Greg Field

I am currently free of badger points. This embarrassingly crude fix otter change all that: Like all good tales, it begins with a bottle of bourbon and a holed inner tube . . . Here is the aforementioned bourbon and inner tube. For those who track such things, the tube was a holed 17-incher off a Stone. It had been sitting there in the garbage when, late at night last Friday I was changng the stock shock on Billy Bob for the newly repaired and re-sprung Ohlins so that the visiting Mike Haven, of MPH Cycles in Houston, could ride it to the WA State Guzzi breakfast the next morning. While changing the shock and lubing everything, I looked up Billy Bob's rectum and was confronted with this sight and what to do about it: Jizzus; look at that hole the wheel would sling water through. It rains here. All the time, and everything was getting corroded and covered in mung and moss (cleaned up for the photo). While I had the wheel and shock off, it occured to me that I might as well have more whisky and seal that hole. That's where the aforementioned tube came in. Why not just hack off a hunk of that free and available rubber and make a custom mudflap? So that's what I did. As shown in the photo below: Split the old tube down the gullet, punch four holes, and zip-tie in place. It's even curved, like the tire! Crude and hopelessly declasse, yes, but not a drop of water got by it on my 150 miles in the rain on Sunday. If that ain't worth a badger point, nothin' is!

Yesterday, I got all my chores done early and decided to burn the rest of the day on a ride. None of my usual riding partners were available to go, so I went alone. That's good in some ways 'cause then I could go as fast or slow as I wanted to, stop when I want to, and even play with adjustments on Billy Bob's suspension and then turn around to ride the same bumps at the same speeds repeatedly to see if there was any improvement. It was completely overcast and about 45 degrees when I left about noon—a typical day during Seattle's long "perma-gloom" season, which usually begins in November and lifts sometime in March or April. I'd decded to ride as little freeway as possible and spelunk my way on small twisty roads up to a famous lookout on a dead-end road that leads along the north flank of Mt. Baker. This mountain is the large sister mountain to Mt. Rainier, and Baker dominates the skyline to the northeast of Seattle the way Rainier dominates the skyline to the southeast of Seattle. By the direct route, it is said to be 134 miles from Seattle to the lookout. By my route, it turned out to be about 200 each way. The first stretch was about 10 miles of freeway. Of course, it started raining just as I got off the freeway—nothing like the wall of water we met trying to go to Hyder this summer, just the typical Seattle drizzle. After another 10 miles of urban highways I turned onto some of the locally famous and lightly traveled suburban twisty roads that spelunk north and east, such as the High Bridge Road, Ben Howard Road, and Lake Roessinger Road to connect with the twisty parts of Hwy. 9. These roads are really curvey in spots, and I had time, so I did bits of it twice, changing suspension settings each time. With each change I got them closer. Basically, with each round I was reducing compression damping and raising the rebound damping. The rear was still as harsh as a year-old unfiltered Camel over small stutter bumbs, so I turned its compression damping to zero, and that's where it stayed for the rest of the day. The Ohlins forks started to feel really good after about the third adjustment, but I wasn't really charging that hard yet because the roads were wet. Hwy. 9 just keeps getting better and better the farther north you go. Past Sedro-Wooley, it's one of my favorites for high-speed backroad blitzing. It's very lightly traveled, the pavement's in great shape, and the sightlines allow easy passing of what little traffic there is. The rain stopped and the clouds parted when I got to the town of Acme, about 160 miles into the journey. As the sun started drying the road on the parts it could reach, I wicked it up a bit, just to get to know the Billy Bob's capabilities a bit better. From there, it was 40 miles of nonstop curves to the end of the Mt. Baker Road. As the pavement slowly dried, the curves got tighter and tighter. No traffic, either. This was my first time up the Mt. Baker Road, and it's now a top-three favorite on the west side of the state. The pavement is perfect and the curves never stop. It's as nice as the Beartooth or Mt. Palomar or Mt. St. Helens or the North Cascades Hwy. And the scenery is awesome. Unfortunately, I assumed the day would be all rain and clouds, so I left the camera at home. The end of the line is Artist's Lookout ot Point or something like that. The view is 360 degrees of mountain crags and glaciers. You're above the treeline, but there's a few runty little Douglas firs that are probably ageless, yet the size of bonsai trees 'cause the growing season is so short. I took a quick walk around the paths at the top to warm up, and looked down on the overlapping curves of the road I had just come up. I'd be lucky if I didn't cook a brake rotor on the way down. On the way down the mountain, the road was nearly dry, except for some spots in the deep shade or where streams were overflowing onto the road, so I could explore the Billy Bob's limits and do some more suspension adjustments. After this, the Ohlins fork was now nearly perfect. The Ohlins rear is vastly improved but still underwhelming. Then, I started scraping things on the ground. This is the first time I've ridden Billy Bob aggressively enough to do so. The first thing to touch down in a curve is my feet. I beveled off the sides of both of my Redwing boots. Then, the pavement began to gnaw at the front of the sidestand and even the pegs a little bit. The bike stayed composed through it all, which is comforting. I now feel I know the bike a bit better—and the tires. Those Pilot Powers really stick, even in the wet. I ran the same route home. By the time I got back, the tripmeter showed a total of 400.7 miles for the day (about 150 in the rain), and the Zodiac chronograph watch showed 5 hours, and 48 minutes elapsed time, for a 69.6 mph average. That's not a bad average speed, considering the wet and how curvey the roads were. It was a damn good afternoon ride . . .

