My 2004 R1100S Diary

[Yogi Bear]

Great write up. Best colour scheme of all I reckon, but I'm biased as I had one!

Cheers

Ian

I’d have to agree as I have one!

[buzzz90]

Nice bike and great story.

I'm looking forward to read more about your Beeline experience. I thought about buying one last year but never crossed the fence...

[andy griff]

Well ,that was 15 minutes well spent - cheers

Best colour scheme for me - I had one and a mate bought one the same after following my orange wheel across a few miles. Mine has moved on but Id get another if i could find the right one

[FuzzyEdges]

You may be interested in these 'reprints' from Bike magazine?
It's from the time when they used to do more in depth reviews.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dmGYTzGsi2qkDprjr-2TmdgwjwQF65h3/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HFRHRyJjaoLKvkSUh_FefNfFvt2iGfcE/view?usp=sharing

They've got your colour scheme!

[R1100S]

Hi All,

Well that's another year (+) gone...!

Thanks for all the kind comments. Thanks to FuzzyEdges for the magazine article; very interesting reading.

I'm looking forward to read more about your Beeline experience. I thought about buying one last year but never crossed the fence...

The Beeline is great. I love it. It's so discreet and that was my main reason of purchase. Apologies; aesthetics over functionality here I'm afraid...



It has great range on its battery. The app is well designed. Point to point routes and "windy bike mode" is great. Makes me use the bike more (which I guess any satnav will do). It's not infallible though. You learn to understand the pictograms but sometimes its hard work. For example, deep city centres, using a "magic roundabout" system..... errr, forget it! Sometimes you have to pull over and re-map if there's a very close succession of instructions and you screw up.

I hear all sorts of iPhone vibration issues with putting a smartphone on your handlebars, so the Beeline is great as your phone stays in your pocket, dry too. Just don't expect too much from Beeline, use it to support your road sign reading and and you'll be very happy.

That's one of the things with "full on" sat navs. You drive A -> B and when you arrive, you haven't got a clue how, or what roads you used. With a Beeline, you stay alert to road signage, which can only be a good thing.

Adventure Bike Festival 2021

I like to polish my bikes and not get them muddy, but accompanied friends to the Adventure Bike Festival in 2021...



Nothing like getting woken up with a hangover, by a field of bikes, all wanting early starts on the offroad course!

Mates enjoyed it, I was only there for the beer and camaraderie. Did get a nice picture of the bike outside Ragley Hall though...





Llanidloes 2021

Long weekend with friends' and their GS's. Damn them with their padded seats and comfy riding positions...



Views over Clywedog Reservoir...







Hayling Island 2021

A trip to see a used car meant a "lap" around Hayling Island and a lovely hotel...





2022 Issues

SORN took a disliking to the battery the bike came with. No surprise as it was an unrecognised brand of dubious quality. April 2022 saw a new Exide AGM from Tayna Batteries...



I am sick to death of removing the fairings now.

Strangely, a month later, cranking started to get much much longer before she would eventually fire. Then, outside a pub in Bedford, she wouldn't crank at all, with the starter motor just doing a stressed groan. It sounded exactly like a flat battery, but the battery was new, all connections cleaned and tight, plus the headlight was still powerful. Try the button a minute later and eventually she'd start.

On the basis of having a new battery of known good strength, and being shocked at the price of a new starter motor, I took a punt on a second-hand starter from James Sherlock as I wasn't 100% convinced it was the cause...



Anyway, all fitted, and she's been good as gold ever since. Something was breaking down in the old starter...



I took it to pieces but I couldn't find anything wrong. Perhaps the windings were breaking down internally? I think it was drawing too much current, which in turn has two bad side effects :

1) Less battery voltage for the Engine ECU to function
2) A very slight drop in RPM cranking speed, therefore increasing cranking time

I must admit, there's a lot of hatred for this Valeo starter online...

It still has the second hand starter on it right now. Thankfully the corroded second-hand nature of the unit is shielded by a plastic cover which hides the shame.

Perfect opportunity to replace the jump start cap which decided to break...



Much better...



New rear tyre for 2022...



Binned the awful Michelin and went for a billy basic sport touring Bridgestone... fine for my needs.



Harry's Garage Route 2022

Using the "windy bike mode" on the Beeline I stumbled accross Clarkson's Farm by fluke, which was cool as i'm a fan of the show...



