A Green R1200GS

I got one of the first 2005 BMW R1200GS'es delivered in eastern Washington State in the USA. But mine showed up painted "Ocean Blue", the only color of the 3 that I didn't want. If it had been the red or the yellow, I probably would have left it stock.

For awhile I seriously considered a pale orange-cream color, but in the end I just painted it green, I call it "Bavarian Racing Green" (similar to British Racing Green) -- not super dark, but definitely green. With a tiny bit of sparkle in it.

Here's the color before and after, though the blue was shot in sunlight, and the green under overcast skies:

I had a local custom auto paint shop in Spokane do the painting for me (they do mostly custom show cars), and they cut me a great deal at just $175US including tax. There are 5 coats of clear on it, with some stuff in it that makes it more flexible and less likely to suffer minor rock damage. The deepest clearcoat layer has some stuff in it that looks like diamond dust, giving it a bit of sparkle without a metalflake look.

Here are a couple shots of the bike in front of my house, but the sky was overcast and the color doesn't show very well. I'll take some better shots someday and replace these later. These were all shot with my 3.2 megapixel Minolta Dimage Xt.

And a closeup showing the color a little better:

This is pretty close to the color it actually looks in realspace. Overall I'm really pleased. The green goes very well with the gray side panels and gray seats. Much better than the original dark blue.

This shows the green tint pretty well, most of these photos make it a bit darker than it appears to your eye.

In case you were wondering, that's a Marsee 44L Bavarian expandable "rack bag" on the passenger seat.