2Stroke-Racing

Turns out Mr. McGregor had bought back his #T133 back in 2022 and now he needs to clear space in his garage - so there it is on sale again : No Reserve – 2002 Moto Guzzi V11 LeMans Tenni #133 – Iconic Motorbike Auctions

you will need time to find a good bike and spare parts today rumours say they made from 1992-2001: 983 bikes Quota 1000 (Mandello) 889 bikes Quota 1100 ES (Monza factory?) registered in Germany 2017 (notorious market for BMW GS contenders): 29 - 1000 83 - 1100ES prices still very low - but hard to get a bike offered very good information here: Quota | guzzi-quota (arnes.si) Quota - Moto Guzzi - Topics - Gregory Bender (thisoldtractor.com)

thanks for the ideas but i decided to keep my quota as factory vanilla as possible. (certain OEM spare parts are a nightmare these days) You can do maaaaaany things to fix those quirky issues with the ES1100- i have seen few guys going this path and they all invested quite a lot money, time and emotional energy to make their really unique personal bikes. Worldtraveller (including ABS) , Rallye racer or Supermoto - Quota gives determined guys a space to plot their customizing vision on a quite special bike. I do not know a Quota Tuner that is not satisfied with his artwork outcome. But all those guys admit that using a BMW GS ,Honda Africa Twin or even a Stelvio would have been way cheaper and easier. Quota customizing - is a special kind of fever, that i could avoid in my life so far. My bike hording disease does not allow me budget, time and focus to go on this amazing trip. You read, if you like to try bit Quota Madness - my only advice is - go shopping for good Quota 1000 or a 1100ES, with all possible upgrades done by the previous owners. It will probably save you a lot - time and money. Have fun !

Ridden both bikes - they feel very different from factory setup: Quota 1100ES has a lowered seat height of 840mm compared to the 870mm of the Quota 1000 and way softer front fork. The double disc breaking system on the ES1100 front was infamous for fading and problems with mismatched brake pads materials. The thin larger front wheel and the thick smaller rear wheel, combined with the torque engine - another goofy detail that can lead to interesting driving experiences with the 1100ES - you can drag the bike slowly forward with the front brake 'locked'- the thin front wheel gets simply pushed over. So my personal rating of the old big block Guzzi adventure bikes - Quota 1000 - biggest enduro made before 2000- for tall guys and hardcore fans - reliable but hard, very good base for tuning Quota ES1100 - the quirky one - you need to invest a lot 'to cure' all it´s flaws - or you accept them and enjoy the feel to sway over the highway with 80-90mph given by the ultrasoft factory setup

As a more or less proud owner and rider of the Quota 1100 ES who tried the Quota 1000 of my friends few times - the 1000 is to me the way better and stiffer offroad bike if you are my size or taller. Forget about the Quota if you are below 5`9 - you will have no fun riding it. The bigger you are the better you feel - it was called the Arnold Schwarzenegger Adventure Bike in 1999 here. The magic torque block between 2800-5000 is real, if you use the goofy factory central body EFI with the long intake. But beside goofy me everybody here got rid of this and mounted either some highly sophisticated german injection engineering or switched back to Quota 1000 carbs. And they all claim that their bike became way better than my vanilla petrol-champagne dromedario. To me the factory 1100ES setup is a nice bike to travel 600mls to mediteranean beaches on tarmac roads but it is way too soft for any real offroad. A special problem is the front break (no ABS those days) combined with the soft front fork on gravel - soft break = noooooo breaking (increase break pressure = front dives deep and suddenly without warning you loose the front and feel the amazing heavy bike - time to leave ship. The good thing about the big heavy dromedario - it never breaks. I did real stuntman like things with this bike on my trips to italy or france - including jump from a trailer and frontal crashing into a Fiat Seicento. Only broken parts were the after market panniers and cylinder protectors - frame, exhaust, forks, engine - perfectly fine every time - i had to jump from the back. So Stelvio(ABS) is nice, V100 Stelvio with proactive Öhlins - maybe better - but i am too used to my ES1100 dromedario to switch.

Summer 1986 i got posession of my older brother´s former commuter simson moped - he had upgraded to 'real' MZ motorbike. i was 11 years old and had no licence but there was no sheriff ever seen in grandma´s village since the early 1970ies so a wild summer illegally riding my first bike in the fields - is one of the best memories in my life. I kept the bike running on grandma´s farm but without any cosmetics since this summer - pure Nostalgia. Often times people asking me when i would get rid of this useless weak cycle - as i had horded so many "powerful upgrades" in between and needed space. Nostalgic me - instead rescuing crashed simson moppeds from junk yards around grandma´s farm. (spare part donors ) 20 years later - kids started to go crazy for these simson mopeds and over the next decade this grew into serious bike fashion here. - Nostalgia or totally bananas ?

Looks like Mr. McGregor is back in the V11 owners club, if the Tenni in the clip is from his personal collection. As his old #133 is still in Austin/TX documented in the registry, i guess he was lucky to find somebody willing to part from his piece of guzzi history.

cold air without snow - always great fun with the V11

a challenging year 2022 finished with a sunny afternoon ride

This sister is a really beautiful one. Impressed to see a bike looking so fresh after all these years.

Ferry is crossing the neckar river few miles west from Heidelberg at a quite emblematic spot before the river flows further west into the Rhine.