Frenchbob

That's a well cool parrot, but why has it got its toe in its ear? Whatever, I think there's a certain inevitability about the direction of this thread. However, if we all resist the temptation to post on it, it might just die on its own.

You know I meant a Breva section: slip of the keyboard after an aperitif, this lunchtime! Perhaps you're right, though.

Surely, there's room for a V11 section, here, Jaap. It's sort of a V11, after all.

But you had to, once more.....! [i did it once, but I think I got away with it....] To change the subject, have you still got the T100/Daytona [whichever it is] in the sepia photo on your info page? I had a 1970 Daytona until 2000 and loved it. Boy, did it go, but the motor always felt like a grenade waiting to go off, at speed. Happy birthday, by the way!

I think rather a lot of damage has been done already. It is symptomatic of the way the current American government acts in the real world, is it not?............. and you can now see where they get their support from. Frankly, I have been appalled at some of the sentiments expressed on this thread, and I think it should have been pulled some time ago. Please don't think I'm anti-American: I'm an ardent admirer of American thought, literature and music. That was "thought"!

Really, I think that's wonderful. My best motorcycling [1979 BMW R80/7 called Erich] mate, who is also a fanatical cyclist, rides a 1930s butcher's lad's bike to work. We cycled to and over the Pyrenees a couple of years ago, and he rode a cheap supermarket bike, wearing a pale blue plastic mac most of the way! We made a lot of friends you wouldn't want to invite back home! This was doubly brave in a land where cycling is taken VERY seriously. I look forward to seeing more weird bicycles..........

Ben, I shall show a print of your post to my good friend in the Harley club of Limoges, whose surname is Azuk, when I next meet him for a creme or a beer. He'll be bemused, if not amused by your response. He's quite familiar with the history of the Americas. amities.........

A significant amount of WW2 was fought in Europe. We don't talk about it much, here. But since you brought the subject up, I live within an hour's ride of a sizeable town which is, today, a ruined monument to the barbarity of mankind. Everyone in it bar four people died on one day in 1944. Of the survivors one [boy] lived in a rabbit hutch with serious burns and broken knees for 2 days, and one [young woman] jumped, having been machine-gunned through the legs, out of the burning church belfry with her baby. She survived; her child did not. My neighbour's father, a village schoolteacher, was killed with 50 other resistance fighters carrying shotguns and hunting rifles by several companies of soldiers with armoured vehicles, grenades, rocket-launchers and automatic weapons, because they would not give in. They would not give in because of the inhumanity of the death they knew awaited them if they did. As I said, we don't talk about it much. Now can we drop this, please? it's a Moto Guzzi V11 forum. FRENCHbob

Well, you're probably right. I'm resentful of youth and money, is my trouble. I couldn't afford or justify a Lotus Elise, though. I hope to have as much fun with my Triton at Prenois this June, but if someone gave me the chance to take a Lotus round Francorchamps, I would jump at it.............

John, are weird bicycles a special thing with you?

Don't let it wind you up. Cars like that are for young men with lots of money, small organs and no taste who either don't know they want a big bike yet, or haven't got the bottle/skill. It's hard to fall off a car. Hustling my V11 [ or any big bike with a moderate amount of power, or better] through a series of tightening, well-surfaced bends I'm familiar with, getting through and pulling it out on the throttle, at what feels like, but is probably not near enough the edge of adhesion, is a sensation I have never experienced behind the wheel of any car, and I've had some good ones.

Well, we're self-sufficient in most things except red meat, but the butcher is an excellent tenor. It's a bugger, though, because he doesn't find us more than once in a hundred years! Here's hoping for sunshine in your neck of the woods tomorrow.

Dr Gil, It truly is better when you do it yourself, and we Guzzisti just love doing it ourselves! Spectacularly good result: lovely bike. Well done, chum. Bob

That's brilliant! Well done, mate. Bob

It's freezing here, again, now the sun's gone in, but it really was that warm, this lunchtime, even though there was still snow about. Mind you, the village I live in is a bit like a French Brigadoon!

........the Sun has got his hat on and he's coming out to play! 20 degrees C outside the barn door, I'm in my t-shirt and my Mistrals have arrived! They fit extremely well, except for a little fettling required to the hangars supplied: done in five minutes. They sound orgasmic [i got track ones] and now I'm going for a ride. Thanks, guys, for the advice received on this [and acted upon]. Bob

You see! Serious stuff, for a change: up to the minute issues, incisive debate.

Respect!

I have the same kit on the bike when I'm touring. Had to use it once on the 900 Triumph which my V11 replaced, and it worked until I got home, some days afterwards, when I had the repair vulcanised to see out the life of the tyre. The only experience I've had with goo was when I fell off some years ago with a can in my kitbag. It ruptured and the contents of the can rotted the bottom of my bag out! It's probably not the same stuff now, though!

If this develops into a transatlantic spelling competition thread, I'm selling my V11 and leaving the forum to find a "senile farts on British bikes arguing about the correct mudguard stay screws on a 1932 Velocette GTP" forum. There must be one, and it might be more to the point than global warming and the correct use of the apostrophe of omission. Anyway, when did you last hear "Let me through - I have a doctorate in English grammar"?

A refinement of this [if you're an advanced bodger] is to use thin plastic card, such as used in model-making and available at any modelling supplies shop. Epoxy it and you won't need longer screws. I did it on mine and it works well.

Don't I remember hearing somewhere that Yamaha were design consultants with the wide angle 16v four range of Toyota sports engines in the eighties? I had a RWD Corolla GT with one of these in it and it was a pocket rocket.

This assumes that most of us who took the mickey were bored/intellectually inadequate/just plain stupid. That's at least mildly insulting, and I think you would be quite surprised if you became aware of the academic backgrounds of some of the members you seems content to patronise. Actually, it was just an outbreak of sense of fun. Accept, my friend, that some of us don't think the V11 forum is the appropriate arena to get serious about serious issues: it's not what we're here for. I enjoy my time here, but I don't expect or want to become embroiled here in issues I am nevertheless very well qualified to discuss. Cheers.

Sorted!

Just buy one, Nogbad. If you don't like the colour, you can always repaint it. There was a thread on here some time ago about that. Aerosols do it, if I remember right. Or should that be ars..........no, let it pass. You need more than one bike anyway. You have a V11, then........... You need one to ride in the dirt, one to go shopping on, an old Brit to ride and another to repair, or take bits off. Then you have to have an old Guzzi to see the difference [or lack of]....and a tourer............and probably a caff racer......a big Harley for when you're too old and fat to care.......and if your mate gets another bike you have to have one more or less the same to show him what a proper one is like. How many is that? I've probably missed a couple out, there.