Trevini

The everyday thing on the TDM isn’t boring by any stretch of the imagination. Having an Ohlins shock and upgraded cartridge fork internals ensures that. It’ll run rings around the V11 in the twisties.

I feel like I’ve got the best of both worlds with my TDM 900 (270 twin) and my V11. One is smooth, economical, has linear power delivery and is generally a great bike for every day use, but doesn’t really excite. The other is the V11. A bit rough round the edges with its old school character and mechanics. It excites on every ride as you feel a part of it. The TDM has been under my care since 2005 and is just on 62k miles now, all done by me. The V11 since 2011 when I saw it and lusted after it. It’s the one I turn round to look at. I reckon it’s a pretty good pairing really. Performance is near identical between the two, but the delivery it totally different. They compliment each other nicely.

I actually did a first and last ride. Last ride of the year yesterday with some of our local RoSPA group members as one of our regular Sunday runs, covering around 150 miles in total. Twelve of us in total on a variety of hardware. Today, just a spin around locally of around 60 ish miles to play with suspension settings a little. Saw quite a few bikes out and loads of dog walkers, plus a fair few horses and riders around the lanes. Slightly chilly, but a fun couple of days.

I reckon it's been dropped looking at the MOT history. It had an advisory in May 2010 that the near side bar was bent at (406 miles). 17 miles between April 2007 and June 2011 won't have done it much good either. I reckon anyone that buys that to use it will have an array of issues to deal with in addition to the ones already listed. Oil seals failing quite quickly where everything has dried out being just one that springs to mind.

Can you not get it helicoiled?

Been using it for years. It's best for components that need to be removed fairly regularly, such as rocker covers, sump gaskets etc when used in conjunction with the correct gaskets. Easy to clean off too.

I've been running Conti Road Attacks on the V11 for a few years now. Great tyres. I've also been using the RA 2s on my TDM and they're an improvement on the originals. They do wear quite quickly if doing a lot of non twisty riding. I've been getting between 4-5k miles from the rears on either bike. Just about to change tyres on my V11 and have a set of PR4s to go on purely to get better longevity for sporty touring. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Nice collection of Alfas you have there. I had a 159 before the Giulietta and I have to say, it was a much better car all round. Keep hold of the Brera. I reckon they'll start getting collectable in a few years, especially the V6 engines models.

We have three in our household...Two Italians and a Jap. My daily driver and works vehicle is a wreck of a a Suzuki Jimny. The other daily driver is an Alfa Giulietta, which is usually driven by 'er indoors. Italian no 2 is a Maserati 3200 GT and is purely my plaything and mid life crisis car, but looks good alongside the V11 in the garage.

I can charge a capacitor up and post to you if you like, that'll be fun lol

Docc This is a pretty good site for sorting out valve amp issues For info on biasing, click on the link to tube amp FAQ in this link You'll need to make up a tool to check the bias on your amp and any others that aren't fixed bias. BEFORE doing any work at all inside a valve amp, make sure the electrolytic capacitors have been drained as they can hold lethal voltages. You can make up a tool to drain them using a wooden chopstick (do not use a graphite pencil under any circumstances), a short length of wire, crocodile clip and a 220k 1w resistor. Solder one end of the resistor to the wire with a crocodile clip on the end. tape or heatshrink the resistor/wire assembly to the chopstick so the end of the resistor not connected to the wire is at the sharp end of the chopstick. without touching any bare wiring on your tool (you shouldn't have any), connect the croc clip to earth and hold the chopstick end against the positive side of the first electrolytic capacitor on the power supply circuit (it'll be the one nearest to the mains transformer/rectifier. measure the dc voltage across the cap. Fully charged, it'll be in the 300-450v range. once it gets below 10, you're ok to work on the amp. You'll obviously have to have the power connected and the amp switched on to check the bias, but most amps with adjustable bias have a socket to do it and don't require the amp to expose any live wiring. Have a good read of the articles in the above links. All interesting reading. edited to add links.

