03-29-2026, 11:54 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-30-2026, 12:04 AM by Gone in 60.)
Well, bye bye Berta. I put nearly 2000 miles on her in just a few weeks. She's a '16 1200, and the boss wanted me to upgrade to a '21 1250 at some point. Berta had been developing a slipping clutch, and I was hoping that since we didn't really have a service history on her, that maybe she got the wrong oil at some point. Cop bikes live hard lives, but at 22k miles, I was surprised to experience some slipping on acceleration. A tech at the local BMW dealer said it was "par for the course" for some of the BMW cop bikes they work on. A change to proper moto oil didn't help, so she needed to be pulled from service to get a new clutch - not something I wanted to tackle in my garage.
On Friday, I coordinated to meet up with a coworker who just joined the team. Like me, he's loving the job so far. We both still feel like kids who ran away to join the circus. He's been riding a '21 which I was going to adopt. We met up at one of our common drop-off points where we had coinciding deliveries just a few minutes apart. We had a passerby take our picture together.
We caravanned to headquarters, he headed home on his bike, I swapped my gear over to the '21, including the bell that Mrs. G had given me a few days earlier, and made the long ride home - daunting on the Hollywood Freeway which is jammed 24/7, but on a late Friday afternoon is a test for anyone's lane splitting skills, especially on a bike you've never ridden.
Along the way I noticed a shimmy in the front wheel - not consistent, but some kind of weird pulsation I had never encountered on a bike. The tire was round and had plenty of tread, and I chalked it up to a bad balance or maybe a wheel bearing going out. Saturday morning, I gave the bike a good washing and got to know her a bit, and repositioned the shift lever, rear brake lever and clutch lever to suit my hands and feet a bit better.
The '21 has a full-width digital screen with a dizzying array of information, menus, and overly-German-level complications to reach simple things like resetting the trip meter. But reading the manual for a while, turns out that there are "favorite buttons" along the left side of the fairing that can be programmed to perform any task. Very handy for someone like me who has to reset the trip odometer on every ride and record the mileage from pickup to drop-off as part of our chain of custody. So, now I just push a big button on the fairing and reset the trip meter. Cool!
She's got some bumps and bruises like any used cop bike, but she is wearing the brand new British neon and Scotchlite reflective yellow livery decals our company is using. The cruise control button was missing, but I jimmied it to stay on with a zip tie strategically wedged into a specific spot. I pulled the front wheel and took it to the local Cycle Gear, who initially said they'd throw it on the balancer for free to get it corrected for me. But the tech came back and said that the wheel had balance beads inside - he spun it and I could hear the swishing noise inside. Hmm... I've never encountered balance beads, and if this was causing the weird vibrating and shimmy sensation, I wasn't impressed. The tech dumped out the beads, re-seated the tire, and balanced it with normal weights.
I reinstalled the front wheel and went for a test ride. She's smooth as silk now, so I marked her ready for action. That is, until I noticed a dribble of oil coming from the filler cap. Which, of course requires a BMW-specific tool to open. That tool is usually attached to a bracket under the seat, which, of course on this bike was missing. No problem, just typed "BMW Oil Cap Wrench" into Thingverse and whipped one up on the 3D printer. Turns out it's useful for more than just printing Storm Trooper shift knobs. Turns out the O-ring under the cap was not seated correctly from whomever last changed the oil.
So, now she's all cleaned up and should be ready for action. Just need to come up with a name for her.
On Friday, I coordinated to meet up with a coworker who just joined the team. Like me, he's loving the job so far. We both still feel like kids who ran away to join the circus. He's been riding a '21 which I was going to adopt. We met up at one of our common drop-off points where we had coinciding deliveries just a few minutes apart. We had a passerby take our picture together.
We caravanned to headquarters, he headed home on his bike, I swapped my gear over to the '21, including the bell that Mrs. G had given me a few days earlier, and made the long ride home - daunting on the Hollywood Freeway which is jammed 24/7, but on a late Friday afternoon is a test for anyone's lane splitting skills, especially on a bike you've never ridden.
Along the way I noticed a shimmy in the front wheel - not consistent, but some kind of weird pulsation I had never encountered on a bike. The tire was round and had plenty of tread, and I chalked it up to a bad balance or maybe a wheel bearing going out. Saturday morning, I gave the bike a good washing and got to know her a bit, and repositioned the shift lever, rear brake lever and clutch lever to suit my hands and feet a bit better.
The '21 has a full-width digital screen with a dizzying array of information, menus, and overly-German-level complications to reach simple things like resetting the trip meter. But reading the manual for a while, turns out that there are "favorite buttons" along the left side of the fairing that can be programmed to perform any task. Very handy for someone like me who has to reset the trip odometer on every ride and record the mileage from pickup to drop-off as part of our chain of custody. So, now I just push a big button on the fairing and reset the trip meter. Cool!
She's got some bumps and bruises like any used cop bike, but she is wearing the brand new British neon and Scotchlite reflective yellow livery decals our company is using. The cruise control button was missing, but I jimmied it to stay on with a zip tie strategically wedged into a specific spot. I pulled the front wheel and took it to the local Cycle Gear, who initially said they'd throw it on the balancer for free to get it corrected for me. But the tech came back and said that the wheel had balance beads inside - he spun it and I could hear the swishing noise inside. Hmm... I've never encountered balance beads, and if this was causing the weird vibrating and shimmy sensation, I wasn't impressed. The tech dumped out the beads, re-seated the tire, and balanced it with normal weights.
I reinstalled the front wheel and went for a test ride. She's smooth as silk now, so I marked her ready for action. That is, until I noticed a dribble of oil coming from the filler cap. Which, of course requires a BMW-specific tool to open. That tool is usually attached to a bracket under the seat, which, of course on this bike was missing. No problem, just typed "BMW Oil Cap Wrench" into Thingverse and whipped one up on the 3D printer. Turns out it's useful for more than just printing Storm Trooper shift knobs. Turns out the O-ring under the cap was not seated correctly from whomever last changed the oil.
So, now she's all cleaned up and should be ready for action. Just need to come up with a name for her.
You know what? I actually would like a pickle.
