This month marks the 20th birthday of our beautiful, one-of-a-kind 1994 BMW K75S.
According to information stamped onto the frame, this bike was born sometime in February, 1994.
The original owner had other ideas, thought. He took it to Holt BMW in Athens, Ohio and had their paint shop wizards transform it with an Acid Green paint scheme. He was apparently too delicate for a stock windscreen, so he put a funny looking tall windscreen on it.
Sometime in 2000, he decided to sell it on consignment at Revard BMW in Indianapolis, which is where I discovered it. I saw it as a logical step up for Maria, who had several hundred miles in her mirrors on an aging 500cc Honda Shadow.
The K75S had only 2,417 miles on the odometer as it sat on the Revard showroom floor. I don’t recall exactly how much I paid, but I think it was around $7,000 when I bought it in late October, 2000.
I put a stock windscreen back on it and had the bike lowered for Maria with a new shock, fork adjustment, low profile tires and scooping some foam out of the Sargent seat.
Unfortunately, Maria never really bonded with the bike, although she did ride it from our home in Thorntown to an Indianapolis BMW Club meeting at Lieber State Recreation Area near Cloverdale, a round trip of more than 100 miles.
A car crash caused by a woman with macular degeneration, coupled with a hectic work schedule blunted her enthusiasm for riding to the point where she hasn’t ridden the bike in about seven years.
So it fell to me to keep the battery up and maintain the bike, which I have done with considerable pleasure. The K75S is a sweet little motorcycle that handles like a dream and is more fun to ride than my 2003 K1200GT.
The bike now has about 15,150 miles on the odometer, which works out to an average of 757 miles per year, making it a supremely low-mileage machine with many many many miles left in her.
BMW produced the K75 model from 1985 to 1995, so ours was built near the end of the series production.
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