Bob Henig: A lifetime of riding

I recently had the opportunity to interview Bob Henig, rider, enthusiast, and owner of Bob’s Motorcycles. He at one point used the phrase, “hooked for life,” and listening to his life story and how intertwined it has been with motorcycles, namely BMWs, I couldn’t help thinking how true that was and how much members of the BMW MOA would enjoy hearing his story.

How did you get involved with motorcycling?

I started my love affair with all things with wheels and a motor on a neighbor’s mini-bike and then my cousin’s home-built go-kart crafted by my uncle, who was an engineer. He may have been responsible for my future love of all things cool, fast, fun, and having two, three, or four wheels. The first motorcycle I rode was a friend’s Suzuki TS250 in high school. However, my parents said no motorcycles, dogs or cats while I was in their home.

Eventually a stray kitten I brought home about 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning after an all-nighter with friends broke the stalemate on pets, but the bike issue remained. I rode my friend’s bike all through high school, logging more miles than he and his older brother combined. Years later I had to unlearn much of what they taught me, but I will always be thankful for their generosity, and I never crashed their bike like they seemed to do frequently. I graduated, moved out, shared a house with three good friends and bought my first bike, a new 1972 Suzuki TS250. The selection process was easy because that was what I was used to, and it was affordable for a kid of 18.

I was a serial entrepreneur from an early age, doing countless things for money except working for other people in the traditional sense. When I started riding bikes, I ran a home improvement company, an interior/exterior residential/commercial painting company, a hand-lettered sign company (which is almost a lost skill and art these days), and a company that cleaned out and organized basements, attics, garages and the occasional shed. I was also a freelance photographer and private instructor, all while still working on my college degree.

I rode the 250 everywhere, and built my own hard luggage from a Coleman cooler and a reinforced Suzuki luggage rack. As an experienced hiker and backpacker, loading a bike for a long weekend was easy. I camped often and rode on weekends in the Shenandoah National Park, on Skyline Drive and the Blueridge Parkway, and all around the Maryland and Virginia countryside. I was an amateur photographer going to college to get a degree in visual communications, so I took my camera gear along, too. Eventually, I realized that I needed a bigger bike, having logged a little over 20,000 miles in four years, breaking that luggage rack twice, and always finding I was lacking for power, range and luggage capacity.

While I was looking for that next machine, a new Honda 750 Four Sport at the local dealer caught my attention, but one of my best friend’s brothers-in-law allowed me to examine and take a ride on his 1971 BMW R 75/5, which he was not riding much. Black. Big tank. No fairing or luggage and otherwise totally stock. I fell in love with what everyone else said was a quirky looking bike. I just had to find one I could afford, as I was still paying for college and making money any way I knew how with my other skills.

In late 1976 I found a slightly neglected 1972 R 75/5 with 11,000 miles on it sitting under a crab apple tree in nearby Bethesda, Maryland; I was in Kensington at the time. I negotiated for the barely running machine and hauled it home. I started doing the service and maintenance required to get it running well with help of a Clymer manual and then cleaned up the cosmetics as best they could be. A friend had a set of old Harley Sportster bags in his basement. We modified the mounts, and I had saddlebags; with those plus a duffel bag and my camping gear, I could ride farther, which was my goal.

How did you become involved with the BMW MOA?

I still own that R 75/5 along with another 107 BMWs dating from 1925 to 2018. The R 75 has 160,000 miles on it, looks nothing like that bike I bought long ago, but still gets ridden on occasion. I created my own café racer/sport touring bike in the early 1980s with some rare German and American parts and a few items I designed and built myself, and while it’s had some upgrades over the years, it has remained mostly unchanged cosmetically. Before those changes came to be and around the time I was starting Bob’s Used Parts, one of my photography customers invited me to the local BMW Rally in Haymarket, Virginia, in June 1978. I was not a member of any clubs, period, but he sold me on the fun.

I attended. I had fun. I took several dozen candid portraits and many other images in the process of meeting a lot of people, many of whom became friends or just acquaintances I would see at BMW rallies each year. I took my week-long vacation and attended the MOA National in Rutland, Vermont, which included my first long day of riding. Some 500 miles of secondary roads got me there a day sooner than expected, which led to a totally separate story involving some locals I met while dining on my first night. I attended the rally, had another great time, met some fun vendors and other attendees.

Looking at the thousands of BMWs in one location was literally overwhelming. But I was camped next to a couple who had traveled from Vancouver, British Columbia, on a 350cc Jawa with a Jawa sidecar. They were great people, and I learned all about that long, kind of slow adventure. I signed up to be a member (#13798) one afternoon, eventually upgrading that to be a Charter Lifetime Member when that opportunity was offered long ago, but many decades after joining. I also attended the Four Winds Rally near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the Finger Lakes Rally near Ovid, New York, and then my first season of BMW rallies was over.

