Honestly, I now look at my Norton; more than I actually ride it. BUT I still do ride it ;-) I've owned eight now; and each time I sold one, I "felt" something missing inside me ... and HAD to go buy another one. Guess I'm a Norton ... "addict?" IMO there are worse things to be a junkie for. Cheers.
 
Half a century of glory, tinged with the thrill of uncertainty By Peter Egan
Nice tribute to the Commando; I read this when it came out, also the article that compared the Commando to the R90S (Hoyer and Egan). I have both and enjoy the differences and similarities. Both were great fun to build.
 
Apparently pea-shooter in German is 'Pusterohr', for which a literal translation back to English looks to me like 'puffer-ear' …? I do love the mysteries of language …
 
RoadScholar said:
Current pictures of the R90S would show /6 silencers; the peashooters were way too loud, but they were made to fit 38mm /5, /6 and /7 airheads.
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I have owned many "Airhead" BMW's including - R69S,R90S,R100RS and find the sound from them uninspiring.
The "music" from my Commando's pipes is near the top of the list of what has drawn me to this machine.
 
Dutch said:
I have owned many "Airhead" BMW's including - R69S,R90S,R100RS and find the sound from them uninspiring.
The "music" from my Commando's pipes is near the top of the list of what has drawn me to this machine.
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I've owned an R/7 which I sold to my friend. Uninspiring sound. I own 2 R1100 rt's and the sound is boring at best. I'm old now so am driving a 76 e-start which has a muffled boring sound. My bestest sounding bike was the 70 S model , followed by the Combat. Enjoy.
 
When I had the EPCO stainless peashooters on the BMW the sound was overwhelming above 3000 RPM when you snapped the 38mm Dell'Orto pumpers open under moderate load; I did bump the CR is smidge, maybe to an honest 9.6:1 and changed the cam to the factory upgrade, the 336 cam.

I did retuned the Dells at the same time I changed the silencers; much quieter, not as snappy, just as fast.
 
Torontonian
Funny thing is, Commandos can sometimes sound like a hot "lightly" muffled BMW twin in parts of the rev range, but the beautiful monotone rumble at midrange is totally unique.
My 75 e start has unbalanced pipes with big bore peashooters and people always comment how nice it sounds, fit these to yours, guarantee it will make you look and feel like a younger man, sacrilege for a Commando to sound boring!
 
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