Skeeve

No, I don't think so! One was just about all Guzzi could handle! [lest we forget, the first one wanted to do away w/ the big twins entirely, eliminated the El Dorado when it was the only Guzzi selling in any numbers in the U.S., thereby permanently crippling the company by cutting off the dealer network at its knees just when it was starting to grow. Brilliant!

Ah, but use enough grease and the dirt will stay on the outside of the moving parts, and meanwhile, it fights corrosion too [which no dry lube can do.] Actually, I'm more likely to take the dry lube answer myself, I just like playing Devil's advocate...

I just hope that parcel rack where the pillion would fit has an alternative seat: non-race bikes over 250cc should support 2-up use...

Here in sunny LoCal So. Cal. [where the money is plastic & the people are too!], I'd be satisfied if Dunlop made a radial version in the right sizes of the old 491 EliteII. Yeah, wet grip was negligible, but here in the desert that's not of primary concern, at least on the rear. I guess none of the modern compounds will stick to the one that the EliteII was made of, for a dual-compound tire w/ center tread that actually lasts and sides that stick! Like you said, we're all looking for the holy grail [sanct graal, sangre real, whatever], but is really that hard to make a motorcycle tire that works w/ 1/4 the mileage guarantee of a cheap car tire and only costs 2x as much? Seriously...

And they annoy the oncoming drivers so much you'll get extra practice on your collision avoidance skills! [HIDs are the most annoying thing since DRLs for cars. Maybe even moreso. Altho' if you don't drive at night in populated areas, the extra light from them may be justified, but any urban area with decent street lighting makes them totally superflous...] Me, I'm just waiting for LED headlamps to take the stage. All that efficiency, and the whole front of the vehicle can be plastered w/ them for that nice, even diffuse light source. Heck, you'll be able to use your headlights for portrait lighting when you're taking your gf's portrait!

Any real world bike [ie, not a show bike that only gets "ridden" on vacuumed carpets and waxed linoleum! ] gets this dark grey road muck all over it's rims in short order. So my suggestion for the "best" color for rims is a matte or semi-gloss dark grey [about the same as the "anthracite" grey that the Centauro motors were coated with, or a little lighter!] Spend less time cleaning & more riding, since nobody will notice that your wheels are dirty, unlike the cast alloy wheels on my SV, [first year], which are not only too light a color but have all sorts of nice little surface roughness to hold the dirt! I swear that bike is faster when I take it out after a good cleaning if only because I've removed a couple pounds of rotational mass from each wheel by scrubbing all the dirt out of the rim! Black wheels don't solve the problem either [altho' Suzi went that route later w/ the SVs], since black shows dust almost as much as white! Go dark grey w/ the powdercoat. You'll thank me later, even tho' it make look mundane, it'll always look "right" so that people won't even notice the wheels & just say "What a great looking bike!"

The Coppa Mans rules!

Pretty sweet! Is that just some generic LED, or does it have a name? Very clean implemenation, either way!

What he said! Also don't forget that the wiring may melt under the higher current of the 100w bulb, and that'll ruin your whole day [or night, as the case may be.]

Mind measuring & establishing a center-tread depth benchmark before you go wearing it all off first? I'm interested in how much tire is really there...

Yes, Suzuki makes a little 500cc? single cyl cruiser [their names are all stupid now, C35? or somesuch] that has proven very popular among the SBL people and personal acquaintances. Proven design, it's been in production dog's years, and cheap to buy new if you can't find one used locally, but you usually can as someone moves up to a more powerful bike as they get their "sea legs."

Lots of recommendations here, and none of'em bad: typically, the manufacturers' recs are preferred, since they know their own tires best, but they may not have bothered developing a specific requirement for a niche bike like a Guzzi, and so you may just get some generic factors if you contact them. Guzzi's recommendation for the stock fitment can be assumed to be best, but Bridgestone isn't even making the 020s any more, & nobody much liked them on the V11s in the first place! Hard and fast rule: tire pressure variation should be less than 10% btw cold & hot, ie: you inflate your tires to 33F/36R in the morning, go out and show that twisty mountain road who's boss & test immediately after, and the pressures should be no more than 36F/40R; if they're higher, you need to raise the cold pressure [to keep the tires from flexing & heating up so much. I know, it seems counterintuitive... ] If the pressure has hardly changed at all from your cold settings, then you can lower your starting pressures and get more grip [but shorter life] out of your tires. Ride on!

Well, it's not that they've spent a lot of money on Guzzi, they were buying Aprillia & Guzzi just happened to come w/ the package. I'm glad that someone in Piaggio realized that "there's no way out but through" when they saw how much Aprillia had already invested in Guzzi & the new QV motor, and carried it through to completion. And the whole "product proliferation via styling treatments" has worked very well for Harley-Davidson, so I'm not surprised that the suits at Piaggio are applying the same model to Guzzi to try to generate some cash flow while they revamp Aprillia's sport lineup. So I expect that aside from minor styling treatments like the "new" V7 Classic, we're not going to see any truly new products from Guzzi for a few years. A revamp of the old small-block 4v heads might be hoped for, but that's probably about it. Like you said, they are probably waiting for some money to come in before more is spent...

