belfastguzzi

Are there no brown bikes anymore? I'm pretty sure that the CB 500T I had was brown, though I painted it green (not Tenni Green). It could be time for a brown comeback? Needs gold pin-striping of course.

Perhaps Antonio can translate the main headings? Everything is relative. I mentally measure everything against the Fiat Panda '45' that I used to have. Red Italian cars, eh?

What about Pete Roper's Platypus? That thread was reasonably weird, if I say so myself.

But Guzzis aren't for those who want to be part of a herd! Dare to be different! And yeh, I'll be parking well away from MacHaggis. He needn't think that he's getting his mits on it! Anyway, haven't you heard? V.11s are so, well, like, 2004, man.

I'd rather carry a chain-saw

especially if 'said article' would be obtained from Guzzirider's dad, him having no further use for it

Came across this. There must be LOTS more. Number 1 'If your battery goes dead in the middle of nowhere and no one is there to jump you and you just happen to have a chainsaw, you can charge your own battery. Take the belt off your alternator, remove the arbor from the chainsaw and you can now wrap the belt around the sprocket on the chainsaw to charge your battery.'

Pt 3 Kilclief, Strangford-Portaferry round the bottom of peninsula, to Cloughey Kilclief Castle Ferry from Strangford To Portaferry To Cloughey stop-off Cloughey Bay

Afternoon around County Down – Pt 2 Coney Island and Ardglass Killough Coney Island view to Mournes Into Ardglass

Pt. 1 Newcastle to St John's Point > If these photos take forever to download, let me know and I'll start again. The European server that hosts the photo gallery service is slow. The machine Having working wheels again, I got the first, even if a short, run of 2008 on Saturday 12th April. Had to go from home (Holywood) to the dealer's at Lisburn. Then I kept going and went on to Newcastle, a seaside town at the foot of the Mourne Mountains. It's a traditional destination / stop-off for bike runs. Then out east through the Lecale district (St Patrick's tramping ground) towards the Strangford Narrows, a small inlet through which passes a massive amount of water with every tidal flow between the Irish Sea and Strangford Lough. A ferry hop between Strangford and Portaferry. On round the coast to Cloughey Bay, passing the first 200 miles on 1200 Griso. Later, north up the east shore of Strangford (the west side of the 'Ards Peninsula) and over the Craigantlet hills, back to Holywood. The location Towards the Mournes To St John's Point

The remedy for people in your position, is usually to get a Tenni. Seems to be some compensation.

Could you stand over that statement in a court of law?

Having only done a couple of hundred miles, I can't give a full impression yet. I think you're right about the civility. The whole package is much more 'civil' and more seamless than the V.11 You would expect that of any modern bike. The big kick seems to be in the higher revs, which I can't really sample yet. Somewhere around 6,500 to 7,000 rpm the 1200 8V takes off in a big way, different to 1100 V.11. When it happened, I was watching the traffic, not the clock, so I'm not sure exactly at what point it is. Will report back again, soon enough.

:!: The British mainland perhaps, but not the U.K.!

Did you consider coming over to see any of the NW 200 week? There'd be extra ferry cost. £75 or £85 depending upon crossing. Actual Race day is the Saturday, so you'd miss that. Tuesday and Thursday are practice nights. Could have a good run over to Donegal and back. http://www.northwest200.org/ See festival programme from 11th. Just an idea. There's a great time to be had in the Scottish highlands.

I heard that you've a room. So that's you and me sorted, both.

I've all those Donovan vid's covered ok (also doing HGM: Steve Hillage! and Butthole Surfers!!). This is

This thread deserves to go on for quite a long time

Don't feel too bad: we all neglect the wife at times.

yes, it is

Hmmm. They do stick out a bit don't they? Those are cylinders, sometimes called barrels, that contain explosions and moving parts, necessary for the forward propulsion of the bicycle. Best to leave them there.

