audiomick

Indeed. I can remember one of the first moments that I started getting interested in Moto Guzzi. It happened here. https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/2382203#map=16/-37.72292/145.04858 I was walking from the sports fields back to the uni, about where the La Trobe Sports Stadium is, and saw and heard a Guzzi going along Kingsbury Drive towards Plenty Road. It was probably an early Le Mans, that was in about 1985, and quite possibly had the "competizione" Lafranconis on it. The sound...

@Steve Swan bear in mind that some people have a spoked in rear rim offset by as much as 5 mm, or more, to accomodate a wider rim. That seems to work without trouble, although I can't imagine that a really good rider might not notice it. What I'm getting at: putting the swing arm back in the way it was is a good plan, but on an old, second-hand bike there is no garauntee that the adjustment was really accurately correct. Put it back in, @docc 's suggestion works for me, and ride it and see how it handles. If you want to be sure, pull a bit of string past the back wheel such that it touches the back wheel front and back on both sides, but isn't bent out of true by that, and measure the distance from the string to the front wheel, both sides front and back. Take your time, and repeat the measurements a few times. That should tell you if your front and back wheels are aligned, and what you might have to do with the pins to get them aligned if they are not.

Yes, so it seems. There is this thread here: and then I found this, which corroborates that pretty well https://www.mgcn.nl/database/modeloverzicht/13-v11/139-v11-modeloverzicht from there: What I have marked in green applies to mine. Also, long tank and fuel pump in the tank, both characteristic of the 2003 and onwards models, I gather.

Yes, that is she. Edith says, by the way, the fairing screen is not original. Doesn't fit very well, either. I took it off the first time I delved into the area under the fairing, and it was a pain in the proverbial to get it back on. Edith also wants to note that you can see pretty much all of the VIN plate in that picture. That US models have the month on the tag had been mentioned here, and I went looking for it. I'm pretty sure it is not on the tag. The bike was first registered on the 16th May 2003, which might be an indication that it was built fairly late in 2002, but that is a long way from being a sure thing.

Thinking about this again today, I had a closer look at the VIN. In the papers, the number is listed as ZGU KT A01 0 2 M 111456 Here is an enlarged crop out of the photo further up: I looked at the frame numbers list here, which explains what the various segments of the frame number denote: https://www.mgcn.nl/database/mg-framenummers According to that page, the three digits after the "KT", which denotes the model, indicate the version of the model. So that would be "A01" in my case. However, in their listing, they don't list an "A01". The closest they come is these two entries ZGUKT002,ZGUKTA02 V 11 CAT. 1100 2003-2004 ZGUKT000,ZGUKT001 V 11 LE MANS 1100 2002 The tenth digit of my number is "2", so the bike was built in 2002, so it is a fair bet that it really is a 2002 Le Mans. The questions are Has anyone else ever seen the "A01" in a frame number? I thought briefly that my number might be a badly engraved "001", but I've gone off that idea. I'm also aware that a list like the one in the link has no guarantee of being complete. If anyone has seen the "A01", what was it on? Assuming it is a 2002 Le Mans, which forks should it have? Can anyone say for sure? As indicated further up, and in the thread about the Andreani cartridges, the upper triple clamp is obviously not original, as it has holes for the brackets for a handlebar which a Le Mans shouldn't have. The question is whether it was just the triple clamp, or the whole front end? Not that I'm worried about it. I have the 43mm Marzocchis, and that seems, from what I have read, to be a good thing. I'm just curious about how much the bike has been modified.

This is a bit of an in-joke. Maybe most of the people here wont get it. I don't really care. I found the link just now whilst searching through the links in my browser for something completely unrelated, and felt the need to share it. I have to admit, though, that I have no idea what he meant with "girt" in the first point. So maybe I have been away from Australia for too long. The rest of it is, for me, very amusing. https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/bunnings-snags-and-the-meaning-of-girt-42-ways-to-tell-if-you-re-australian-20200121-p53tam.html PS: I'd be particularly interested in hearing (reading) what the rest of the world makes out of Point 19 And the rest of it, actually.

I guess he hasn't finished pulling it apart to have good look yet.

Indeed. The thing is, when you have a bunch of brass instruments and a half a dozen percussionists going to town on stage, well, it isn't quiet, even with the sound system turned off.

