This bespoke bike was built for Randy Garver, landscaper to the stars and an avid motorcycle enthusiast his entire life. Now in his 60s, Randy had reached a point in life where many of his friends had passed on. “Life is a highway,” the old metaphor goes, and Randy wanted the opportunity to ride the best motorcycle of his life now, before it’s too late.  

The bike started life as a tired but commendable R80 that lived locally in Southern California its entire life. It belonged to the owner’s recently deceased father, who rode it sparingly, given the documented very low mileage. It just needed, well, everything, to get road worthy.

We bought the bike at roughly the same time we were moving into our new facility in Glendale, California, an existing motorcycle service shop. With existing orders on the books, I was keen to snap it up and get our first build underway in the new premises. With that we set about our mission. The R80 was stripped to the bones and thoroughly inspected for wear and tear before modifications commenced.

The engine and gearbox were fully overhauled, with displacement bumped from 800cc to a whopping 1070cc, thanks to the big bore kit supplied by Siebenrock. Along with the displacement increase, we added a sport cam and TwinSpark Ignition system. In stock form, the original engine performed at peak power of 50hp; the rebuild dyno’d at 75hp, marking a very impressive 50 percent bump over the factory numbers. 

You might notice the long and low oil pan; that’s a special piece, made of magnesium. It has all the benefits of a deep sump pan without visually looking “deep.” Extra oil is required to keep an Aircooled engine cool and becomes a vital piece of the puzzle when increasing the displacement as significantly as we did. This explains why we used an upgraded oil cooler in addition to the larger capacity oil pan. 

The handlebars were handmade specifically for this project and feature welded levers and hidden switchgear. An internal throttle mechanism further decreases the visual clutter. The throttle now rides on a bearing, making the motion of actuation incredibly smooth and, dare we say, dreamy. 

Ohlins front and rear take care of the suspension. The Brembo GP4 calipers stop the front wheel, while our renewal of the original drum brake does a great job of stopping the rear. The factory y spoke wheels have been refinished in satin black and are clad in very sticky oversized Metzeler tec race tires. The factory headlight bucket has been upgraded with an Adaptive LED JW Speaker light unit, supplied by Motodemic.