The Netherlands has become one of the great hotbeds of custom motorcycle culture, with a staggering array of talented, hard-working builders like Daan and the crew at Moto Adonis. Although the workshop has turned their focus to a wide variety of platforms, they seem to have a particular affinity for the air-cooled BMW boxers.
Now the crew is back with this 1989 BMW R80. This was a customer build intended to be as lightweight as possible. Though the original plan was for a cafe racer, the build ended up evolving in its own direction — as happens with some of the best builds. The result is a classy Bavarian custom that straddles the cafe and tracker aesthetic.
Below, we get the fully story on the build.
BMW R80 Custom: Builder Interview
(Answers by Moto Adonis. Highlights by us.)
• Please tell us a bit about yourself, your history with motorcycles, and your workshop.
My name is Daan and I’m the owner of Moto Adonis. Together with my team we build custom bikes at desire of our customers. We design and rebuild all kind of bikes and styles. We build around 30-40 bikes a year and we hope to do that for a very long time!
• What’s the make, model, and year of the bike?
BMW R80 from 1989.
• Why was this bike built?
It was a customer project which started with some small adjustments but at the end we did a lot!
• What was the design concept and what influenced the build?
The concept was to build a real lightweight bike and we put that true in all sorts of stuff. Like the rims are much lighter than the cast alloy rims, the airbox is been replaced with a carbon fiber one and we put on a GSXR front fork which was lighter and makes the bike handle much much better.
• What custom work was done to the bike?
- Put on a 7.7″ Projector & Halo headlight (brand Premium)
- New headlight brackets
- New YSS shock
- New front blinkers (motogadget)
- Motone controls
- New gaslever and brake and clutch lever
- Repainted the gastank (as you can see :P)
- Made a new seat with integrated rearlight, and blinkers
- Put on a carbonfiber airbox cover which is a hiding place for the motogadget keyless ignition
- Moto gadget blinker controlunit
- Pipewrap with short chopperstyle mufflers
- Replaced the rims for a R100R rearwheel with a small offset
- Rront rim is a R1200C rim with brembo disks
- The usd frontfork is a GSXR 750 with Nissin brakes.
- Monza gascover
- And of course an ACEWELL speedo and tachometer
• How would you classify this bike?
We went for a cafe racer look but in the end it became a true street tracker if you asked me.
• Was there anything done during this build that you are particularly proud of?
I like the way the lights are integrated into the rearseat tubes. So the tubes are functional in 2 ways.
Follow the Builder
- Web: www.motoadonis.com
- Instagram: @moto_adonis
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MotoAdonis/
- Photos by Mark Meisner: www.markmeisner.com
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Four things stand out on this bike to me. The pipes are crazy low for a “Cafe” purposed bike, looks like the pipewrap is burning and starting to come off, which never looks good, the chopped off backhalf always is an unfinished look and lastly, the Acewell gauge, if it’s still working should be on the soon to be replaced list. I’ve used lots of those and poop out and start getting weird pretty quick. If it were mine, I’d pop on the BMW emblems to the tank. Give it a bit of distinction so it’s not just another of thousands of murdered out, all black bikes.