By Carl Saccoccio
This is Part 1 of a three part history of my journey to 300,000 miles on BMW motorcycles. CS
It all started when I strapped a Briggs and Stratton motor to my Columbia bicycle at 14 years old, and hoping I didn’t crash cruising around the neighborhood. My first real motorcycle was a 1962 Honda CB160 that I bought when I was 19 years old. I bought it after I came home from active duty in the Air Force. Had it for a couple years but knew it was too small after riding my brother’s Triumphs and Harley Davidson. At the time I was renting a farmhouse in Johnston with friends, I was 22. A year later one of the neighborhood guys had a Triumph off-and-on-road 250CC motorcycle that I bought. I rode it everywhere and kept it for a couple of years. Fast forward February of ’74.
I found a one room cabin in the woods of Foster, RI, and made a purchase offer. I had to come up with an $8,000.00 down payment; so, I sold the motorcycle, my super van, and anything else of value I had. I did come up with the money and moved in on April 9th, 1974, and I was flat broke. The next two years I did a lot of carpentry, and worked as a waiter, saving some money and really needed to ride again. Lucky for me my brother’s friend lived in Foster. I was visiting him one day and he had a garage full of BMW motorcycles which I knew very little about. He offered me a ride on a 1974 R60/6. I was hooked.
The summer of 1976 I was building a big house in Scituate and one of my friends working with me said his brother had a BMW for sale and I should go look at it since I was in the market for one. So David and I went and visited his brother Joey, and in his garage was a 1970 75/5, all black, with a big tank with rubber pads on the side, with an Avon fairing that wrapped around you and the front end of the bike; I knew I had to have it. The price was $1400 which was a lot of money, but it didn’t matter, and I took the black beauty home. I named her “Abraxas” after a Santana song. I rode it everywhere in New England for the next two years. Took even it on my honeymoon to Martha’s Vineyard in June of 1977. Life was good. My son was born in August of ‘78 which led me to reevaluate my riding a motorcycle. So that winter I decided to sell it after putting on 10,600 miles in 2 ½ years.
So now comes spring of 1979. I knew I made a mistake selling my BMW and had to get another motorcycle to ride once again. Razze’s motorcycle shop was where I had been going for years, especially since I bought a BMW, and he was having a flea market on a Saturday, so I decided to go down and hang around. As luck would have it a Cranston firefighter friend of mine was there on his sister’s bike a 1974 R60/6 that she wanted to sell. It had low mileage and was in great shape, black with a big tank just like the old bike except no fairing. I bought it. I decided to set this bike up to look like a R90S; a bike I wanted but could not afford. I mounted an S fairing with the gauges, a back rack and a tank bag and she was ready to travel. I discovered other BMW clubs and started attending rallies all over New England, and upstate New York. I really enjoyed this motorcycle.
Fast forward two-and-a-half years. I went to a motorcycle auction in November at Burdick Motors in Tiverton. He was discontinuing his BMW line, so me and two friends decided to attend the auction. Well, a brand new 1980 R100T, in the crate, came up for auction. I bid $3000 and won the bid, so now I’m the proud owner of two BMW motorcycles. My two friends Frank and Arthur also bought BMW motorcycles. Come January, I knew I was going to sell the 1974 BMW, and it sold quickly. My brother wanted it, and he bought it. My second BMW, that I put 16,870 miles on, was now a memory.
The winter of 1982 was spent setting up my brand-new motorcycle. This was the first new vehicle, car, truck, or motorcycle, I ever bought in my life, and I could break it in the way I wanted and set it up the way I wanted. I went about setting it up as an S model with full luggage and come spring I was ready to ride. I had joined the BMW MOA motorcycle club the year before to stay informed of rallies throughout the USA and to start entering their mileage contest. My first national rally was in July 1983 at Lake Placid NY. In the spring of 1982, I made a trip together with four other friends to Fort Collins, CO, to visit a friend of mine. We were leaving on May 20th for two weeks and it would be my first long motorcycle trip to the Midwest. All five of us were on BMW’s and there was not one problem, and we put on 5,600 miles. In 1985 I picked up an RS fairing that I had painted metallic red to match my motorcycle. I also put on a gunfighter seat color matched. I named her Mariah which means “like the wind”. I kept that motorcycle until May 1994 traveling the country in every direction putting on 61,800 miles.
On my way home from Laconia in 1989 I stopped at my friend Nick’s house in Goshen NH on my beautiful RS. Nick told me his neighbor had a BMW in his barn that he inherited and that he wanted to sell, and I should go look at it. Inside the barn was a 1972 1/2 R60/5 blue with chrome on the tank, chrome side covers, and this model was called a “toaster”. A very pretty motorcycle, and I knew I had to have it. I bought it for $900 and still have that motorcycle today. After six years of riding it locally and to motorcycle shows I only put on 3,742 miles. This was my fourth BMW motorcycle.
My 5th BMW was my dream bike, something I have been searching for for years, and one landed in my lap in the fall of 1993. It was a 1977 R100RS, all original, and it had 44,000 miles on it. My good friend Doug who collects BMWs found it at Essex Motors in Vermont. When I called them it had been sold to Duncan’s Beamers in Massachusetts. I knew Duncan was a member of the Yankee Beemer’s which I had joined in 1986, and he was willing to sell me the bike for what he paid for it $2,300 dollars. Buying this RS means I had to sell my 1980 RS which I had owned and rode for 13 years. It was tough to do but I did not need two RS motorcycles.
After two years of traveling around the country and attending many rallies, I put another 12,914 miles on the RS in two years and my mileage was adding up after 19 years of riding BMW. It was time to add up my mileage and apply for the 100,000-mile award that is given out by the BMW MOA club. After owning and riding 5 BMW motorcycles in the last 19 years I had put on a total of 105,926 miles. My application was submitted through Razee Motorcycle for verification, and I was awarded the plague, patch and medallion in October of 1995. It was a great journey, and I knew there were many more miles ahead of me in the foreseeable future.
Part 2: The road to 200,000 miles will be out next month for your reading enjoyment.
