Custom BMW R100/7

The French have an interesting phrase for an unconventionally attractive woman: jolie laide. The English equivalent would be “pretty ugly,” but the ambiguity of the French meaning is lost in the translation. The phrase sprung to my mind when I first saw this BMW, a 1978 R100/7 that lay in bits and pieces in a garage for years. Restored and running again, it’s far from beautiful—but it has a transfixing quality that would stop the traffic even in blasé Paris. The bike was discovered by Nico, one of the founders of the French moto lifestyle website 4H10. It was the...