GuzziMoto

Yeah, and it is hysterical what some people can read by "reading between the lines". Coal is less and less of the US energy market, it has been in decline for years. That said, the electricity that powers our electric car is almost entirely solar. I don't have children, and probably won't be alive when the shit hits the fan. So I don't really have a dog in the fight. But it seems like a shitty thing to do to leave a huge pile of burning doo doo for people who come after me. Others clearly don't care what the next generations are left with, as long as they get theirs. Ironically, many of those people have children..... Whatever.

I should also add, Michelin seem to have a big problem with consistency with their tires as well. The latest to suffer was Miller on the Duc. https://the-race.com/motogp/millers-tirade-against-michelin-and-why-michelin-disagrees/ “Two decent tyres all weekend, and I tried my maximum in the race but to be honest I had nothing on the right-hand side from the beginning until the end, and especially at the end." “I was [wheel]spinning in a straight line. I don’t know what happened with the hard tyre but it didn’t function."

Currently Michelin decides on three different tire compounds and constructions and brings those three to each race. The teams have no say in which tires are brought. It is three fronts and three rears, plus any wet weather tires. The three tire deal is just for slicks. The plan next year is for Michelin to only bring two different tires, two fronts and two rears, to races next year. Again, the teams will have no say in which tires Michelin brings. If a teams bikes don't work with either of those tires, they are SOL. It would be nice if teams had a say in which tires they get to use at a given track. It would be even nicer if Michelin would work with teams to tailor the tires to the bikes. It would be great if Michelin would stop changing tire specs and throwing away all the R & D time and money teams spent to get their bikes to work with the "spec" tires. I get the inequality that was inherent in the old system before there was a spec tire. But the current system is full of its own inequality. If you wanted to stop special tires being made only for certain riders, simply make a rule that requires tire manufacturers to bring enough tires for all their riders in order for any of their riders to be able to use a given tire. And don't let the tire manufacturers distribute the tires they bring to the riders. Have them submit the various tires they brought to the FIM, and have the FIM hand the tires out. If there aren't enough tires of a given compound / construction and someone wants one but there are no more, remove that specific tire from use. That will still allow competition between tire manufacturers. And it will still allow motorcycle manufacturers to design MotoGP bikes that aren't the same as everyone else's, because tires can be built to suit different bikes. But it will limit how far a tire manufacturer would go to build special tires as they would have to build enough special tires for all their riders. Instead, we have a system where Michelin decides which bikes are faster and which bikes are slower by deciding which tires everyone has to use. And in some cases they change those tires in the middle of a season, or test certain tires at a given track and then show up with different tires. It does not help the racing to do it this way. And it does not reduce costs for anyone other than Michelin. Because of tire "adjustments" most teams actually end up spending more money, not less. Having raced on different brand tires, and having received some of the "good" tires from at least one brand. I understand just how much of a difference tires will make in how fast a given racer on a given bike can go. It can be a massive difference, and in a field where the grid is around one second between front and back that can make all the difference.

I feel this is a good move for KTM. Miller is probably the best rider KTM has yet signed to ride their bike. Not only will his experience be useful but Jack is fast. There will likely be a learning curve, as the KTM is not like the other bikes. But hopefully Miller can adapt to it. I would have preferred Miller to go to Aprilia, but KTM could use the help as well. KTM seems to get screwed every time Michelin change tire specs. They seem more sensitive to that than the others, although Honda also got screwed on the most recent changes to the "spec" tires. Now I hear Michelin is only going to bring two compound / construction tires to races. Of course, the teams get no say in which two. Boy, that is going to screw someone.

I have no plans to get rid of my internal combustions Guzzi's. Well, maybe the Griso. I just don't have enough time and room for all of them. But I could see buying an electric motorcycle. The performance could easily surpass what my Guzzi's can do. A few years ago we had to replace our car, and even back then it made sense to buy an electric vehicle as within a few years the electric car would prove cheaper to own and operate. And that was without knowing that gas was going to surpass $5 a gallon. We feel like a genius. Nailed that one. It is clear that the days of internal combustion engines are numbered. They are just too inefficient. But I suspect they will still be around for a good while. Just because they stop selling them new some point in the future doesn't mean they go away. But they will become less and less common, the same way horse did. Used to be horses were primary transportation power for most people, then along can the ICE powered car. Horses became a luxury item, used for fun. I suspect internal combustion vehicles will go down the same path. With any luck I will live to see it.

