Skeeve

Actually, the *exhaust* would be out the side of the cylinder, and you'd use both poppet valves for intake if redesigning the Guzzi mill as a compressor-inducted 2-stroke. None of which would result in more power until the engine is converted to liquid-cooling, since you'd just melt a piston or something worse until then...

Sometimes less is more: if he's largely commuting, the smaller, lighter more fuel-efficient bike might just be the answer he was looking for. Or maybe he just needed to adjust his cashflow...

You ride a Harley? [No offense, but the only bike I've ever heard that that word describes properly are the straight-piped narrow-V cruisers w/ RUBbies on'em blatting around everywhere.] Obviously [at least to me!], on a Goose you go for a 'HONK!'

Why, do we need an extra piñata?

Gee, is that available stateside? If it is, I know what I can get my bro' for his barf... er, birthday!

Actually, if you watch you'll see the ghosted overlay of bike vs. car that the bike did win (erroneously.) Someone sed: Well, those "long straights" had better be several miles long then, since way back when they tested a KZ1100? against a 'Vette and the bike's acceleration advantage gave it enough of a lead that the 'Vette would have needed about a 10mi straight for it's 30mph top-speed advantage to catch up. But you're dead on about the tight track part... And mistakes cornering in a car are much easier to recover from than on a bike! OP mentioned "AWD" for the Gallardo: are you sure? Seems like the back end was getting very slideways many times during the car segment: I was certain that the Lambo was a RWD middie with a driver who liked pushing the happy pedal too much. It's a cinch that that car could have lapped faster with a more competent (or focused; after all, the driver was yakking at the camera half the time he was driving) driver. Much as I hate to say it, the state of car tech enables a fast car to lap a track faster than a fast bike these days. But at what price? The buyer certainly gets more "bang for the buck" with the bike!

They're offshoots of the Quota lineage, iirc. See? The Quota *wasn't* a dead-end after all! Too bad Guzzi isn't still making the Quota: the ES looked better than *either* the Breva or the Griso, and is almost certainly a more capable mount to boot. [sigh] Still the Griso has some hope for success, but my take on the Breva is that they shoulda stayed with the 750 styling. Seems like they went too extreme with the Breva 1100, so it winds up looking like some bloated caricature of the 750...

I wonder how the stock con-rods & stroke length compare to the established "sweet" ratios? [i'm not that up on this issue, just aware that there are some numbers that are recognized as being "good."] Anyone know? Anyone? Bueller?

Wrt the "low humidity" storage: don't bet on it, Sta. Cruz is a coastal city. Better figure on at least *some* corrosion. Yes, the problem is likely that CA doesn't recognize G&B as a manufacturer, & consequently it can *never* pass smog [CA is stupid: they have testing stations that can verify if a vehicle emits too much pollution, but this is not adequate for certification: only vehicles that have met CA's standardization tests [ie, manufacturers have enriched the state to the tune of 10s of thousands of $$$ for testing no more complex than can be done by the corner mechanic w/ electronic exhaust sniffer] can be registered here as "new." Now they've even banned 50cc 2 stroke scooters from being sold here! D@mn tree huggers [that's unfair: "D@mn urbanite Sierra Clubbers"...] are ruining this state for anyone. So anyway, what's keeping it from being street legal in CA is a CA problem: TX [or any of a number of other more enlightened states] will probably let you register it as a "home built custom" or "collector/show vehicle" or somesuch. At least, it's certainly worth checking out! Ride on

He may just not want to lose it: CA has a whole pack of nasty laws that were originally intended to get the really cr@ppy polluters off the street, given that such cars were almost universally non-registered being driven by unlicensed/uninsured drivers. The net result was that the CHP/local police forces don't bother impounding the scofflaws that they pull over, figuring it's too much bother for something that only has scrap value, but something nice like the Ghezzi&Brian? Heck, they'd scoop that up & confiscate it in an instant! The state legal system is so corrupt that they've already given themselves carte blanche to sell such "contraband" within hours of taking it, & "oops!" there's NO RECOURSE for the legal owner, who can't even get the money the cops extracted from their (illicit, if not "illegal" ) sale of their property, should the courts decide looooong after the fact that "the cops done you wrong." CA was once the garden of Eden, but it's gone way downhill since I was a kid. Sic transit gloria mundi