I saw Herb Alpert in Munich in the late '90s. I don't really remember exactly what I was doing. We put the sound system in, for sure, and I was probably looking after the front-of-house desk, preparing it for the bloke who mixed the show. Anyway, the band was fairly big, lots of brass of course, and about 6 percussionists. A really good show, if one likes that sort of music (I do, but not so much that I would buy all his records...). Unfortunately, the room, the old Gasteig in Munich, a large concert hall built for orchestra concerts, isn't good for loud music. Even the drummer for Oscar Peterson who I saw in there a couple of times was almost too much for the room, with his big cymbals and "cymbal heavy" style. So Herb Alpert fires up, and people started leaving. Too loud for them. At one point an entire row stood up and left all at once. A pity, really, because it was a good show otherwise.

I gather the package, motor, suspension, brakes, is very good, even verging on excellent. The few times I've seen one in the flesh, my reaction ranged all the way from "what the fark is that?" to "hmm, actually not bad". But if I had one, it would have to be modified. A German company made a thing that they named "Scandalo". A Centauro with (I think) a Sport 1100 tank and a seat and tailpiece that they made themselves. Looks a lot like the photo that @Lucky Phil posted further up. If I had one, it would have to go a long way in that direction to make me happy, but of course with clip-ons instead of that silly chook-chaser handlebar. Here, a picture of a Scandalo stolen out of the internet

I don't expect there will be many takers for this here, but I've just written something on the subject somewhere else, and I thought I might as well put it here too. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have a V35 Imola. About the only thing that annoyed me about it was that the clutch was so heavy. In the German forum that I am active in, a couple of bright sparks figured out that the clutch from a V85 will fit in any of the small block models. The only restriction is that the V35 and V50 have a different input shaft on the gearbox to the V65 and later models, including the V85. This means that the clutch plate for the V85 clutch wont fit on those early models. However, the V85 produces close to 80 PS, the V50 only 49, and the V35 a bit more than 30, maybe. So it is a safe bet to just use the smaller clutch plate in the newer clutch. Long story short: I bought a brand new clutch in e-Bay for about 150 Euros (price for a new V85 clutch from a dealer about 250 Euro). It turned out to be a V9 clutch, but is obviously effectively the same as the one in the V85. The original clutch in the V35 required a full hand, and a lot of effort. Now I can operate it with one finger. Need I say more? And.... the newer clutch is lighter than the old one, so blipping the throttle at the traffic light is much more effective. So... if anyone has a small-block Guzzi and a bit of spare cash, and a bit of time, think seriously about doing the mod. It is worth the effort. If anyone is interested and needs more details, let me know and I will elaborate.

Funny how good workmanship and good equipment tends to be expensive, isn't it.

Incidently that points to why I prefer GIMP. It is not from Microsoft, and accordingly works properly and delivers what it promises.

I don't. For many applications that I had as a sound engineer, it was a right royal pain in arse.

As far as I understand it, things like mobile phones register metadata about how the phone was being held when the photo was taken, and rotate the photo on the basis of that so that it looks the right way up when you look at it on the same device. Some photo viewers on computers can read that metadata, and show the photo "the right way up". Some programs can't, and therefore show the photo upside down, or sideways, as it was actually taken.. The forum software can't read the metadata, probably. The solution is to open the photos in a program like GIMP, which shows you the photo without correction, and has a function to rotate it to the right way up. And is free, and can scale the file size of the picture, and lots and lots of other stuff, most of which I don't know how to do. https://www.gimp.org/ Edit: @Pressureangle do you like this picture better? Rotating it took about three minutes, because GIMP takes a while to start on this fairly old laptop.

So would I. As far as I know, those protectors are always after-market accessories, so it is more or less pot luck to find a match to the set you have. Also, the ones you have will look a bit weathered, and the replacement brand new. And yes, have a really good look for hidden damage. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that there isn't any.

I second that. There is not quite enough fairing on that for a Le Mans.

There are "sports" sunglasses available that stay on (for the most part...) during that sort of funny buggers.

speaking of good carpenters, this turned up a couple of years ago on the geman forum. I don't know if it has been here yet. If not, it should have.

And now for something completely different... Someone showed me this earlier this evening. I thought it might be useful information towards solving the problem of how to play Rachmaninov if your hands are too small. It seems it is easy: all you need is a good carpenter and a capable assistant.

Thanks for the info. I've got the plate here, might get around to installing it one day, but I wouldn't have thought of those details.

Thanks for that @Joe . I wasn't aware of that concert, but it seems there is a fair bit of it in the Tube. And the sound quality is fairly good for the time.