I have never stopped racing before the end of the race, thinking it was over. But I have crashed on a warmup lap, once. I was surprised by someone else and had to avoid them, running off the track at speed. I have a friend who crashed on the cooldown lap, but in his defense he didn't see the checkered flag (he was lapped right before the line and never got the white flag). He thought he was still racing and was trying to catch the guy in front of him. I get that mistakes happen, but at that level that mistake shouldn't happen. These guys are pro's, and pro's should not make rookie mistakes. As to Taka, I am not sure what he did was so wrong. I get that people who were affected by what he did are pissed, but it seemed like an honest mistake to me. I don't see a pattern of mistakes, or a rider who rides with a disregard for the safety of others. There are riders who have a much more extensive history of knocking other riders down. To penalize Taka for that while turning a blind eye to others would seem wrong. You either take action at everyone who knocks other riders down or you only take action when it is blatant. And that was not blatant.

No, actually we haven't all done it. In fact, very few of us have done it. That said, if it wasn't so tragic it would have been hysterical. What a bonehead move by Aleix. That is worse than crashing on the cool down or warm up lap.

So, on Friday in FP2 in Spain the two Aprilias are fastest, Aleix on top with Maverick behind him, about three tenths back I believe. It is looking good for Aprilia. Could this be the weekend MV finally justifies being on the factory Aprilia? Or is this classic MV and he will fall back?

Yeah, never really a fan of Biaggi but that wheelie was insane. Truly epic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BA2clO3WFE

I am not the big expert here, but my experience is to first look and the external aspects of the shift linkage. It is fairly common for the external shift linkage to bind or catch, and that can cause shifting issues. To be fair, ours shifts pretty well. And while it is possible to find a false neutral here or there it is rare to actually hit them in use. Usually they are more likely when looking for neutral, finding a false neutral instead of the real neutral.

Most WSBK guys don't seem to do it. But I seem to recall Toprak likes to do that. I am not the guy to ask, as I never understood the move. For me, if I am hard on the brakes it was always taking all my strength to keep the bike in line and not let the rear swap places with the front under hard braking. Once you are braking hard enough to unload the rear tire fully the bike becomes a poorly designed unicycle and the rear tire tries to pass the front tire. I use my arms and legs to keep the bike mostly straight. So I am not the best guy to ask about the dangling leg. In supermoto I would sometimes hang the inside leg off on the brakes into a turn, but that is different. And honestly, most of the time I would still keep both feet on the pegs even when I am backing it in.

There are some members on here from your neck of the woods, and they may have some suggestions. But for the most part I tend to agree with Phil, the best Guzzi mechanic is the owner of the Guzzi. I am just looking into sorting why our V11 Sport won't charge the battery. Can't be that hard. What sort of issue is it? What still needs sorting?

The attendance has been a mixed bag, some rounds of MotoGP having attendance up while others have been down. I imagine the costs play a large part in that, I heard the French round had reasonable ticket prices while other rounds have had high ticket prices. It will be interesting to see if Marc Marquez can come back from this surgery and return to the front. Or it could be the beginning of the end for him. I hope not. I am very happy Aprilia is going to have a second team. But I am dumbfounded as to why they signed Vinales for two more years. It will be interesting to see who they sign to ride the other two bikes. There is certainly no shortage of top level riders with no ride after Suzuki has bailed and Jack Miller is likely to be out at Ducati. We may get Rins and Miller on the other two Aprilia's. I am not sure why people are so excited to see Mir at Honda. The Honda doesn't seem that far off of the front, but I really don't know if Mir is the guy to get that last little bit out of it. Mir doesn't seem like the kind of racer who is worth that little bit extra, he is usually more the consistent guy who only won one race on his way to the title. Rins seems to have more speed than Mir, you just need to get Rins to stop crashing so much. Easier to teach the faster guy to crash less than teach the slower guy to go faster.

I am not sure why anyone hangs their leg out like that. In the end it probably comes down to feel, but for me that feels wrong. I kinda think that Rossi first started doing it to see if he could get others to do it too. There are plenty of riders who don't do it. But those that do tend to be European. I have not noticed many here in the states doing it.