As long as they're not red plating you should be ok. If they are, it could be a bias issue. At the last valve change, was the amp rebiased to match the new valves?

I had a slight drain on mine after fitting an electrex reg/rec. Easily sorted with a 70amp ignition switched relay fitted on the positive lead to to unit. I can leave mine for months without any fear of a flat battery now.

You're not wrong Docc. There's a lot to be said for old technology, whatever it's applied to. Everything just seems more organic. Modern tech is just too clinical and efficient (for me at least). If you want a lovely instrument, you could do a lot worse than one of Chris Larkin's custom jobbies. I know Chris from the Carpe TDM forum and have toured with him. He's a lovely chap and shares a passion for cake as well as guitars. Beautiful instruments too and all hand made. I'm saving my pennies to buy an ASAD one day.

They're not exactly hi tech amps that I build. The real beauty is in the simplicity. Comparing the 18w to the 15w amp, there are almost double the components in the pre amp and filtering side of things just to reduce noise. Compared to "modern" amps, they really are old school. The payback for that is in the dynamics and tone. The whole thing is organic and lends itself very well to players that actually use the volume and tone controls on their guitars. You'd be surprised how many players change their tone by jumping on a pedal or two and don't even explore what the amps and instruments can do. Each to their own, however and all being different keeps in interesting.

Thanks Docc. I make the turret boards from scratch using FP4 board and can adapt the boards for different sized components/ requirements for custom builds. It's a shame that most people won't ever get to see the insides of the amps they buy, but at least I'll know. It's getting there. To be fair, I haven't done too much to the V11 loom. The charge circuit has been sorted out properly to go long with the Electrex reg/rec and it doesn't have any of the normal issues they suffer with. Mine also has the three coloured LED charge system light built into the dash. Other than that, if it ain't broke...

I don't make the cabinets, I buy those in built to my spec, but the rest is all my own.

The TT15 has a Celestion Vintage 10 80th Anniversary limited edition and the TT18 has a Celestion G12H 70th Anniversary limited edition. Don't be fooled by the small size of the TT15, it's stupid loud. I've changed the Orange drop capacitors for Mallory 150s in the TT15 which has improved the tone a little.

Now we're talking! Here are some of my efforts... Trevinitone TT15. This is my main gigging and recording amp Prototype build pics. It's a tight fit in the chassis, but sounds superb. Another Trevinitone...This one is the TT18 Internal shot...

Yup. Got the 52 litre size. I bought it specifically for the V11. It's been to Germany on a tour and was great. Easy to put on and take off at hotels. The inner waterproof bags are waterproof, even in torrential thunderstorms (although i do use vacuum bags anyway to help with space). It stayed secure on the bike at approx 140mph (not the V11) and didn't upset the handling. for the money, recommended.

I went to that show last year, but couldn't make this year. Really good day out. Lots of interesting stuff in the museum too. There seems to be a rule that only one V11 can attend at a time, as mine was the only one there last year.

Lots of good advice and info in the previous posts. Just to add my 2p worth. The prices on V11s have started to creep up over the last couple of years, so if you did go ahead and buy a V11 (of any model) it's unlikely you'd lose too much, if anything in a year or two. Any of the other bikes you've mentioned will most likely depreciate. One of the things that hasn't been mentioned is that you do need to give yourself time to adjust to a Guzzi. They have a very different feel to most other bikes. You'll get a biased view on here because we all love them, but try to ride one for a decent test ride first if you can. Buying a cheap one that has been less well maintained may give you a poor impression. Better to buy the best you can and that doesn't mean the most expensive.

I never got on with the Pilot Road 2s on my TDM. It didn't want to turn in comparison to the Conti Road Attacks I had on previously. When I changed tyres, I found out why. The 160 PR2 was the same width as the 180 Pirelli fitted to my V11! I went back to a Conti next change and all was righted in my world. The Conti works quite well on the V11 too, but they don't last that long and do square off quickly if doing a lot of upright riding.

True, but I've heard of several which have suddenly gone haywire for no apparent reason, including my own which is correctly mapped for the bike.