There I saw Jeremy's Hot Sausage which was nice...



I also did some of the roads around Harry's Farm. Anyone who watches "Harry's Garage" on the Youtubes will know what I mean.



Wales 2022

Sorry to bore those who live in wonderful Wales already, but for an East Anglian lad like myself, anything there is an adventure. Long weekend in the Brecon Beacons and Llandeilo, riding on "mini-ball bearings" called hail stones...



Great trip, bike performed faultlessly...





3+ Years Ownership Review

Been three years of ownership now. First and foremost, I never get tired of how it looks. It still wows me.

For example, on a late night ride home one night, I stopped at McDonalds St. Ives (Cambs) for a coffee. Even in the most mundane of situations, it still stops me in my tracks and I go "wow"...



For some reason, the McDonalds lighting made the yellow pop and I love that.

The old BMW boxes are great.

I like it's restrained yet purposeful exhaust note.

Downsides....

Well, the seat could be a bit more comfortable, but that's only for long stints with the GS rider's who can go for hours.

It does like a drink of fuel.... and oil too.

A few age related gremlins & repairs for what hasn't been that many road miles covered.

I'd also love a gear indicator... my K1 has one and that's much older! I'm forever going for a top gear that isn't there!

I think my biggest hate is driveline shunt. Lets say you have a long sweeping bend, even the smallest adjustment of throttle is an unsmooth "jolt". I guess that's the sum of very slight play in gearbox, prop UJs and final drive. No one component is screwed, but add them all up and cumulatively its noticeable. One of those things that you just have to live with and i'm still learning to be less clumsy on the throttle.

Oh yeah, did I say, I hate removing the fairing over and over!

Anyway, after all that, conclusion being, this bike isn't going anywhere!

SORN now for 2022, just a few more pics and i'll leave you all in peace...





Looking forward to 2023 already.

Best Regards,

Jay.

[Paul]

Great write up again Jay. If you enjoyed South Wales, why not join us for our North Wales weekend on May 12 & 13 of 2023 in Llangollen? We see very few R1100S's turn up at these events so you would be most warmly welcomed. Take a look in "Days out" for more info about that.

All the best from another recently migrated to East Anglia. Any suggestions for good motorcycling routes in these parts would be most welcome, for someone just north of Thetford.

Cheers,

Paul

[R1100S]

Thanks Paul, i'll keep that in mind.

All the best from another recently migrated to East Anglia. Any suggestions for good motorcycling routes in these parts would be most welcome, for someone just north of Thetford.

I've been Cambridgeshire now for 20 years, but was originally a Suffolk lad. All the roads I blasted down 20 years ago, like the excellent Sudbury -> Bures -> Colchester road are all completely restricted with 30mph nowadays.

Very rare you can actually find a route where you can really stretch your legs. However, I did a journey this year; Hadleigh -> Bildeston -> Buxhall -> Woolpit -> Ixworth which was quite fun. I'd recommend that.

If you're Hadleigh way, I recommend a beautiful village called Polstead. Spent many childhood years there and the church is very special.

All the best,

Jay.

[slparry]

Great write ups Jay, now get booked for next years Welsh Weekend

[andy griff]

Without doubt the best ever paint scheme. The Bumblebee was a good warm up but this was the 1100S pinnacle . Loved mine just as much ( also had to replace the starter motor )

[R1100S]

Hi All,

Another year gone...!

I'd love to report a year of trouble free riding but that hasn't been the case, so here we are again...



Just hitting all the niggles that 20 year old bikes have I guess.


Exhaust

I was riding back from a stag doo @ http://www.trials-school.co.uk

Trials riding totally blew my mind, but that's an aside.

Reached Kettering and the bike was sounding slightly louder than normal. Flagged the group down for a layby and sure enough I had a slight blow where the riser enters the rear silencer. Not to worry...

10 miles later - that's all it took - and the pipe totally snapped and detached!



I have a centre silencer delete, so this was noisy on biblical proportions. I limped it home through my quiet village rattling neighbours' windows!

Disassembly was awkward. All the fixings snapped (of course they did) and you can't drill things straight because the exhaust blocks line-of-sight...



Snapped studs...



Drilling out on the bench once removed...



Rear box assembly finally off...



Chopping off the bad section...



