SELLER SAYS: This 11/1984 compliance BMW R65 classic bike is just a two owner, for the most part restored gem with only 77,645km on the clock. Restoration includes fork and brake master cylinder rebuilds together with brake and fuel line, battery and spark plug replacements. Oils all changed. Test run with engine tuned, starting and running sweetly. Rare for an R65, the bike boasts a BMW GS model style Paris-Dakar long range fuel tank fitted from the showroom. Also featuring a Krauser pannier set together with top box addition and the added comfort of a lamb’s wool seat cover delivering this bike as all set for overnight touring. Features original Staintune exhaust system. Will be sold with a BMW original windscreen and cylinder-head-saving crash bar, both currently unfitted now. The bike was last registered in Victoria, Australia. It is not currently registered. Contact Murray on 0417 xxx xxx SOLD (Melbourne, Vic.)

EDITOR TERLICK SAYS: If ever there was a bike to prove that long-distance competence did not need a big engine or big road footprint, it was BMW’s highly regarded R65. Blessed with the same frame but shorter swingarm and different front-end geometry — and thereby a shorter wheelbase — than its big brothers, the R65 delivered a marvellous mid-size solution for folks who either didn’t want or didn’t need a large motorcycle. And yet it was still perfectly capable of carrying a pillion and plenty of luggage, and in the case of Murray’s bike, plenty of fuel as well. The smaller dimensions of the R65 won favour among less-large riders (aren’t we polite?) but also to those who preferred something a bit more nimble and fun in the corners and on B-grade roads. This bike of Murrays presents very well indeed, and those 77-odd thousand kays are remarkably low for a near 40-year-old open road bike — and barely run-in for a boxer-engined Beemer. There’s some more reading here.

See video here.