Stock windscreens only, please

I have never understood why someone would wreck the looks of a beautiful motorcycle with an oversize windscreen.

Is the questionable increase in wind protection worth making an otherwise handsome bike look stupid?

Obviously, I don’t think so.

I’ve bought two used BMWs that were similarly mutilated by their previous owners, both of which sat on dealer showroom floors a long time because shoppers thought they looked goofy.

I bought my 1981 R100RS (top photos) from Cycle Werks of Indianapolis in the autumn of 1985. I left the aftermarket windscreen on it through the winter of ‘85-‘86 and replaced it the next spring with a stock windscreen that made it look like it was supposed to look. I never regretted it.

Likewise, when I bought an otherwise gorgeous custom painted 1994 K75S from Revard BMW Motorcycles for Maria in the November of 2000, it had been defaced by a too-tall smoke windscreen. The return to a stock windscreen put things right.

BMW uses wind tunnel technology to design their bikes and the stock windscreens work just fine. I happen to like a windscreen that puts my head up into the stream of air. It makes for a cooler ride in the summer and a quieter ride than if my head were stuck where the pocket of still air collapses into a roaring buffeting maelstrom.

The only good thing I can say about used bikes with oversize windscreens is that it makes most people pass them by so I can buy them at a better price.