Greg Field

I do not think the Texas Pacific Group is a majot investor in Ducati any longer. TPG DOES own 20 percent of Piaggio now, though, so you could see them buy more shares and force changes that could affect Guzzi and Aprilia. Rumors are that a certain dealer is trying to prod TPG toward just such a course of action . . .

No loans or garantees that I could find record of. It is a matter of record, though, that they did it. They were accused, denied it, and later admitted it when it no longer mattered. The US government took no action against H-D for doing this, except to drop the tariff when H-D asked that it be dropped. (Or it could be that behind closed doors the govt. said words to the effect of , "You used us illegally; we're gonna drop the tariff but we can make it look like it was your idea to save face. Get on board with this or we will drop the tariff anyway and embarass you publicly." I am not saying this is what happened. I'm just saying that it wouldn't surprise me if this was what happened.)

It was inconsequential because it was too late and it was toothless. The first xxxxx thousand over 700 bikes were exempted (a larger number than they actually sold in some cases), as were all bikes assembles in the US (Goldwings and big Kaws). And it ramped up over the first years and then ramped back down. By the time it ramped in, the Japanese had 700s to sell, which were exempt from the tariff. By then, H-D was flush enough to start looking for other companies to buy. What really made Jap[ bikes relatively more expensive at the time was that the yen was so high against the dollar that a new Moto Guzzi was cheaper than an equivalent Japanese bike. This hurt them and prompted them to build more in the US. This assessment is the result of a look at the facts, not out of need to manufacture controversy. I have looked at the facts and interviewed the principals. This is what they say about it, too. The widespread belief that Harley was just bumbling along at the time and and needed the government to save it is not supported by the facts. Vaughn Beals took on the Japanese and outmaneuvered them, all of them at once. He would have made a great wartime general.

Doc: No straw. You really need to keep the area between the liner and cover open for airflow to exhaust the smoke from the fire, especially if, as is so often the case in the West, you are forced by scarcity of hardwoods to burn conifer wood, which is smokey by nature. My Jeep is a boring Cherokee. Completely stock. You would yawn.

Prof: I did it in five steps: 1)I thoroughly cleaned the rime and the "dimples for each spoke, both mechanically (with wire wheel and Dremel-operated wire brushes) and chemically, with a solvent. Here's a photo of part of it: 2) I tried to fill the "dimples" in the rim around each spoke nipple with RTV. 3) I filled even more on each dimple with RTV, hoping to have a uniform surface to which I could bond the rubber rim strips. 4) I spread a thin, even coat around the drop center of the rim and "gooshed" two rim strips into the RTV (I cleaned off throroughly the powder off the rim strips and off set one to the right of the rim centerline and the other to the left of centerline, so the nipple dimples were thoroughtly covered). Here's a pic: 5)I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best . . . It's held since last April or May and has been torture-tested on rutty, potholey roads far from home. Haven't even had to add air yet. Report to moderator 67.183.76.24

No. The FTC enacted the tariff before the Japanese could decide yes or no. Apparently, H-D had a strong case, abetted by the Japanese foolishness in all banding together to hire common counsel to fight the tariff. This certainly gave the appearance to the FTC that Harley's contention that the company was fighting against a united "J. A. Pan, Inc." had some basis in truth. A few months after the tariff took affect, it was all kinda moot 'cause Harley was on a roll.

Glad some of you enjoyed it. I do this at least once a year. If anyone wants to try it, we can prob'ly fit you in. Those poles are a hell of a lot of work to cut and peel, so I only did it once and have subsequently carried them to the site on my truck and store them at home.

The tariff had precisely zero to do with saving the company. As I said, it was started in an effort to extort loan garantees out of the Japanese government. Harley started action on the tariff and then approached the Japanese government and offered to drop the tariff bid in exchange for loan garantees to finish developing the Porsche-designed NOVA engine and bikes and a few other projects. The Japanese didn't act as fast as the FTC, so there was a toothless tariff that only resulted in 700-cc Jap bikes for a few years, and little more. Many things saved Harley. Foremost, a CEO (Vaughn Beals) with skill and balls and his life's savings hanging in the balance. He spearheaded the effort to buy back the company from AMF in 1981 and put the spurs to increasing quality control and designing a better engine. Almost as important, styling chief (Willie G. Davidson) who very successfully mined the deep styling heritage the company had available and selectively stole from the customizers, and engineers who did more with less and had ready to go in the months following the inception of the tariff (which took effect in April 1983, from memory) the Evolution engine and Softail chassis (both of which hit the market in August 1983), which together carried the company farther forward than anyone at the time thought possible. By 1985, the company was so profitable it didn't need loan garantees and began looking at other motorcycle companies to BUY. By 1987, they were dominant in their market and requested that the tariff be dropped early. By 1990, there were waiting lists for most models. You know what happened later. The tariff was an inconsequential sideshow to Harley's resurgence.