I was hooked for life. The following year I attended six or seven rallies, including those first ones. I was still on my R 75/5, which briefly had a Wixom Ranger fairing and a used EZ Berg seat for comfort. Neither lasted longer than a season because I liked the more naked bike style and the feel of fresh air and wind against my well-protected body—although good riding gear 45 years ago was quite different than it is today. I had a waxed cotton Belstaff suit, solid work boots, an open face, full coverage Bell helmet. Who knows what gloves I had, but they were leather, black and more utilitarian than the riding style I think many used. I had a variety of rain gear that came from my camping and backpacking experiences, including Belstaff over-mitts. That stuff was not so good at 70 mph, so I got my first real motorcycle rainsuit—which I still own—from Rukka.

Have you ever had to stop riding?

On Friday, November 13, 1981, I crashed my 1976 R 90 S (with 1978 R 100 S Red Smoke bodywork) into the side of a car driven by an 89-year-old man who should not have ever been driving. I was on my way to pick up my girlfriend of perhaps a month. It was the middle of the afternoon, weather and visibility were good, I was within 15 miles of where I lived at the time and knew the roads. The driver ran the next intersection after I had just started accelerating after leaving a green light. His eyesight was not very good, he was nearly deaf and had never had to take a drivers’ license exam in his entire life—not uncommon for someone his age in 1981 because he was born in 1892 and started driving when cars were just coming into use. I ended up in the hospital for a week and spent another week convalescing at my then-girlfriend’s parent’s home, which is another fine story.

The many months spent recovering along with input from my surgeon and my primary care doctor convinced me it was time to try something a little less physical. I recalled those vendors, one in particular, at my first MOA National in Rutland, Vermont, and how nice they were and in the years after, how good all the people I kept meeting at these rallies were. I wanted them for customers.

How did your business develop?

I had been tinkering on BMWs, doing general service, some rebuilding plus selling new parts, custom parts, performance stuff and some used bits out of my good friend Larry Berstein’s garage under a casual business name we created called Competition & Touring. We set up at one MOA Rally together when it was held in Tennessee at Loretta Lynn’s ranch. In the years prior I constantly saw a need for someone to be a truly credible source for used parts and accessories for BMWs because it just was not happening back then. While Larry and I brought a few used parts with us, we bought, sold and consigned hundreds of interesting and mundane items during that weekend. I was hooked, but that was not where Larry wanted our tiny business to go.

Since Larry and I were already headed in different directions, we parted shortly after my crash. I officially started Bob’s Used Parts to specialize in finding and dismantling—with very good documentation—good used bikes, helping owners around the country (and to a lesser degree, the world) put their bikes back on the road or modify them in some mechanical or cosmetic way as I did with my own bikes.

I guaranteed everything I sold, could put my fingers on every item within a minute and never had a minimum dollar requirement, so people could buy just what they needed. I sold the nuts, bolts, washers and small parts you get when you totally take apart a bike alongside forks, brake parts, engines, gearboxes, final drives, carbs, seats all the other bodywork, and yes, even lots of good used rubber parts along with those used nuts, bolts and washers.

The concept took off quickly. Less than 10 years later and after much arm-wrestling I accepted BMW of North America’s offer to become an authorized BMW dealer. That is yet another good story with numerous twists for some other time. Bob’s BMW still sells a lot of good used, guaranteed parts and accessories today around this continent and the world.

When you have time, what kind of riding to you do?

As for my favorite kind of riding, it’s traveling in general. Most of it has been on solo adventures, despite my being the host organizer for some 18 or 19 European Tours with Edelweiss Bike Travel, Ayres Adventures, Moto-Discovery and a future Alps Adventure with Beach’s. My wife and business partner Suzanne has been my companion on about 14 of those two-week European tours and lots of riding in the states but none of my three cross country trips in the last 15 years.

I love to ride in the mist, fog and rain, as it reminds me of great backpacking adventures or just good all-day hikes in the forest and brings a centering to my mind.

I also have done lots of charitable rides, small and large, and personally led over 100 bikes without a police escort for about 15 years in a row, raising money for several worthy causes. I’ve done most of my fundraising riding with the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation and the Ride for Kids®, which is also now known as Cure the Kids®. I get out with staff and customers each year a few times, separate from leading demo rides on some of our local twisties.

What I ride varies greatly, but out of a collection that’s currently 106 BMWs, one original and unrestored 1913 Indian single, plus a 1954 MV Agusta (the only Mono Moto ever built), I have a daily stable of machines that see regular use, including a 1961 R 90/2 conversion with a Steib delivery-box sidecar I built from spare parts, a 1972 R 75/5 Toaster I won in the MOA Foundation raffle in Gilette, Wyoming, a 1995 R 100 R, a 1994 R 1100 RSL, a 2004 F 650 CS, a customized one-of-a-kind 1984 K 100 RS with an EML sidecar body attached to a hand-fabricated chassis, suspension, brakes, wheels and the list continues. After our now 33-year-old son grew up in it, I rode the K 100 cross country, the long way three times, with each one-way tour averaging about 7,500 miles and five weeks.