I got to go on my first longish solo ride on the Billy Bob this weekend, which meant I didn't have anybody to slow me down or to wait for, and I could stop anywhere I wanted, play with suspension settings, and then re-try the same set of bumps at the same speed. Here was the baseline: I've got the Ohlins on the front from a Cafe Sport. I replaced the springs with 10.5 NM Ohlins springs and set the air gap at 105 mm. per the Guzzi book. I put all pre-load and damping settings to stock, per the Cafe Sport book: ?? clicks on compression and rebound and ??mm preload (can't remember and am too lazy to look it up). I've got a rear Ohlins that was taken off a Scura under warranty and which sat in the Moto Intl' scrap heap until I plucked it out and sent it to GP Suspension to be rebuilt. At the same time, I asked them to revalve it to reduce high-speed compression damping, per recommendationd here. I got the shock back, and it worked OK for two months before blowing out catastrophically while rifing two-up. This first round was with the stock Scura spring of 8.5 NM. I weigh 235, so it was inadequate in rate. I sent it to GP, and they were really excellent about fixing it fast and getting it back to me. I shipped it on Thursday and had it back in my hands the following Tuesday, no charge. I replaced the spring with an 11 NM spring and set to the book settings for the Cafe Sport: 13mm preload and 13 click on compression and rebound. (As an aside, I cycled the shock before adding the spring. I had to lean on it with all my weight to get it to give at all against the nitrogen pressure and compression damping. That's one stiff mother.) So, I left on a fast, 400-ish mile afternoon ride up to Mt. Baker (it's as good as Palomar) and played with it a bit. The fork worked best with 3 clicks less than stock on compression and four clicks more rebound than stock. It then worked absolutely awesome, in the street sense. Way better than the late Marzocchis that had been given a stiffer spring and on which I had played with fluid viscosity. Maybe the later Ohlins as on the Cafe Sport are valved better than those on the Scura? Don't know, but they are a non-issue now. You don't notice the front suspension at all, which is wht you're after. They work so well that they negate effects of all but the absolute worst bumps. The rear is way better but still not great. To get it the best it can be, I reduced compression damping to fully off and cranked rebound up to 9 clicks from full-on. It works really well until the bumps get deep or there's a fast chopiness to the pavement, then it's overwhelmed by the 50 pounds cycling up and down. Still, hugely improved over stock. Are Ohlins worth it? At the front, yes. And if you really want them to work better, they sell re-valving kits and even upgrades for radial brakes and Superbike internals. I'm not gonna bother. If the rear blows again, I'll likely go for a Wilbers. Dave: Moto Intl. uses GP Suspension because they've always done well by us and our customers, so I used them for my own shock. They said it was just a bad seal. We will see if this one lasts.

Wallis: I set Moto Intl. up as an Ohlins dealer and bought it through the shop. Purty yaller springs are about $100.

Congrats. At least you have temp plates, so it's legal to put on those miles to get you to 7,500.

I had my shock, a Scura shock that had leaked and was replaced under warranty, rebuilt at GP Suspension and re-valved. The valving seemed OK, but the spring was way too weak. Two months later, the shock blew one day while riding two-up. I just had GP re-seal it and also bought an 11-MN spring. I should get them installed tonight or tomorrow.

I just got in my new spring for the Ohlins. It is an 11.0 NM spring. The number 1091-39/110. I'll install it tonight.