Yeah, Petrucci's version doesn't seem to agree with other versions and with the video. And while people can be mistaken, the video doesn't lie. Again, I like Petrucci and hope he gets over this. But his accident was an odd one.

While I was very glad to hear Petrucci was going to race in Moto America, and early results for him were great, things have taken a bad turn. After having two non-great races at VIR, he wrecked right after the checkered flag flew in the second race at VIR. But that wasn't were it went south. Afterwards he started saying bad things about Moto America on social media, which was picked up by others and became a story about the incident that was based only on what he posted on social media. But some of what he posted about the incident was incorrect (not true). So people were slamming Moto America without even had seen the incident or the aftermath of it. There is an excellent article in Roadracing World that pretty well covers the story. They actually talked to people who knew what happened. And there is even video evidence that what Petrucci said was incorrect. I like Petrucci, and hope he calms down and stays to race here. The season is looking good, Petrucci will likely get some strong competition from others like Gagne and Scholtz, especially Gagne, he took a couple races to find his grove but he is now on it. The early results from Petrucci may have came easier, I don't think it will be that easy for the rest of the season. But I do hope he calms down and decides to stay. It seems the honeymoon is over.

I have not taken the cartridge apart on ours, but it was clearly a cartridge and not a damper rod set up. The valving appears to be shims on a piston, but it has been a while. And I am not sure how the adjusters worked. It is possible that the valving is stationary and the piston has not valving, it just forces the oil through the stationary valving at one end of the cartridge. I don't know, I did not open the cartridge. It was not required for what I was doing. Again, it has been years since I worked on it. I do know the cartridge had a pair of holes in it that allowed the oil to bypass the valving in the piston. And by blocking off one of those two holes I forced more oil to go through the valving and thus the adjuster had a noticeable effect, while previously with both holes open the adjuster had no effect until the piston moved past at least one of the two holes. So as designed the adjusters were only effective in the last inch or so of travel, something of an adjustable hydraulic bumpstop. The dampening was separate, one leg had valving in that piston that worked in compression and the other had valving that worked in extension (rebound). In the compression side there was no valving to slow oil from flowing from above the piston to below the piston, and on the other side there was no valving to slow the oil from below the piston to above the piston. There was only valving in one direction. But again, all this was taking place in a separate cartridge inside the fork and not using a damper rod at the bottom of the fork. They may have a different design for the cartridge than later forks, but it is a cartridge.

Are you sure? I took my wife's red frame V11 forks apart, they were cartridge forks, not damper rod forks. The cartridge had two bypass holes in it that allowed the fork oil to bypass the valving in the piston in the cartridge.

Tank suck, as it is sometimes called, is not uncommon. It usually happens because the tank has a one way valve that is supposed to only let air in to replace fuel being used and not let fumes out. But it is fairly common for the valve to be installed backwards, so it ends up letting air out but not in. Or the valve can be installed correctly, and when you open the gas cap it actually vents out (not in) creating a whoosh. Not telling you what to do, but we have removed the one way valve on ours, so it does not prevent air from entering or fumes from escaping. It just vents either direction as needed.

While I like those, to me that is crazy money for one. I don't see it as being worth that much, not as a motorcycle. But I think they are looking to sell it as a museum piece more so then as a motorcycle. I don't buy museum pieces, I prefer motorcycles. I will say I remember being pretty impressed by the fit and finish of the RC30 when it was new. But for that money I would buy an MGS01. It is a much rarer bike, better looking, and cooler. https://seattleusedbikes.com/motorcycle/2004-moto-guzzi-mgs-01-corsa [docc copied/pasted Image Link]

Yeah, the sideways V2 really suits the spine frame design more than other engine configurations. Not only that, but it seems like the spine frame suits the sideways engine layout better than pretty much any other option. But it does not suit other engine layouts as well. So it isn't likely anyone else would develop the design. And Guzzi seems to have lost interest in it. But you never know. I do think there is much more potential there. If I live long enough to retire, one of my hopes is to build my own spine frame Guzzi. I think that would be fun.