There is also a pair of R 1100 Ss from 2003 and 2004, both in rare colors. One is a one-of-three BMW paint job that is like an American flag, and the other a one-of-one painted by BMW to match Formula One driver Pablo Montoya’s car and signed on the gas tank; still one of my all-time favorite BMWs. Then there is a 1997 Duetto sidecar rig that is one of only 31 ever built by genius Walter Grutter in Switzerland. I also take out a very nice 2007 K 1200 S now and then and one of my two C1 scooters on special occasions as it’s got gas, a live battery and a very unique imprinted and repeating map of Munich added by a German firm in the hopes of being given the ability to put such things on bikes, cars and MINIs. The idea never came to fruition, so this is the only example.

My true daily go-to everywhere infrequently washed bike is a 2018 R 1200 GS set up just the way I like it. I’m hoping what is already a very busy 2024 schedule might allow me to ride it to Redmond for the National Rally.

Every single tour or solo adventure or ride with our son, in the sidecar or on one of my bikes for a few days has been memorable, along with traveling with my wife, or several staff for a week to attend dealer meetings or joining customers on one of their weekend rides. I honestly cannot think of a bad day of casual riding, a bad organized tour, a bad charitable ride or even a bad day spent leading potential new customers out on the same 20-mile demo loop seven times in the same day, let alone those amazing cross-country adventures and exploring other countries with customers and strangers who became good friends before the 14 days of fun came to an end. The next tour, the next adventure, the next ride is always going to be the best in my mind.

When and why did you decide to join the BMW MOA? Would you urge others to join? Why?

I joined in July of 1978 at the BMW MOA National Rally, my very first one. What a great decision that was. It started to change my entire life although I did not know that at the time. I’m confident had I not purchased that 1972 R 75/5 which I rode there, had I not met so many good people there, all riding BMWs, and had I not spent some money with a few very good people who were also vendors, we would not be engaged in this conversation today.

I urge everyone to join the MOA and have for decades. I share countless reasons but a few at the top of my list are being connected to the largest BMW Motorcycle Community on the planet, getting great information about events, rallies, rider education, gaining greater and wider view insights into the sport we love from some very smart people who just happen to also write columns for the Owners News magazine–in print or online, sharing your stories with others and especially being a part of keeping the BMW motorcycle world strong.

There was a time when I tried to track all those customers and people I’d meet while riding or traveling who I referred for membership or even signed up on the spot. For a while we had pads that had our name on them and later a number for the MOA to track such referrals, but it eventually became laborious so I stopped, but I still have a bunch of “TOP FUNDRAISER” nametags the club gave me over the years, so I’m very confident that I and my staff have referred several thousand people to join over the past several decades.

Why do you think it’s important to support the MOA Foundation? What are your feelings about the need for rider training?

The MOA Foundation is important because this separate but connected organization is there to help spread the good word about BMW motorcycles and riding on another level from the MOA—getting the word out about doing good things in and outside the riding community, getting whole families involved, bringing in younger members and training more new and current riders are just a few of the very important parts of the big picture mission.

I have long been an engaged and involved member of the rider community focused on improving and expanding the rider education arena. Long after I started riding, I took my first MSF Advanced Rider class because it was finally available. When I started riding, my friends taught me everything they knew, and they sure did not know enough. They never wore good, protective gear, but I did. I wanted to learn how to be a better rider. My first weekend on the Skyline Drive clearly told me that I still had much to learn, so I enrolled in other classes, too. I learned what to practice even when there was not an instructor on hand.

I became a sidecar pilot at a relatively early point in my riding life, around 1979 if memory still serves me well. An older friend had an empty seat and no others on this small group ride would get off their passenger seats to join Fred in his vintage BMW rig. I parked my R 75/5 and became his passenger for the day. I thought, if nothing else it’s going to be a new experience, like it or not. But long before that day was over, I was hooked and wanted to learn how to pilot a sidecar rig. Fred taught me how. He was very experienced and a pretty good instructor, and today I teach others how to pilot sidecars. Perhaps 25 years back I was part of a small group of experienced and avid sidecar owners and operators that helped pilot the MSF sidecar class.

So yes, training is very important and perhaps as the number of other vehicles on the roads keeps growing and there are more and more ways for other vehicle operators to be inattentive, training is critical so that everyone who is starting or has been riding for years has the opportunity to improve their skills and truly learn how to become a skilled, fully aware, always practicing rider who is able to take evasive action when needed. While the MOA is not the only organization out there doing such things, they are helping to establish a better baseline, with more opportunities for more people than most. We are off to a great start, and I am honored to be a BMW MOA Ambassador as well as a member of the MOA Foundation and invested supporter of the SafeMiles Program.

(Bob was recently named a MOA Foundation SafeMiles Champion.)