It should be appreciated what BMW did for mass motorcycling by introducing an electric starter that was, by all accounts, more reliable than much of what was available on motorcycles of the same vintage, so much so, that the kickstarter soon became an optional extra on these bikes. I have had personal experience with Italian, American and British electric starters from the 1970s and... I was never impressed. In fact I was worried. I didn't include the Japanese as they were already in a class of their own of course: it should be noted that at the same time (early '70s) when most British and Italian sporting thoroughbreds were coming out, they had a kickstarter and required strength of the body and strength of character to get them running. A 1971 Honda CB500 Four, such as the one uncle Fester restored for my cousin, is positively modern by comparison in terms of reliability and usability. But back to BMW; as I said, their starters were reliable enough to persuade the factory to do away with the kickstarter altogether, a rather bold move considering that the "flat-twins" were never exactly small motorcycles that you could easily bump start if the starter or battery failed. The starter on this particular motorcycle was inspected and found to be good enough at least for now. It's the original Bosch unit, which weighs a ton; BMW later switched to Valeo starters that are lighter, somewhat more compact (see below for a side-to-side comparison) and supposedly stronger/more efficient. I think that if this R80/7 turns out to be "a keeper" it would probably benefit from a serious upgrade of the entire electrical system, including starter, ignition and charging unit. We'll see.
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