I remember racing against Pete Johnson on a Raceco Guzzi in the AHRMA BEARS and Twins series. I don't think it was "the" Raceco Guzzi. As I recall the two Guzzi's Pete Johnson raced in AHRMA BEARS and Twins were not spine frame bikes. I believe they were based on LeMans chassis'. But they were fast. As I recall, Manfred Hecht was the guy tuning the Guzzi's for Pete. But I don't think they liked us and our Ducati much. While everything has limits, you could likely extend the limits of the spine frame simply by making the spine larger. Another thing that would improve it is making the spine round instead of making it out of a rectangle. Or an idea I have played with in my head is to use a pair of round tubes one above the other going back to a larger diameter tube above the swingarm pivot.

What I heard was Petrucci was having issues getting the engine braking right, in the first race he did not have enough engine braking and it made him feel like he wasn't going to slow down enough for the corners. Supposedly one of the commentators made a comment to him mentioning being impressed by how deep he was going in on the brakes into corners, Petrucci said that it wasn't that he was going in deep but that he couldn't slow down fast enough because the engine braking wasn't right. I have raced that track, and it is really multiple tracks in one, The section from the tight right hander after the esses to the hair pin that heads you back down the hill is fairly tight and pretty hokey. The section coming back down the hill across the start finish line into turn 1 is crazy fast. Turn 2 to the hokey right after the esses is not bad, but much slower then coming down the hill. All in all, I wasn't a fan of the track from a racers perspective. It is too dangerous and lacks proper run off in some areas. I wonder if it would be better if they ran the full track? At least it would get rid of that make shift section from the right after the esses to the hair pin that send you back down the hill. That part of the track is hokey (it bears mentioning again). I do think we got a glimpse of Petrucci's true competition. Gagne is fast, but his start to the season was off. It probably won't be as easy as it was at COTA and Road Atlanta. Plus some of the tracks aren't up to the standards of those first two tracks. Gagne is used to it, but Petrucci hasn't raced on tracks like that in a long time, if ever. I think he can do it, if you can race Dakar you can race anywhere.

I have ridden motorcycles with aggressive steering geometry that needed steering dampers. I used to race a TZ250, and that bike was near impossible to ride without a steering damper. It had something like 22 degrees of rake. I also had an FZR400, and that really needed a steering damper, but it did not come with one stock. You could ride it without one, but It wasn't nearly as stable feeling as a V11 is without one. To race it you really needed a steering damper. That bike met its demise in a tankslapper. I also raced a TL1000R a few times. That bike had a steering damper and yet still met its demise in a tankslapper. It seemed like that thing wanted to kill me. On the other side, I had a Buell X1 Lightning, it had aggressive geometry and yet did not need a steering damper. I even raced it and didn't need a steering damper in spite of having something like 23 degrees of rake. Only one degree more than the TZ. That was a well engineered bike handling wise. It shows that steep steering angle alone doesn't mean it needs a steering damper. Anyway, different strokes for different folks. But the V11 is just not very aggressive geometry wise. If someone likes the heavier feel a steering damper provides, run one. But anyone interested in making their V11 feel lighter may want to try running it without the steering damper. If nothing else it will show them what sort of difference the steering damper is making. You don't know until you try.

I will add my two cents, not so much for the OP as simply for future people reading this, and because I feel the need to be part of the discussion. The wife's V11 had the stock Biturbo damper on it from new. Years later we started having stability issues with the V11. It did not want to go straight. The steering damper was not leaking, but inspection revealed that it was binding. The damper would resist moving until it let go and then it would move freely. That is really a bad thing in a steering damper. What it would do is make it resist handlebar inputs until sufficient force was applied to overcome that resistance. It would then move freely so the additional force applied was more than required and you would overshoot the desired outcome. The result was the bike would weave instead of track straight. To confirm that was the problem, I removed the steering damper and we rode it. We found it steered better without any steering damper (an early red frame V11, one of the ones that has less trail so it is supposedly less stable). So we just left the steering damper off and have run it that way ever since. The V11 does not have overly aggressive geometry, and really shouldn't need a steering damper. If you prefer the heavier, slower, steering that a steering damper provides running one will give you that. But the wife decided she prefers the lighter quicker steering it has without a steering damper. She really doesn't need a 500 lb motorcycle to feel even heavier. Now, insert the standard disclaimer, your mileage may vary.