Better than an oil thread...

[Brickboy]

Well, maybe!
I've been a great fan of the R60/6, R100RT, R100R and R80ST.
My brain says the R100R is great to ride but has the unnecessary complexity and potential weakness of a Paralever but it does have amazing 4pot brakes...
The R100RT, post 84, also has tubeless tyres and decent brakes.
The R80ST is chuckable, has a nice Mono rear end (the best they made) and avoids point ignition
The R60/6 has easy to understand points, classic looks, and brakes too hmmmm, lacks unleaded heads and is very, very smooth
So... the best Boxer? Probably a post 84 Mono R80/100 with tubeless rims, good brakes and the Mono shaft.
Any arguments?!

[Rob Frankham]

I think we all have 'the best' boxer. My candidate would be the 81 to 84 R100RS. Has that bit of extra 'go' over the post '85 models and the handling is somehow more comfortable... what do I mean by that... don't know, just the impression I get. I find the upright stance of the 'RT less comfortable over long distances and the R60/6 is great fun but can't really compete for serious riding. Never actually ridden an 'r/mystic so I can't comment.

Still, it's all very subjective and as I say, each of us has 'the best'.

Rob

[melville]

All four of my bikes are 1975 to 1979 and I like that as far as keeping spares about. My son had a stripped down 1986 R80RT Mono project for a while (before he came to his senses and bought an SV650SF!) and the electrical and instrumentation and controls looked all foreign to me. The transition to Mono looks to me like Airheads lost their spot where they (unlike the pre-1980 bikes) were the love child of my VWs and my bicycles. I don't think I would have been as successful reanimating his R80RT if it were my first bike as much as I was with my R75/6. But that's maybe very specific to my own experience.

I've ridden three of the four Airheads I own and they each have their own missions. The R100/7 had the Full Grandpa Touring Kit as I got it and I've added patinated vintage touring accessories to it to make it pillion-friendly. Several potential pillions have just loved getting out on that one! Getting a pillion to stick around is the hard part My first R75/6 is wonderfully shiny after my resto-and-improvement project and is set up to be an all day comfortable backroad bike. The R100RS is fascinating (it has many chassis mods from BITD) and I'm looking forward to long solo trips on it after a chassis restore-and-bling project. The other R75/6 came to me very incomplete and I'm looking forward to making it into an Airhead version of a Triton-style cafe racer.

[Zombie Master]

Hard to argue with your choice.

But ...if a mint blue touring tanked R90/6 with a proper dual front disc showed up I would really be tempted.

I prefer the heavy flywheel of that generation.