mdude

Look forward to it, dude. I saw the Stooges in Bergen, Norway in May last year. Damn, they made a healthy racket.... Loudest band since.... well, since last time I saw Iggy. and Nogbad, get some magnesium milk for that sour belly....

heres what I did on the V11 this weekend: I went down into the garage, approached it with caution so as not to wake it from hibernation, gave it a little hug and whispered to it that theres only four months left 'till spring... did the same to the Laverda... gonna wake the guys up next week to give them some trickle charging and a warmup... 3 degrees celsius outside, and we have not had sunlight in four weeks straight. its bad up here....

elks, flintlocks... you didnt mention the duellling banjos or the piggy squealing?....

heres to Serge, a cock amongst men. Thats how I want to go: a meal, a quickie and then a liedown in the shade. suddenly one finds oneself at the gates of the eternal trackday...

sad to hear about the slapper, incidents like that always get me down to the garage to check things over yet again. let the healing begin... Allow me to share my experience, even though I'm a novice when speaking of adjustments: I think this slapping business might be because the way these bikes are set up by Luigi for his little brother; for small and light testriders driving on smooth surfaces (perhaps?). when I bought my 2001/02 V11S Greenie (bought unseen) it was with 7000 kms on the clock, stock springs and dealer setup both on fork and rear shock. and it was plain dangerous! it was so goddam hard and nervous that a coin in the road made it jump 1 meter to the side, I never knew where I was going to finish the turns because any imperfection in the road threw it out of course. Steering it was like feeding chicken to an alligator blindfolded, in this state I worried a lot about tank slappers and had a death grip on the bars at all times. This was on tight B-roads with coarse surfaces. It was just fine riding highways and cruising, but the twisties gave me brownies... Im about 200 pounds in combat gear with gorilla arms and the bike clearly had all its weight sitting on the rear wheel. if I leant aggressively over the tank it got a lot better. first action (after advice from this site) was to back off on the comp and rebound settings all around. a lot better: less nervous and easier to point in a straight line. it still steered both slowly and nervously at the same time, though. next action: adjust rear shock. I stiffened the spring on the rear shock almost 3/4 to the max, and raised the rear about two-three cms. A LOT better, now it steered where I wanted almost all the time and the death grip was history. I experimented with the steering damper and found that in this state I didnt have to use more than a click or two of damping. The bike was still a bit slow steering and didnt have a lot of feel through the forks, I didnt trust it all the way. next action Wilbers progressive 0,9 kg fork springs as recommended by Ratchethack. Now even better, much more feel and more precise, though the mechanic didnt get the sag right. I'll look into that in spring. I have not had a single moment with anything resembling slapping or wobbling after I turned up the rear shock and backed off on comp and rebound. It just goes where I want like an old steamer. It still lacks some feel and ultimate precision, but I think thats just down to final adjustments. And after all its just an old hotrod... Moral? Be careful with driving this bike straight out of the box. Personalize it!

suggestion: "just a second, dude. I got to find the elbow grease..."

DONT push it, dude.... I bought pegs from the Ulysses, 2006... if they have the lowered shape with the angled kink(as on photo above) they will all be correct. I think the sports models have straight pegs which wont lower anything.

Well, I must be the only one here not bickering about lost horsepowers or where the supersports model is. I like these new models. Its a step forward, its different and shows a lot of further potential, I think the Griso got better with the small design tweaks. The exhaust look much more interesting now. The new cruiser: I HATE cruisers and I have never really liked the Cali (it has no soul of its own, it just borrows), but this one I quite like. It has the same relaxed enjoyably sporty/retro feel as the new/old Triumphs, mixed with some Street Rod cues. And those models are big sellers... I wouldnt mind the cruiser, actually. At all. Thats the first time I say that about these kind of bikes. (of course this cruiser is also a borrower of design features, but I think this design suits the MG character so much better) So what with this whining about lacking power. Its all in there, I suppose MG would like to hone the reliability of the engine, work on the image slowly and controlled, and pull some more grown up customers out of the Beemer crowd before cranking it up. There has been more activity at MG the last year than the six previous years, and thats good isnt it? This year there has been a lot of news coming out and every time theres a massive DOH!! on these pages. Why? Of course MG cant produce a new V11. Its old, no one wants it. Its noisy, difficult to drive, loaded with niggles and not everymans bike. If MG is to survive they HAVE to produce some kind of everymans bike, show thats it a good proposition, work on the organisation, get sorted – and theyre getting there. I think it seems like they finally have a plan. My guess is that our lot, the hardened oildrinking-suspensiontweaking-noiseloving old school saltyseabeard bikers, are not included as target groups at all. Its plain silly to compare these new strangled-by-regulations models with the Godzillas and Dr Johns of the old world. Those are fierce, steamhammervibrating angry hotrods (as is our V11 in a way) and dont have to comply with anything. MG is set to producing some cool characterful real world bikes for real world riding, nice sales of these will get us a hot new torque monster faster. I'd like an orange Griso 8V and a matt black Cruiser please.