That's the quid pro quo for getting free gear, my friend! The better the billing and more you do to make it easy for readers to find the product, the better the gear you can get. Like it or lump it, that's the way the magazine business works. Why do you think the majors [CW, M'cyclist, etc.] *never* say anything bad about the bikes they test? They can be riding the worst piece of cr@p that ever fell out of the south end of a north-bound steer, and the worst they'll say about it is "it felt a little unsettled in cornering" [trans: "It has a hinge in the middle of the frame"] or "it needs further development" [trans: "It's delivered as a box of random parts which you must assemble."] That's what's so nice about subscribing to MCN [no, Brit readers, not yours - the U.S. version of Motorcycle Consumer News]; it's paid for entirely by the subscription fees, so when they test a bike, they're not beholden to the manufacturer for next months ad spread to make their nut.

No workee. [but I'm impatient: if a page takes more than 60secs to load across the T1 connection @ the university, chances are it's not worth the wait...

Prolong? Isn't that the herbal Viagra stuff the spammers keep clogging my inbox with? Whatever floats yer boat, dude... As for Slime: that stuffs for tooobs! Don't put it in a tubeless tire, it's a waste, just carry a plug kit & one of those sparkplug-inflator lines. If you have it loose in an aluminum rim it starts eating the aluminum, so if you get a flat, get home & replace the tube *now*, not later...

Nah, to wood oil is oil: something to be soaked up! It's the teflon making the chain cut better, I tells ya!

I, OTOH, have had *excellent* success with Slick 50. Don't forget that you have to shake up the bottle real good before adding the oil, as the teflon comes out of suspension over time. Besides that one caveat, I have yet to find another oil as good as Slick 50 in its only appropriate application. Unfortunately, it's about 1,000,000 times more expensive than the standard alternative. But I stand by my words: for filling the oil dispenser for lubing the chain on your chainsaw, Slick 50 is the best! But used motor oil is still the cheapest and works 80% as well; for the price difference, unless I'm going to cut some real hard/tough wood like hop hornbeam or oak [no african blackwood trees around here, but that'd be another good candidate], the Slick 50 stays in the chest & I just recycle my used motor oil for this application. But don't let anyone ever tell you Slick 50 is snake oil! Chainsaw oil, yes, but snake oil? Not hardly!

Ah, I remember when I had perfect vision... Modulars are cheaper than laser surgery. Until then, I have to wear glasses, so I'll keep wearing the modular helmets. Ride on!

So your friend didn't use the helmet properly and you think the helmet is unsafe? I'm sorry, I don't follow your reasoning, unless you figure that you'll do the same fool thing. I can't say that I always ride with the guard down & latched, but your friend's 99% up contrasts nicely with my 99% down. The value to a modular helmet isn't the ability to ride with the chinbar up, it's the ability to wear a full-face helmet while riding & not have to take it off just to talk to somebody at a stop or when running inside a store for a minute.

Was he wearing it with the chinbar flipped up? What brand was it? More info, please! Most riders wearing them stateside figure that the modular chinbar will be there for the first (critical) hit; after that, you're sliding on the side of your head or rattling the back against the pavement. I'm interested in the details of your friends accident, not out of gruesome curiosity, but out of serious interest in rider safety.

Stateside, from 1978 onwards... You're only 15 years behind the times! (Lucky you!)

Shucks! You had the chance to go modular, & missed it! I tried a cheapy modular helmet to see if I'd like it; go "mod" & you won't go back!

If your pipes are your squeeze limiter, boy are you in trouble! When lanesplitting, if anything is wider than your handlebars/mirrors, you're going to find yourself wedging your bike into a spot where you DON'T wanna be! Brrrr, I get cold just thinking about it...

Might this be useful? ... to avoid vapor-lock on the '02 & earlier f.i. bikes w/ the fuel filter outside the tank. Just ran across while looking for something else, thought it might be helpful here.

Since we're on the topic of ... Hey, can you post a link to a fullsize view of your avatar? I think that's a shot worth examining in detail!

I thought the point to ovals was there's less pipe to get in the way? [iE: less width = more lean angle w/o grinding/touching down pipes.] For someone of my limited abilities, the cheaper cost of round vs. oval would make the decision absurdly simple.

"Nitromors?" Not familiar with this product/brand name. Mind giving a more general description? [Or is this a joke, & Nitromors is UK slang for plastic explosive? ]