Skeeve

This just in, under a thread about removing the forks! Pic of bike w/ fender extension from original post Lookin' sweet! PS - a quick google on the part# turns up that it's for the following bikes: Thunderbird 1995 > 1998 Thunderbird 1999 > Adventurer 1996 > 1998 Adventurer 1999 > Legend TT 1998 >

That men have a shorter life expectancy than women, so he'd better pack in a few extra years of living on the front end? [sorry, couldn't resist!] Sorry, but let's not get our stats crossed; the fact is that most of the young men who fought in WWII would be dead of old age now anyway; let's not forget that here in the U.S., we're losing something like 250? WWII survivors a day at this late date just due to old age [and the greatest generation had better dietary habits than most kids today, too, which is the only reason many of them lasted THIS long!] Veteran's Day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day - whatever you want to call it - is only a week away. Nice to see the fine folks at V11LM getting a jump on everyone else [as usual!]

The other manufacturers will, just give'em time. BMW brought those wheels out & patented them in what, 1993? So it'll still take some time before their patent runs out. Obviously, they're charging unreasonable license fees to maintain their exclusivity for the GS [bread & butter of BMW motorcycles], or everyone would be using them already...

They were thinking "If Harley can make a factory custom to sell to the nimrods chopping their bikes & making ugly, ill-handling monstrosities, why can't we?"

Really? I thought it was supposed to be some type of nylon, not ABS... Anyway, some type of plastic w/ no ferromagnetic properties [i wonder if by adding ferrite to the gelcoat they could make us a plastic tank that would hold onto a tankbag? Hmmm.... ]

"Methinks he doth protest too much!" Seems like Clarkson had a good time on the Vespa and just doesn't want to admit to himself how much fun he was having! I predict more "these things'll kill ya" articles as he rides a variety of scooters and then moves up to Bikes...

Yes, that's my only substantial complaint [ugly] but I understand why [elimination of the plug wire from view] so didn't downgrade it based upon conceptual merit... but the V11 valve covers would still look better [i don't mind visible plug wires, myself.] To each his own, I guess!

And he incorporated the goofy white dot "number plates" from the Tenni, too! Still, it's pretty spiffy. Too bad the reds are so hard to duplicate across materials...

Somebody just had the zoom set on the "wide" end of the range instead of stepping back a few feet to get everything in view w/ the adjustment set more to the middle of the range [or better yet, on "tele"...] Back in the days of silver on film, I once boosted my gf's cup size a couple steps, made her taller and dropped her weight about 15lbs by judicious use of my 24mm lens [35mm camera.] The gf is long gone, but I regret losing that lens MUCH more than losing her...

Question is: has the clutch replacement been done, or is it a time-bomb waiting to explode the cases?

Buell did "fix" the tube frame: they came up w/ a frame design that was better suited to mass production, allowing them to get out of the 'boutique builder' category, and in the process, do some of the thing Erik likes best, like multipurpose designs where the oil is carried in the swingarm, etc. [a la' his air forks for Harley, where the handlebars provided volume for the air spring, to reduce the geometric rise in spring rate as the forks compressed...] The "sensitivity to setup" is just because Erik is an ex-road racer and insists on absurdly tight steering on his bikes, even tho' the widely acknowledged "sweet spot" for real-world on-road sport bikes is about 2deg more rake and a 1/2 inch more trail [right about where the v11 Guzzis are, oddly enough... ] The tube frame may have provided a better ride than the new cast frame, but it probably took too many man-hours to fabricate, leading to the new design. I wonder if the eccentric bearings available for other bikes to quicken their steering could be retrofitted to a Buell to make it more forgiving? Interesting thought...

The reputation of TUV being such a big monster is the stories of their insisting on OEM tires for a motorcycle, etc. [ie, inane bureaucratic pigheadedness] instead of realizing that a 120x70ZR17 is a tire, is a tire, is a tire and rightfully up to the rider's choice (& budget) to determine. Think of it as MOT on steriods. The kind of steroids that cause brain tumours and make the user go insane.

