This raw and brutal BMW K100 was built, very aptly, by a master blacksmith and metalworker. Faced with a long German winter, Marc Robrock decided to enliven his evenings and weekends and build himself a bike. “After 25 years of riding bikes, I felt I was missing something,” he says. “And life is too short to have un-customized stuff.”
Robrock started to look for a ‘nice’ bike but soon switched direction. “Why take a nice bike and rebuild it? Why not take an ugly one? So I chose the ugliest bike I know: The BMW K100.”
Marc found a 1984 model and stripped it down, removing everything that was not necessary and cleaning what was left. But not too much—he was keen to retain the patina of three decades.
After weeks of grinding, cutting and welding, the K100 took shape. Everything was done with an eye to TÜV approval: no sharp or open-ended parts, small aluminum fenders were added, and the original exhaust pipe retained.
Marc added a new aluminum subframe to support a custom-made seat unit, and mounted the Bosch ignition and tiny gel battery underneath. The rims, forks and a multitude of smaller pieces were sandblasted and powdercoated black. Then the bars were replaced with an aftermarket item, again resized to fit.
Marc calls the machine the BMW K-fé, and it took him five weeks to complete. TÜV certification took longer—six weeks. But the BMW is road-legal.
Now that Marc has all the paperwork sorted, he has just one job left to do—replace the exhaust system.
Images courtesy of Thomas Riese. Marc is at Robrock.de [German language only].
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