The stock Boge has 3-position adjustable preload and non-adjustable rebound damping, typical of the era. Fortunately, there are excellent options on the market, three of which we tested: the Hyperpro 360, the Ikon 3610 and the YSS MZ366. At just over $500 from BMW, the stock shock is hardly cheap, and adding insult to injury, they don’t work any better than they did 30 years ago. And while we’re big on OEM parts, this is one case where we wouldn’t even consider OEM as an option. Softly sprung and under-damped, it was considered a poor performer when new, and today, any owner with a K75 still wearing its original shock should seriously think about replacing it.

And with almost 35 years between introduction and today, their mid-1980s styling has acquired a dated yet comfortable old school look.Įvery bike has its failings of course, and one of the K75’s biggest was the rear Boge monoshock. Straddling something of a line between old and new, they are an excellent option for commuting and touring. While traditional riders may not see them in the same light as, say, a Sixties Triumph or a Seventies Norton, their ready availability - and the ready availability of parts for them – makes them strong contenders as everyday mounts. And that brings us to their “classic” status. Built with typical BMW quality, they are long-lasting, high-mileage machines, a fact that means there are tens of thousands of them still running around.

The K75 range was successful, too, with almost 68,000 manufactured in K75, K75C, K75RT and K75S variants during the model’s 10-year production run. Nobody expected a triple, however, yet for all its visual and technical similarities to the bigger K100, the K75 proved to have its own distinct character. Except for its shaft drive, it was unlike any motorcycle BMW had ever made, and rumors quickly circulated that BMW had a smaller companion to the big four in the works. Introduced for the 1985 model year, the K75 was a smaller version of the revolutionary 4-cylinder K100 introduced just two years before, which featured a fuel injected, double overhead cam, water-cooled inline four – lying on its side. Some enthusiasts might scoff at the notion of including BMW’s 1985-1995 K75 triple in a classic motorcycle magazine, but the truth is, it has become something of a classic, and rightly so.

Bmw k75 review commuter