why is Guzzi your beloved bike?

[Tracey]

Why Guzzi you ask...

 

When I was much younger, still riding my bicycle around town delivering newspapers, I noticed a few things.

 

The Harley guys could always be found cleaning thier bikes, the BMW guys rode dirty bikes and were hard to find in order to pay me. The guys on the Jap bikes were usually on thier way to the hospital or just to cool to spend time with the paperboy. The guys that rode the Guzzi's would leave the cash in the mailbox if they were out riding and would be glad to talk and show you thier bikes if thet were not.

The guy I'm thinking about still has the same Guzzi, 30 something years latter!

 

I'm only on my third Guzzi, two in the garage now, but my eye is on another. Just can't part with the ones I have so I'm looking for a winning lotery ticket...

[gstallons]

I just wonder, how old were you when you firstly brought your own guzzi home? Why did you choose Guzzi? I am just thinking. in Czech, we have about 800.000 registered bikes (500.000 are

 

Is anybody willing to post his feelings about his Guzzi?

 

 

Because EVERYBODY has a "cookie cutter'" brand. You feel exclusive when you are riding it. When you talk to a Guzzi owner usually they can explain everything going on inside and outside of this "2 wheel paramour". They can fix anything on this bike and are continually adding to and making personal improvements.

My feelings are "this bike is ME"!

[gstallons]

I used to own Pommy bikes. They were fine, but if you made 'em perform to 1970's standards they went 'Pop', regularly. So I had to look for something else.

 

I got a Jawa 350 with a chair that I wish I still had, brilliant, but slow. A great tool but not a bike that you could have serious 2 wheeled fun on.

 

I didn't like BMW's and their riders were tossers.

 

I couldn't afford a Ducati, and their riders were tossers.

 

I could afford a truly awful V50. It's owner was a tosser. He'd rattle-canned black the whole bike, including the fork staunchions and brakes! I cleaned it up and fixed it a bit and then flogged it to death over about 18 months. It was utterly reliable! The only smallblock I've ever known to be so .

 

Then I got left 800 quid by a relative. That, along with the trade-in on the V50 got me a 1979 1000SP.

 

The rest is history........

 

Pete

 

 

 

Tosser? WTF is a "tosser"?

[belfastguzzi]

Because EVERYBODY has a "cookie cutter'" brand. You feel exclusive when you are riding it. When you talk to a Guzzi owner usually they can explain everything going on inside and outside of this "2 wheel paramour". They can fix anything on this bike and are continually adding to and making personal improvements.

My feelings are "this bike is ME"!

Yeh – good one

[Guzzirider]

Tosser? WTF is a "tosser"?

 

A man who masturbates- guess that rules out everyone on here......

[gstallons]

A man who masturbates- guess that rules out everyone on here......

 

Well........everyone?

[gstallons]

Well........everyone?

i forgot to include......there are those who "do" and those who don't tell the truth !

[Ouiji Veck]

Why Guzzi?

3 words

Shake rattle and roll.

Just like "real" rock and roll, Guzzi is the real thing.

 

It all staeted innocently enough 15 yrs. ago or so.

After campaigning a long list of inlines all over the

N.E. quadrant of the western hemisphere I would ruminate around

the campfire about my friends having access to their carbs and other

important parts of their BMWs. Finally one of my Beemer buddies offered me

his '80 SP 1000 that had been sitting in a chicken coop for 15 yrs. or so.

He'd waxed often about the quirky bike and it's even quirkier riders.

It sounded like a good lark for me so I tore down the rusted hulk and went a little

creative on it over a winter. Once I got it on the road...that was the end of inlines for me.

I campaigned it for a few years keeping the CBR1000 for back up and then a Duc SS

while I shopped for 5yrs for the LeMans. I wasn't happy about the V11s new technology

for a year or so. I wanted the old tractor tech of the SP So I held onto the adorable SS

till I got the confidence in myself to not be scarred of Fi and ECUs and LMNOPs

It's the thunderous roar and deft handling and old school looks that just exudes everything

motorcycle to me. I love setting up corners and throttling through them the way the LeMans

likes to do it. It's just a constant grin. Then there's the joy of pulling up to a group of

Beemers, HDs or big 4s and thinking "You lemmings ain't got a clue."

And getting a thumbs up from the few that do have a hint of a clue.

Then I get to do my "cat that swallowed the canary" routine.

"What??? Oh...this thing? Yea...it's kinda neat..yea..they still make 'em.. No..you don't see 'em much" :mg:

[DeBenGuzzi]

i forgot to include......there are those who "do" and those who don't tell the truth !

that reminds me of a great joke but it is farrrr to long to post on here, I don't want to type that much, god why can't this damn snow melt and spring get here already, it snowed like 6 inches in the past 2 days <_>

[Ouiji Veck]

Yikes Ben..

You have my sympathies.

I just got back from Costa Rica. Eternal August.

A perfect place to open an adventure ride business.

Buy a half dozen KLRs and get a grass shack on the beach...ahhh

Take rich gringos for the ride of their life a couple times a month and live

like a king.

If it snowed another 6 inches here I might have been on my way.

[Garsdad]

I started riding when I was 18 (I am now 44) with an old Kawasaki triple 2-stroke. Loved that bike, one of two I regret selling, although at the time I couldn't wait to get a new one. I traded it in on a 1983 Honda Interceptor, and rode the crap out of that bike. It got stolen, so I replaced it with a CBX, the only other bike I regret selling!

 

One day, I was at a parts shop in Portland buying a chain and sprockets for the Kawasaki I had at the time, and there was a LeMans parked there (don't know what series it was) and I thought "Wow, that's cool... but it is only a twin..."

 

Another interceptor, a Katana, a GS750, and a Suzuki GS1100 (another dream bike from my youth) later, I was walking across the Costco parking lot and I heard the most magnificent sound. A green V11 Sport rounded the building. I was smitten. I went to Cascade Moto Classics and started learning what I could. It took another few years (two kids in college will suck the life out of any fun budget) and I was looking again. I narrowed my search to a GS BMW, an Aprilia Caponord, a Ducati ST3, and a Guzzi. I read everything I could find on this forum and wildguzzi.

 

Mark West posted a link for a Tenni on Craigs List in CA, and I clicked on it. I was driving my wife nuts about getting a bike- I emailed the pic to her work and she called me- "Just get it already and leave me alone!" WTF? I had the deal made, the airline ticket purchased, and my new riding gear on the way from New Enough before I left work that day. No way she was going to back out of that!

 

I flew to Sacramento, the PO trailered her up from Fresno, we met in the airport parking lot and I rode my Tenni home.

 

She is alive. I can ride to her limits; I could thrash my older sport bikes to the edge of their envelopes, but the new ones laugh at me- "Come on, little man, I am so much better than you will ever be!" I like my bike to work in concert with me on a ride, not to mock me! I can do all of my maintenance, and due to this and other forums, and Pete Roper, I fear no repairs.

 

Every time I start her up, I am rewarded with a living, breathing riding partner that is up for everything I will want to do that day, be it a blast through the twisties or just a drive on the slab. At some point, I may get something better for two-up, probably a big trail bike, but the Tenni stays. The looks, the sound, the way she handles- on paper there are "better" bikes out there, but in reality this one is a perfect match for me.

 

Garsdad