Yes, it's that time of the month again. Guzzi breakfast. Krain Corner Inn. Enumclaw. 9:00 a.m. Trout and eggs and biscuits and gravy. Mmmmm. A group of unknown size gathers in my place in Georgetown between 7:15 and 8:00 for coffee and b.s.ing before riding down, via Green Valley Road. If anyone's interested in joining up, let me know and I'll give directions.

I'm 6 ft 4 in. I have a Ballabio. The bars were always comfy, but my legs and knees were cramped. Motobits foot controls cured that. Longest day so far was 680 miles in pretty good comfort.

Rcono: Did the stickers on that hugger we sent you pass muster with the CA inspection folks?

9:00 at the Krain Corner in Enumclaw. A group usually gathers at my house and rides down together. If any of you want to join in, let me know.

There were at least a half-dozen V11s there last month. Bring yours. I'll be on the Eldo this time . . . 6-9 at Planet Georgetown, in Georgetown.

Bill: Aren't you supposed to be resting those hamstrings and drinking to quell the pain? What type of crossover do you have? Perhaps you could eliminate the contact by loosening all the clamps and fasteners and the shift everything leftward? Screw is a 5mm by 15mm long stainless steel buttonhead cap screw, Guzzi part number 98370515.

The angle thing will no longer be an issue if you install Pete's plate. It has a small oval hole that the dipstick must go through to get a reading. If the stick is through that hole you cannot be off the correct angle by enough degrees to make a difference.

I had Moto I longtime tech jason, who's rebuilt a bunch of Ohlins on Guzzis, Aprilias, and Ducatis show me how when I put stiffer springs in my Ohlins. he measured the gap with the springs on the bench. FWIW: Aprilia sells a revision kit for the Ohlins that has the seals and dust scrapers for two legs for about $60. This seems like a pretty good deal.

In the context of Piaggio Americas, nonsense is sense, stupid is brilliant, and failure is success. It's an Orwellian company.

Yes, you are right about mis-writing the part number. BFG: I'll try to add this all to the thread you referenced.

Pretty much zero. I work at a dealership and couldn't get any satisfaction on that issue. If it's within 6 months of buying the bike, you may have a case, though.

DO any of you have a source for deciphering the numbers on Ohlins shock springs? The spring in my now leaking again Ohlins has number 1091-26185 L511. Anybody know what rate it is? WHat rate do some you others use? Thanks!

I think someone on the list has installed Givis. Search, and you may find it.

I should've just marked the level of the bottom of the plate and used that as the new upper oil level. It was early in the morning, though, and I was out of coffee, so the obvious was not so obvious.

He didn't even tell the half of it. Nevertheless, the good dealers have always known how to work around Guzzi. If, for example, Guzzi says they are out of the starters, I can get him one for half of what Guzzi charges. He can then do the warranty paperwork as if he'd bought it from Guzzi, making more than the usual, paltry profit. ATD has bought parts from me before, and will again. They know the score. It's always a game with the Italians (Guzzi, Aprilia, or Piaggio, no difference). You just gotta learn to play it better than they do.

I got a chance to do a proper test tonight. I tried to duplicate exactly the conditions under which the oil pressure dropped to zero before: oil level halfway or so between the full and add marks, same spot, same full-throttle sprint into a traffic hole, etc. I watched the gauge during two such sprints and the pressure kept climbing with rpm, instead of dropping to zero. Then, I headed downtown, to the Pike Place market, where there's some really steep side streets on which to try some full-throttle uphill starts. Man, the rear wheel was a'skipping and a'hopping and a'chiping as I tore up those cobblestone goat paths, but the pressure kept rising with rpm. Short of an extended high-angle-wheelie test, I do not know what could be a more torturous test than this. Three passes, and no pressure loss. Congratulations, Mr. Roper. I think you came through, once again!

Chris Beauchemin's is one of the V11s on which we (MI) replaced torched rod bearings this summer. He never really said whether his oil light flickered on under hard acceleration. It looked like oil starvation to all of us who examined the bearings. This is the bike that I stated was from unknown cause in the earlier post, because we could never really pinpoint what happened. I concur that he was a top-1-percent meticulous owner, who paid attention to detail. I don't think he would let his oil level get low and not notice. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone.

I experienced the same. RaceTech 1.0 kg/mm springs and Redline 5w fluid. Then, I put on Ohlins. The Marzocchis will be an excellent upgrade to the Eldo.