Harley was not saved by this. Harley had already been saved. It was, in fact, a move by Harley to extort loan garantees out of the Japanese government. If you're interested in reading the story of this bold move by Vaughn Beals, buy or steal a copy of "Harley-Davidson Evolution Motorcycles" by yours truly. It's one of many stories related there-in that are revealed to be not at all what was reported at the time.

Ben: When you're ready to get an RSV, contact me. We are also an Aprilia dealer, and I can give you some inside scoop on which ones are more reliable than the others . . .

Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news but the Sport is not scheduled to be imported to North America for 2007. Yet another opportunity tossed into the trash.

I recently got back from 11 days in the rainforest chasing elk up and over mountains while toting a flintlock longrifle of my own making. For once, I took a camera. Here're some pix of my portable vacation home, a Sioux-style tipi that I lived in while doing the aforementioned armed reconnaissance of said rainforest. It's about a 4-hour drive from Seattle to where we set up. It poured like Noah's Flood days the whole way but miraculously stopped just as we arrived to set up. My brother-in-law Mike was with me. He comes up from California to join me for these hunts as often as he can. Why leave the comforts of Venice Beach to pay way too much for a nonresident license to participate in what could be the toughest elk hunt in the US? Don't know, but I was glad to have him along. I've set this tipi up by myself way more times than I have with help, and it's sure a lot easier with help. Plus, he's great company. The first step is to create the tripod on which the whole tipi is erected. You do this by tying three poles with a clove hitch, rasing it up, and kicking poles out to the side to get their bases in position. Some tribes used a four-pole structure as the basis for their tipis, but the Sioux style is, I believe, stronger. The tripod is shown below, along with my bro-in-law Mike. The photo shown is actually from when we tore down, as shown by the snow on the ground. My tipi is an 18-footer, so-named because the base area is about 18 feet in diameter. After the tripod is up, you add poles one at a time, in the proper order, to create the cone of the structure. Here's Mike adding the seventh pole: Here's the structure with all but the last pole in place. At this point, you wrap the tag end of the long rope used to tie the tripod around all the other poles to stabilize the structure. Once this is done, it's incredibly strong and stable. It would take a hurricane to topple it. Mike's shown starting the first wrap below: The last pole is called the "lifting pole." You tie the cloth cover to this pole, lift the pole and cover into place, and then spread the cover over the poles, as shown in this photo, which is also from teardown: Then, you bring the ends of the cover together at the front and secure them with wooden pins. To reach the top pins, you need to use a ladder or tie a piece of wood in place across the poles and climb up, as shown below. After the cover is in place, its edges are still about six inches off the ground. This is not a "high-tide pants" mistake. You want them at least this far off the ground. Then you stake verything down, and the cover part is complete. Inside, you string a cloth liner all the way around and tie it in place. The liner on mine extends about 6 feet up the poles and hangs all the way to the ground, sealing the inside off from the outside and creating an air jacket that sucks air up between cover and liner when a fire is buring inside to help exhaust the smoke. This is important because for all practical purposes, you are living in a chimney. Sioux tipis are built with another feature that really helps get the smoke out: movable flaps, each with its own pole that allows you to adjust them from the ground. They are shown in the following photo, which I had to re-use: By moving the poles, you can move these airfoils such that wind from any direction will create a negative pressure area behind them, which helps "suck" out the smoke. You can also close them to keep out the weather when you are gone, as shown below: As some of these photos show, the rain came back as soon as we were set up and then it turned to snow. We were way up high on a mountain in my Jeep when this happened. Before we knew it, there were over two feet and it was still coming down hard and fast as we bailed out down some truly awful logging roads. We hadn't gone more than a few miles before it was so deep it was being pushed over the hood of the Jeep, and we were mired completely. After digging out and chaining up all four wheels we were able to make slow headway again, but we were both certain at the time that we would be spending the night on the side of that mountain. Down below, near camp, it was just sleeting and raining, in classic rainforest fashion. This is the strangest country, straight out of one of those awful Bigfoot movies of the 1970s, with ferns higher than your head, moss and lichens covering all four sides of every tree, and shards of moss hanging like great beards from every branch. Here're some bad photos that might give you an idea of what this country is like: So, back to the tipi . . . The cool thing about it is, you light a fire and it becomes like a living organism, breathing and coughing once in a while but keeping you impervious to rain and snow and cold and completely without worry in any but the most extreme winds. You can light a relatively small fire inside and be really cozy. You need to keep the fire burining hot, though, or it will get too smokey inside. And when the fire goes out while you are sleeping, the temp inside drops to whatever it is outside. Most days, this was in the high 20s farenheit, but it got colder a few mornings. As you look up to see sparks from the fire swirling upward through the smoke flaps, the smoke swirls againts the convirging poles, looking for all the world like a primitive version of the view upward through the center of the Guggenheim in New York. I tried to capture this view in pictures, but I do not have a lens to make it possible: The next day it kept snowing and snowing and snowing such that we couldn't really drive everywhere. Here's what it looked like that morning: The snow drove the elk lower and lower, though, till we were among them every day. I was close enough to smell them three times (even a small herd of elk smells like a barnyard full of cows), within 10 feet twice, and within 30 yards many more times. The woods are so thick, though, and so slick. Each time I was a heartbeat away from having a shot with the trusty flintlock, but the elk were quicker. They may not be so lucky next time . . .