Why isn't he called Dentist John? Maybe this is here somewhere already. If it is, MacGuzzi will slap me with a wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie. Dutch folk have probably seen it on mgcn.nl Anyhow, here it is, no harm done. Interesting thoughts from Dr. John: >> If you're about to turn off at the sight of a vee-twin - don't. Dr John Wittner has performed a unique feat - he's made Guzzi's go fast - very fast. Dan Harris found out how. Neil Pidduck took the smudges. It was a hot, humid and still day in Mandello Del Lario, a day that like many others in northern Italy, was blindingly bright and searingly blue. One which sucked the sharp colours from the ground, bleaching and fading the buildings leaving them drab and withered. Passing cars breathed a light dust into the atmosphere which mixed with exhaust rumes and repid air, coating nostrils and filling eyes.
Two very sweaty and rather unsavory figures, clad almost entirely in black leather detached themselves from a haze of raggedly parked two-wheelers, and shuffled across a narrow road to a door, in a tall long winding diny-yellow wall, where they disappeared inside . . . .
The reception hall at the Moto Guzzi factory is a hollow, charismatic lofty area, wood panneled and rambling in typical 1920's style. A heavilly moustached security guard with a determined expression and "Vigilante" emblazoned across his shoulder swaggered over.
"Giornalista Inglese" I ventured paused and continued " Fast bikes para Senor Ranalli ", I glanced over to Pidduck hoping that he would be impressed with my poorly phrased and halting Italian; instead he stared back with a pained expression on his face "Bollocks I thought, this means that I'm going to have to communicate more, probably by shouting loudly in English, adding an '0' to the end of each word, and manically waving a copy of Fast bikes around. But before I could begin we were ushered into a waiting room. "Bollocks" I thought again, this means that I'm going to have to listen co another one of Pidduck's long winded desert survival stories . Fortunately, just as Neil had uttered the words "When I was in the desert", Sr Ranalli's beautiful secretary. Gemma, arrived to welcome us, to detail our testing programme, and to schedule our meeting with DrJohn.
Dr John Wittner of Wittner racing enterprises is a man of many contradictions. He is an American working in an Italian factory.
He is a highly intelligent engineer, who favours the simplicity of a Vee twin engine. And he is a generous quietly spoken gentleman ( in the true sense of the word ) who has a fierce and engulfing, almost omnipotent passion for Moto Guzzi's. Finally his fluent self taught Italian is spoken with a soft American accent, while his native English is peppered with latin gesticulations. Not surprisingly John's youth was spent developing a passion for motorcycles. He has owned a variety of bikes from Harleys' to Triumphs, and between 1962 and 1964, he worked pan time in a motorcycle dealership in order to pay his way through university where he studied engineering. During these years he built up a broad knowledge of practical experience working on machines as diverse as an NSU powered Wankel engine snowmobile. Some 20 years later, in 1984, he began racing Moto Guzzi's in the American national endurance championship, which he won in his first year. He attributes this instant success to the Guzzi's inherent strength and simplicity of design, and reflects that it is not necessary to compromise reliability in favour of performance, nor that complexity is a prerequisite for development. In January 1989 Dr John arrived in Italy following an invitation from Guzzi to develop their engines. Although his first love is racing, he readily agreed to take part in the project which flourished into the creation of a new sports bike based on his eight valve 128 bhp racer, which is planed to go into production during the last quarter of this year.
Although we were not allowed to see the actual prototype of the Daytona ( named after the circuit at which John has had much success ) John took us to see the race bike from which it was developed. He led us through the flakey meandering corridors and our into a sunny courtyard opposite Guzzi's own on site wind-tunnel facility. Dragging open a mini 'aircraft hanger' type door we were guided into a dimly lit room where John explained he did much of his hands-on work. The motorcycle was stunning.
As he brought the bike out into the daylight for Neil to photograph Dr John drew comparisons with the preproduction Daytona. " The chassis, rear shock, and gearbox are identical " he said "and many of the components used on the production bike (for example John's own design parallelogram suspension) are superior to those that are on this bike . . . . . . ." Pidduck and I looked on with urges more akin to those usually associated with Hong Kong's famous " Red Lips " bar than to an Itallian bike factory . . . . . . . . . John continued " Of course on the racer we have wide-spread use of magnesium especially on rocker boxes, yokes, sump, and numerous other cycle parts," he paused before delivering the killer blow: "All you will have to do to release 128 bhp from the standard bike is to remove the airbox, change the exhaust, and fit a new chip." . . . . . . . . This was almost too much for us, and I am still deeply suspicious that Noil's request for a hanky was not for late season hay fever. Later, when asked why he had not opted for a chain drive, at least on the racer, John explained that Guzzi's research indicated that chains, while satisfactory in terms of efficiency when new, lose efficiency in the first thirty minutes ( of continual loading ) from a starting point of 8% down to 20% . While this was acceptable in short circuit racing it was disastrous in his preferred formula, endurance racing. Conversly although shafts are responsible for a relativly high initial loss of power (about 12% - depending on the design) they maintain the same level of efficiency, more or less regardless of condition.