-3C, icy back roads and other roads covered in rotten leaves slime. its definitely winter, and the end of riding came early this year.

of course farting produce electricity. whenever I let rip the mood inside the flat goes all high voltage for ages. till she opens a window....

just a simple point: every step of your process should have a simple appendix. example: 2) remove sump pan 2B) open can of beer... and so on. Same appendix on every step. This will make Guzzi maintenance a lot more bearable.

ok, no notice is taken... its autumn

My bike is a bit more whiny in third than the rest of the gears. I can only hear it with earplugs which filters all the other strange noises (which took me a bout a year to get used to...) out. Its only run 10k kms so it cant be wear. Suppose its just another Guzziism...

hear hear, the polished ones are exceedingly longwinded

Just leave it. I've just the same problem. With the Tis on a mistral Xover, the left (when standing behind the bike) is 2-3 cms shorter than the right one, and hangs lower. I think I spent about 8 sweaty working hour, six pints and a lot of swearing to get them aligned and in the end I just let them be in the best position I couid manage. With all the fiddling I risked destroying the finish on the cans. I think the problem with them is that they are made symmetrical, but the bike is really quite assymmetrical with differences from left to right on many things.

this calls for a whack on the head with a battered Stratocaster, or maybe better: a monster wedgie! you riding this old dinosaur of a ditch pump engined bike and tell us history dont matter?

no serious bodges on the bikes this season. but once (loooong ago) I sold my old Saab 99. It had a serious nazty rattle in the engine. I got a tip from a half drunken mate one friday and (half drunk miself) stuffed one and a half mashed banana down in the sump after which it ran amazingly silent for a week and the buyer was very happy. On the seventh day a nasty fire developed in the engine bay where the banana had squeezed itself out of the sump. But then I was inrolled in the Army and couldnt be bothered..... got a bloody nose out of it later though.....

I'm comfortable at 190 cms. A stop now and then to loosen up, and not too tight trousers and its just fiiiine. but I can see that anyone taller than me will have problems with the leg position and angle. Buell pegs will help. Really big guys are probably better off with a 1150GS or something

I am a torque-addict, so I've got the Mistral with the Ti-pipes. Its good, loads of torque from as low as 1800-3800, but a definite loss of vigour from 4200 upwards. it takes off again at 5000+, but the stock exhaust were actually a lot more impressive at the top end (still: standard exhaust suck massively in the midrange.) the sound is deep but muted, nearly stock at tickover but with thumping bass and a nice snarl when you give it some from 3000. its what you use most that decides, full tilt all the time or mostly midrange roll ons.

no bike here, but its a Glorious Greenie. picture from company trip to Mallorca, during an especially tough and challenging wine tasting.... me in white shirt, all blurry

wow, I like this one. looks like a modernized Centauro. never heard of the company...

Screaming Jay Hawkins to technician "man, wots that echo in this here studio?!" Tech to Jay "Its in your head, Jay" Jay "Ok..." -----

this kind of stuff gives me a lot more respect for the Guzzisti overseas. you guys must be The True Afficionados to endure this kind of spareparts and dealer chaos. respect! keep at it. I just wobble 1 km up a hill, and theres a perfectly nice MG dealer right there (if you keep his hideously dirty workshop out of view). If he dont have the part, he'll call TLM or Corsaitaliana or another and no part is more than five days away. we lucky bastards. by the way: the official importer/distributor in Norway is braindead, no one deals with them.

my thought excactly by the way, what was bullshit? (by the way, I just checked out their website and they dont list at single technical specification in there. THAT is bullshit)