Richard: I was not aiming that barb at you. I just really hate Wal-fucking-Mart. Has nothing to do with Guzzi parts, either. I just feel like I'm in the second of those "of the Dead" ("Day of the Dead"?) movies whenever I get near the place. The "associates" and shoppers therein all remind me of the mindless zombies strolling through the mall in that movie. Creeps me all the way out. All the way. It has to be the final option before I'll step foot in one again. I'd gladly pay $20 for a filter at the last Guzzi dealer on earth before I walked into Wal-Mart to pay $3 for the same thing. The toll on my psyche exceeds the cost savings by a factor of two to three.

Just get the hubs from an 850-T3 and lace whatever size rims you want on them. Then seal the spoke holes to make them tubeless. I can show you how. I've got a set of those Astralites, too. Let me know how much you get for them . . .

The knob on the lever, in this case.

Here's what the shorty CRG gold ones look like on my B-Bob: The shorty brake lever is just perfect for the way I ride because I always have two fingers covering the lever. Most of the folks who've bought 'em from Moto Intl. have also chosen the short brake levers over the long ones. Most have also chosen the short clutch lever, too. For the way I ride, I think I'd prefer the long one because I clutch with three fingers, and the end knob intrudes into the space for my third digit. The gold is a near-perfect match for the Ohlins, for those who care about such things, but a poor match to the gold of the master cylinders. I'm changing the m/cs out for black ones with integral reservoirs when I get some time, though, so it won't be an issue on B-Bob for long.

Yes, Walmart'll soon be carrying all the parts you need for your Guzzi, as they carry everything else you need to live a healthy and fulfilling life. That's why the folks who work there smile so extravagently!

Shit. Sounds bad. I'll be gone hunting for 11 days. I'll certainly be interested to hear what was the cause.

This is the one instance I know of where the dealer doesn't take the hit. It's working, too. We sold two new Aprilias this afternoon, since anouncement of the deal.

I have the Motobits controls like those shown on Slug's bike on my own Ballabio and love them. I have had severe injuries to both knees, yet with these controls I have put on as much as 684 miles in a day, and suffered no knee pain. With the stock pegs I was good for about 40 miles before the agony began.

Thanks, Antonio. I can't take credit for the pump relocator either. That's part of the Motobits foot-control kit.

If we have one so equipped at MI today, I'll take a pic. Here's another idea: I think it was Robbie who said you can get quite a bit more ground clearance from the stock mufflers by using the passenger-peg hangers from the Sport 1100i. Search for posts by Robbie. He posted with pix in the last month, I think. Mistrals are available in high-mount, too. And there's always the Guzzi Ti system which mounts very high and tucks in better than the Mistrals. If you want max ground clearance, the Guzzi system is your best option. I (meaning Moto International, in Seattle) can get the Mistrals or Guzzi system. I also know where a used Guzzi system is. Search in the classifieds. There is (was?) a guy from Oregon selling a beautiful LeMans with the Guzzi Ti system. He once said he was interested in selling the pipes separately from the bike.

Daaaayummm: Gary and I are in perfect agreement, for once. Eschew the yak fat in cold weather. After all, yak fat comes only in 20w-50 grades or thicker. FWIW, I hear Pete Roper is working on breeding (and I do mean personally) a new "Kobe" yak that once it reaches puberty is massaged each night and fed a beer before bedtime and as a result produces yak fat of a new and thinner grade. This is the tru secret to payng his new yacht, which is already under construction . . .

Agostini has them. I did cary them, but demand is too low to get more.

Ha! I did one for Enzo/Nemo's bike several years ago. For the record, it was made by cutting additional holes in one of Roper's windage plates for a Tonti model. That plate is, in fact, what made his bike so blisteringly fast, not those ridiculous Garter Snake pipes.