There's a reason Buell no longer makes the trellis-frame models; they all had short life expectancies [mono-shock mounts failing, etc.] and various problems related to their "boutique-builder" status before the H-D cavalry rode in and took the company back in under the corporate umbrella and made Buell into the respectable builder it is today. The trellis-framed models were great for what they were, but you'd be much better off starting w/ the Ulysses and adding the bags to that than messing about w/ the old T-Bolt ST [a bike which Erik Buell told me directly he never wanted to build, but only did so to shut up the moto-press' constant demands for a bike to fill the low-sales-numbers niche...] Ride on!

Thanks for that, Paul. Pretty much what the realists [aka "cynics" ] among us have already been forecasting.

No, but they used the Village Idiots^H^H^H^H^H^H, er People's other big hit "In the Navy" for the b/g music in a U.S. Navy recruiting spot years ago...

Guzzi always did most of their stuff in house; who's to say they didn't supply the springs to local sub-contractors for assembly to latches, etc. and mix up the springs in shipment? But like you said, as long as it's a simple swap, who cares how it happened?

I'd love any of the cafe'd Griso, the Tonti-based QV motored V7 Classic-styled mount, the MGS02, but most of all the V11LM w/ the new QV motor & some serious attention paid to mass centralization (& loss.) Of course, this presupposes my winning the lottery, but what the heck: I want'em all!

You fiddle with the springs because they got mixed up in the factory, and the heavy seat latch spring got put on the TB end of the fast idle cable, preventing the fast idle lever from staying open with the built-in friction of the fast idle lever. The wimpy fast idle spring got put on the seat latch cable, so anyone can just pound the back of the seat & pop the darn thing off, taking your battery, tool kit, ECU or whatever else under the seat suits their fancy. I thought I made this clear in my initial post about how I fixed my non-latching seat and non-idling fast idle lever by swapping the springs? Anyway, this is a problem that only afflicts certain bikes, and is quite easy to determine if yours is one of them by the simple expedient of noticing you must keep your hand on the fast idle lever or it immediately slips back (& the motor dies, when cold); if so, then a quick perusal of the relevant springs will immediately disclose which is heavier (stronger) - that one needs to be on the seat latch. Voila! End of troubles...

Those are some scary numbers. With numbers like that, not one of these shops can afford to carry Guzzi as their primary sales focus. The phrase "red-headed step-child" comes to mind. For those who aren't paying attention, that's 3/4 of the U.S. dealer net cannot afford to treat Guzzi as more than a bit player in their sales mix. Ouch.

EXCELLENT! Way to go Todd!

Get her back!

Ultimately, converting the factory in Mandello to an office complex and keeping the Guzzi design ctr. and museum there while rationalizing production by moving it to Pontedera would not mean "the end of Guzzi" as it would retain a separate brain trust in Mandello, close to the history of the brand. The reason people are forecasting the doom of Guzzi as a recognizable brand is that Piaggio's decision to roll all facets of production and shutter the factory pretty much discloses that Guzzi is no longer distinct from any other part of Piaggio than Oldsmobile [once the technological frontrunner, now gone] was of General Motors. In short, the handwriting is on the wall for Guzzi becoming no more memorable than any other bland corporate product of a huge conglomerate. When's the last time Honda had a product that excited you [that wasn't a concept bike that never made it to production/distribution outside Japan?] Some people see the glass as half-empty, others see it as half-full. An engineer sees that you have 2x the glass needed. Can Guzzi benefit from more modern production facilities? Yes. Does the move to Pontedera automatically mean that Guzzi is doomed? No. Does the elimination of a separate Guzzi, with all production, testing and engineering taking place elsewhere mean Guzzi is gone? Hard to say "No" to that!

Exactly!

She definitely needs one of those "Does this bike make my ass look fast?" t-shirts... Yowza!

Yes, I concur. I go back mainly because of my interest in the news about the new quattrovalvole ["QV"] models, which they maintain a particularly close watch upon. I'm still confused about what set Todd off to the extent that he said he wouldn't come back here, altho' he has posted the occasional notice about something hosted on Guzzitech for those who are curious. While I can respect the greater volume of traffic both of those other boards may enjoy, the signal to noise ratio is more to my liking here. I don't want to seem like I'm running down either WildGuzzi or Guzzitech in my efforts to explain why I like V11LeMans so much. Let's just end this w/ "Jaap ROCKS!" and leave it at that.