The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
General Category => General Announcements => Topic started by: Ptech on September 11, 2011, 07:57:18 PM
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We'll try this again.
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Lookin' good. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
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Nice (and clean)!
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All ready to enjoy the fall season in beautiful Colorado.
Sharp looking LS [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
Monte
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Thats one nice steed mate [smiley=bmw_smiley.gif]
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My, my that is one nice looking LS!! I can just picture sitting in your lawn chair with a brew just admiring it after a dusting off from a long ride!!
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Beautiful rig! But can anyone tell me why it seems (from postings on this site) that R65s sold in the US have speedometer reading to 85 mph? Over here our dials go to 120 mph and BMW claim top speed just over 100 -- maybe that was a bit optimistic even in its day but it's still way over 85! What's going on?
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All vehicles sold around that time in the U.S. had speedos that read to 85. My '81 Toyota pickup only reads to 85, and my former '81 Accord only went that high. I was busy getting rejected in high school at the time so don't know why the regulation came to be. It certainly didn't slow the vehicles down.
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The national speed limit at the time was 55 MPH, and congress thought that limiting the speedometers on all vehicles to 85 MPH would help keep people driving slower. Perhaps they thought the psychological effect of seeing 55 MPH so low down on the "traditional" 120 MPH speedometer scale would cause to much aggravation. In any case, it just made it that much easier to "peg" the speedometer, though once it was pegged you had no idea how fast you were going... 90? 110? Who knew?
On the "plus" side for those particular BMW speedometers - they just happened to be the most accurate of all the speedometers BMW put on bikes, for whatever reason.
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Thanks for the kind words. I wish I could take more credit for its condition but it's primarily due to the care its previous (and original) owner gave it while before and during its hibernation.
The irony of the 85 mph speedo is not lost on me. In the day I owned a 1982 Kawasaki GS1100 (145mph+) and a 1982 Porsche 911SC (140+). I never exceeded 85mph with either one of them (or did I?)
Pat