At the urging of my evil twin, Ms. Fleet Manager, I’ve implemented some not so hard and fast rules for, well, managing my “fleet”. I buy a new vehicle every decade or so, the old one becomes a spare, and after a couple decades and certainly by a quarter century the old one gets retired. Makes sense, no? yes?

The pictured ’84 BMW R65LS is impressing me with the folly of my logic(?). Over a hundred thousand miles on the bike, heads never been off, tranny has yet to be opened up. A bit of blowby to dirty the crankcase, but compression at 120 PSI still only halfway from new to “time to replace” spec. And did I mention that this faithful worker has dragged a hack for half it’s life?

Granted, this ‘ol “Airhead” has certainly earned retirement… But if I push her to the back of the garage, unless I disconnect the battery I fully expect she’ll be back out front, revving wildly, and serving me with a federal lawsuit for age discrimination written in oil on the driveway! That assumes I can bring myself to retire this most faithful servant, always happy to give her all on yet another ride… Like the 400 mile roundtrip to the “cities” last week. Flying along at 60 to even 70 MPH where permitted despite the wind and heat, her unfaired body providing me some a cooling breeze despite the heat advisory.

Yeah, I know the splines are half gone and an engine and tranny rebuild would cost more than she’s worth. But I can’t bring myself to firing this faithful “Airhead”!