The exhaust enters the rear silencer in a D-section. It was just too thin and corroded to weld.

I was struggling to find (or create) D-section pipe.

The silencer is still available from BMW, but for £1300, so that isn't happening.

Equally, the market is cooling off for aftermarket options. Items I did find were custom made titanium and equally as expensive.

Breakers yards were wanting £200 which is all very well, but longevity is an unknown. They looked just as corroded as mine! Don't mind spending £200 but not for it to fail in exactly the same place next year!

I wouldn't mind the exhaust being a smidgen louder, but I still needed that OE look.

I decided to insert traditional pipe into the "U" link, thus bypassing 25% of the cans.





The cans are fiendishly complicated inside. They are not just in-and-out. The exhaust gasses take a real convoluted route and you can't see daylight when looking through them.

Another thing I wanted to do is remove the sliding male/female connection joint. It's not the most helpful of joins because if you want to remove the rear can, you have to slide the joint up - but you can't do that because it hits the under-seat! That's why you have to remove the O2 sensor piece in unison. Well, no more of that...



I welded a flange & clamp setup to make serviceability so much easier...





The Y-section was refitted with new nut & bolts...



All refitted and you'd never know...



Very happy with the volume - idle dB is perfect and it gets a bit rowdy at 3000rpm which is all smiles.


Rear Brakes

Whilst working on the exhaust, I noticed a damp rear brake lever...



Peeled back the rear master cylinder boot to be greeted with brake fluid...



Again, available from BMW but £200 which is a tad too much. Didn't trust used. I wanted a new part, with a name I could trust.

A lot of internet research using the Brembo parts catalogue revealed it's quite a universal item. It's shared with Ducati amongst others. New Brembo items are available for a selection of Ducati bikes.... and £52 from a Ducati main dealer...



Identical Brembo, apart from all the gunk...



Pressure bled out with clean fluid...



...which was not a minute overdue with the fluid that came out...



The bike also had a lip on the rear disc which was an MoT advisory...



An expensive piece of metal; also Brembo...




Front Brakes

Front brake issues too. If you did a long motorway stint, the first pull of the brake when exiting had large travel.

This was in conjunction with abnormal front pad wear...



Something not quite right there!

I have heard of horror stories of splitting the calipers in half, so I sent them off for a full ultrasonic clean and re-build with new seals....



Didn't tick the box for any fancy powder coat. She's no concours machine.

Refitting and I'm getting quite good at bleeding the front brakes now. I remove the screen and it makes things so much easier pouring fluid with the handlebars at full lock...



Front brakes absolutely transformed.


Front Tyre

July 2023 saw a new front tyre to match the Bridgestone rear...




Service & Alternator Belt

Together with new oil & filter, I fitted a new alternator belt. This is apparently a service item at my mileage as per the service schedule.



A Conti 4PK611 which is a special "stretch belt" apparently...




Missing Graphics?

Just searching other R1100's on the interwebs and I noticed some had speed blocks on the hump...



This I believe is standard, but mine doesn't have them...



Turns out my hump has been repainted and the graphics never replaced.

I fired up my graphics cutter...



... and cut a suitable quantity of squares from graphite grey vinyl...



Sorting the alignment...



...and spacing...



Hopefully OE now...



The hump is extremely vulnerable to boots when you swing your leg over. Probably why it was repainted.


Competition...

A close friend has bought his interpretation of the ultimate sports tourer also from the mid 2000's...



Admittedly the R1100 was nearing the end by the time the ST3 appeared, but they are an interesting pair from roughly the same era.



More on these two for hopefully another big European trip in 2024...


Happy New Year

2023 done...







Looking forward to 2024 already... with hopefully less repairs!

Happy New Year to you all.

Best Regards,

Jay.

[ianc53]

Thanks Jay, I enjoyed reading of your work and play on the bike during the year. Still miss mine.

All the best

Ian

[nab 301]

Interesting take on the exhaust repair, having owned my '99 version for 20 odd years now, I've been through all your repairs and 2 exhausts over a much longer period with 130k miles now recorded. Back in the day though standard exhausts were almost free! I rarely use my 11S now but it's still a cracking bike to this day given that it's 24 years old . The only downside for me is fuel consumption , even with upgraded injectors on the S a modern 500 gets me around with nearly as much fun but with double the mpg .