In John's opinion the only tangible disadvantage of a chain over a shaft is that of unsprung weight. FB: Who would you most like to be marooned with? Dr.J: As I work too much, any girlfriend would be nice. FB: What is the single most important factor in winning races? Dr.J: Organisation and preparation, including rider choice and finance. FB: What's your biggest verbal cliche? Dr.J: First of all it's in Italian so you wouldn't understand it, and secondly if you did understand it you wouldn't print it. FB: What's your last wish before you die? Dr.J: I wouldn't impose my wishes on anybody. FB: Who do you admire most in motorcycling? Dr.J: Rob Muzzy. FB: Who do you think is the best engine designer in Italy? Dr.J: Roberto Umerto. Moto Guzzi's chief designer for the past 54 years. FB: Who is the best two stroke engine tuner in the world? Dr.J: Erv Kanemoto. FB: Who is the best four stroke engine tuner in the world? Dr.J: Bill Wemer. FB: What is your worst accident? Dr.J: Two days after passing my test I was riding a 650cc Triumph with a friend on the back. (The bike had cost me my life savings $400.) A dog ran out in front of the bike which caused the two of us to launch over the handlebars, the dog was fine but the bike was a write off. FB: If you could assassinate someone and get away with it, who would it be? Dr.J: The dog. FB: What do you think is the ideal engine configuration? Dr.J: 90 degree Vee twin. There are fewer moving parts, and the unit is aesthetically more elegant. FB: What causes you the most anxiety? Dr.J: Not knowing whether a motorcycle will survive an event (particularly an endurance event). FB: What style of underpants do you wear? Dr.J: Both types, it depends on the weather. FB: How do you rate your riding ability? Dr.J: Less than fair. although it's important that an engineer shouldn't loose sight of the correlation between the numbers and what they actually mean to the rider. FB: Who do you admire most? Dr.J: Howard Wittner. my father. He is an aeronautical engineer who elaborated on the design of the ports for the Daytona. FB: What is the happiest period of your life? Dr.J: The last five years at Guzzi. FB: Who is your favourite rider? Dr.J: Doug Brauneck. he won my first national championship race for me. FB: Who is your favourite musician? Dr.J: Stevie Winward FB: What's your favourite passtime? Dr.J: Spending time with friends, trying not to talk about bikes. FB: What do you think of the Isle of Man? Dr.J: Magnificently dangerous. FB: What do you think of active suspension? Dr.J: This is certainly the future of suspension. I wish that I had the resources to work on it now. FB: What do you think of Wankel engines? Dr.J: They have yet to prove themselves. FB: What do you think is the single most important factor in tuning an engine? Dr.J: On four strokes, exhaust system development. FB: What do you think of EXUP exhaust valves? Dr.J: They are an excellent and proven technology, and I believe that Guzzi should enter this field of development. FB: What is the biggest myth about engine tuning? Dr.J: That you need trick parts to go fast. FB: What do you think of desmodromic valves? Dr.J Given today's advanced valve spring materials and sophisticated cam lobe designs there is nothing to be gained by using a desmodromic configuration. FB: What do you think of five valve heads? Dr.J: There are problems with developing a wide powerband on the racetrack. FB: What do you think of fuel injection? Dr.J I never want to see another carburettor. FB: What do you think of the Superbike series? Dr.J: I think that it is a wonderful formula eminently valid for production motorcycles. FB: Why are all GP bikes V4 reed valve two strokes? Dr.J: They have four cylinders because this is the maximum number of cylinders allowed; two strokes because they produce more power than four strokes (albeit for a shorter period of time) and reed valve because the advances in materials have allowed more power to be produced this way than any other. FB: What is your greatest fear? Dr.J: That life cannot continue to be this good.

I decided to post this, even though it's not from '69, cos: 1) it's a fairly Moto Guzzi type instrument 2) there is a Marshall stack behind it 3) it's not Iggy Pop riding Guzzi, in the spring air, where cherry blossom wafts Now I'm waiting for an appropriate moment to introduce the hurdy-gurdy video. Could there be a more Guzzi instrument than that?

No

Shopping I suppose. Nice clothes, for your, ahem, 'camping' trip.