My Forever Bike

Director Statement

I never wanted to make a typical bike introduction.

My Forever Bike is less about specifications and more about the quiet relationship that forms between a rider and a machine over time. The BMW R80 G/S has been part of my life for many years — not as a collectible or restoration project, but as a motorcycle that is simply meant to be ridden.

The film explores that idea: how machines carry memories, how they change with us, and how imperfections often become the very things that give them character.

For me, motorcycles have always been less about performance and more about movement, solitude, and the small rituals around riding. This film is an attempt to capture that feeling.

Director Bio

Benedikt Merten is a Berlin-based filmmaker and the founder of Analog Rides, a project built around motorcycles, movement and the stories that machines collect along the way.

Coming from an advertising background, Benedikt now creates short films that sit somewhere between documentary and visual essay. His work is less interested in specifications and performance figures than in character—the old bikes, imperfect objects and small rituals that make riding personal.