Nope, least if it is, then Honda's v-5 isn't legit... Actually, that's pre-800cc MotoGP [can you tell I don't really follow it? Too unrelated to real-world bikes, that's why WSB is more important than MGP results]; I don't know if they axed anything over 4 cyls when they revised the displacement limit. There was some complicated formula for displacement vs. # of cylinders under the old scheme, which gave triples & twins the full 1000cc [not doing Ducati any favors there! ], fours & fives got 900cc? and higher #s dramatically less [to discourage Guzzi & Laverda from participating... ] Anyway, I don't think anyone is currently racing anything over 4 cyls in MotoGP, but that doesn't mean they're forbidden, just that the rules are structured in such a way as to discourage them. Kind of the reverse of what Guzzi faced in the 50s when they built the v-8: the only limit was displacement, and their old 500cc singles and twins just weren't able to compete in terms of power when the brakes & tires got good enough so that their opponents could take advantage of the power from their multis, so let's leapfrog the competition and double their four cylinders... What audacity! Such a pity those days are 50+ years behind us now, and racing is more about whose programming is better. I'd rather watch a spec league so you can really determine who's a better rider, since everyone is on identical bikes!

All Guzzis prior to Carlo's demise in '62? or so were dry sump designs. Given it's "trailie wannabe" status, the Stelvio [and Quotas before it] should [all] have been given a dry sump design, but that's about the only "need" for a dry sump I can see in recent Guzzis. But "everyone knows you can't wheelie a shaftie" so I guess that's why all the current Guzzis have wet sumps! Just keep the front wheel on the ground where it can do you some good and you should be o.k. [provided you already have a Roper plate! ] To dry sump the current motor, you'd need to add a second, scavenge oil pump which would then feed all the oil it can find to a reservoir that the current pickup can always find "full," no matter the attitude of the engine [ie, tipped back on one wheel going uphill, pulling a stoppie, leaned over at Maxton, whatever.] This sounds like a lot of work, given that a Roper plate and correct (higher) oil level will do the job about 98% as well, with the bonus of more oil for cooling to boot. Seem like a no-brainer to me, given that I never expect to spend any time busting berms on my LeMans...

Perhaps the solution are breakers that can be reset, vs. having to carry a spare fuse? I think that's the way airplanes do it; since riding a motorcycle is deemed just one step below flying helicopters for "learning difficulty," maybe we should steal a page from aero practice? After all, for a Guzzi it's just going back to their roots...

Once you go to liquid cooling, there's no longer any reason to stick the jugs out in the breeze [it looks st00pid, like the old CX500 Hondas...] Emissions & noise regs and power demands may eventually require liquid-cooling, and when it does, it will be time for Piaggio to retire Carcano's old ditch-pump and try something new [maybe a v4 or v6 or how about a slant-triple, w/ the crank off to one side so the gearbox can slide alongside, contra-rotating, thereby shortening the engine length and cancelling the gyroscopic fx?] At any rate, it behooves Piaggio to try something that hasn't already been done to death by others, to retain the Guzzi history of marching to a different beat and getting it right first try.

Yes, I think "Beauty and the Beast" pretty well sums it up. No explanations needed; it's self-evident which is "Beauty" the which is "Beast!"

I was waiting for that!

They lower your top speed substantially due to increased drag, too, if that's any concern...

Thanks Raz & Dave - great info on both threads!

And this would be a bad thing in what way? Any reason to get more real riders into a Harley dealership is a good one as far as I can tell. Let the hamsters rub shoulders w/ someone who doesn't care about the brand name & just wants a good ride and it can only be good for H-D: the only reason they haven't made more moves in advancing their engine designs is because "the faithful" won't let them! Look at how dismal the sales of the VRod have been, and that's been around almost a decade now! At least the execs at the Motor Company haven't given up and are still trying to drag their clientele, no matter how much they kick & scream, into the 20th century... [no, that wasn't a typo! I said 20th! ] Oddly enough, when I wrote H-D several years back and suggested they buy Moto Guzzi because they'd be a perfect fit for each other, I didn't see this coming when Piaggio white-knighted Aprillia. Not in my wildest dreams!

There is no MGNA anymore: it's all Piaggio. Piaggio's re-entry to the U.S. market in 2001(iirc) was based upon the "boutique model" as pioneered by Harley-Davidson and then BMW; since at that time, Piaggio didn't have any pre-existing dealerships to convert to boutiques, it was easier going for them to set up all their new Vespa outlets on that business model [vs. H-D & BMW having to force their old-guard dealerships into converting or yanking their franchise.] No boutique has significant parts inventory beyond the soft-goods and big ticket bolt-on accs. like top-trunks, etc. - that's all part of the model. H-D and BMW dealerships don't fit this model exactly, because most of them actually do have parts depts., if only to support their own mechs. But yes, Vespa boutiques do not have to have any parts, just sufficient floorspace to showcase the entire line of Vespas and the branded accessories [like the Vespa sweater, the chrome parcel rack, etc.] Doesn't mean that you won't get good service from them [that's going to depend upon the personnel at a particular location], just that you can't expect them to be a real dealership. They're a boutique, that's all they are, and that's all that Piaggio expects them to be. The Vespa boutique here in Newport Beach are nice folks tho', I should go by & check in w/ them. I haven't been in since June of last year when I got a 256kb mp3 player for test riding one of the MP3s during their promotion when they first hit the market... Neat bikes, glad they finally brought the 400 & Fuoco over, altho' the prices are too high for their displacement [you can buy a liter bike for what they want for the 500], but they're unique beasts so I guess they're priced accordingly. [sigh] I'll have to let you know when I'm up in SLO to try & meet up! I love that town, and of course, hwy 1 thru Big Sur is just a day-trip away...

I think he'll do it, but from email with him about the same idea, I know he'll recommend just getting a set of his pistons, which will actually match the v11 head contours properly to provide squish [which the stock & FBF pistons do not.] Basically, it provides 50% of the performance of what you're trying to do for 25% of the price. Anyway, talk to him, I'm sure he'll be willing to at least discuss what you're trying to achieve & the best way to go about it. Me, I'd like a properly designed modern combustion chamber too, instead of the 40's era one under a pile of band-aids we've got now...