Guzzi-ing to the MGNOC National, Part 1

[Greg Field]

I was coerced into writing this up for the local vintage motorcycle club (VME) newsletter. It's out now, so I'll post it here, too. I changed it a bit to be less VME-focused:

 

Misadventure Touring to Malibu (Part I)

Adventure touring is right now all the rage. ADV this, ADV that. You know, get you a new Darien outfit and climb on a new GS/V-Strom/Adventure/Caponord encrusted with $4000 worth of GPS and emergency locator beacon box and laser jammer and radar detector all integrated with a 20-gigabyte ipod all blue-toothed into your custom-molded earbuds inside the latest flip-front helmet and head off into the wilds of the American freeway system. Don’t leave home without your titanium toothbrush or your credit card and cell phone. Their bumpersticker philosophy: “With Technology We ‘Do’ Adventure.”

 

I must be strange ‘cause I’ve never have any trouble finding adventure on my rides. Adventure seems just a byproduct of the way I do things, and gadgetry seems to always get in the way. Perhaps it’s because I’m usually riding an old bike? Most often my mount is a time-proven 1973 Moto Guzzi Eldorado. I’ve upgraded it in many ways, but its heart is still pure vintage Guzzi. It’s my daily commuter and grocery-getter but also is great for the long-haul and even serves amazingly well in the twisties. Perhaps it’s because I do my absolute best to stay off the freeways, and unless forced to abandon my ways by circumstances, I always choose the twistiest route between any two points? Perhaps it’s because I refuse to get too anal and worried about the bazillion unfortunate things that might happen? I keep my bikes in shape. I have mechanical skills, I bring basic tools, and I trust in my ability to be able to cope with whatever might happen. This way seems the opposite of the ADV way, so what more appropriate moniker could there be than “misadventure” touring?

 

Over the years, a like-minded group misadventurers has formed here in Seattle. The most common thread amongst us is that most of us ride Moto Guzzis. The next most common thread is that most of us are fairly active in the online Guzzi forums such as Illuminati, Wildguzzi, Guzzitech, and Squadra Guzzista. We’ve taken some great trips into Alaska and British Columbia and all over Washington. You’ve seen ‘em there as Motomonster, Pedro, Steak (or Steakdaddy or Porterhouse), etc. Also joining us were Easy on his Eldo and my neighbors, Pete and Esther, each on a 2004 Guzzi of their own. We are the Misadventure Riders, MADV for short. Our bumpersticker philosophy: “We Don’t ‘Do’ Adventure So Much as Adventure ‘Does’ Us.”

 

For our big trip of the summer, the MADV decided to ride to the National rally of the Moto Guzzi National Owner’s Club (MGNOC), which was being put on by a friend of ours and fellow denizen of these boards, Todd Eagan (RacerX), of Guzzitech fame, in Malibu, California. Todd has assembled a great group in SoCal. They’re all swift riders and tons of fun to be around, so we were all anticipating a great time while there. We were also looking forward to reuniting with others from around the world, notably the Midget Porn King of the Antipodes, Pete Roper.

 

For this trip, the MADV would become international. Our friend Stefano Trecosti flew in from Milano and would be riding my ’04 V11 Sport. An engineer by trade, Stefano’s one of those delightfully enthusiastic Italians who enjoy everything to the fullest and actually gets so excited, he begins descriptions of events with “Mama Mia!” Plus, he’s a true Guzzisti who has an 850 GT and a LeMans III.

 

By Guzzisti I mean Stefano’s a real one. You may know the type: Like everyone , if you cut him, he bleeds red, but if you examine his red cells under a microscope, each one is a perfect red oval adorned with a golden Italian Air Force eagle, its wings spanning the words “Moto Guzzi” in block script. Even better, he doesn’t suffer from the all-too-common “ugly European” syndrome. He actually loves America and is delighted to try everything, rather than pre-judging it as inferior. He especially loves great food and fine coffee, and gamely tried many things that didn’t seem like they’d agree with his Italian palate. Many didn't, but perhaps surprisingly, he liked some of them. We were all very excited to have him with us and hoped to help make his trip memorable.

 

Here’s a pic of Stefano, taken by Steakdaddy, on their first day out.

 

How did Stefano find himself with a group of misadventure lovers from Seattle? It all began several years earlier, when Stefano was in town to study English. One day, Stefano was out for a walk and heard the familiar rumble and clatter of a Guzzi engine echoing through the concrete canyons of downtown Seattle. He started running toward the sound and just caught a glimpse of an Eldorado as it sank out of sight into a parking dungeon. Stefano followed and caught up as Pedro parked his Eldo. They became fast friends and Pedro drew him willingly into the group. We took him to a Guzzi club breakfast and a VME meeting on that visit. This time, he came back to Seattle for a month that would include this dream trip for him through the western US on a Moto Guzzi.

 

Our plan was loose. We’d leave Saturday morning, cut over to the coast and follow it all the way to Crescent City, California, the first night. Everyday, we resolved to ride the best roads time would allow. We’d motel it on the travel days, and camp at the rally. Everything else was left open to misadventure . . .

 

The Misadventure Begins

Saturday morning 5:00 a.m. I’ve worked all night to reassemble my trusty ‘73 Eldorado, and I have just tightened the last bolt.

 

By 6:00 the rest of the MADV mob will be gathered outside my door and expecting me to be ready to head out on the day’s planned 600-ish mile ride from Seattle to Crescent City, by way of a beautiful route along the coast through Washington, Oregon, and a bit of Northern California. My sleep-deprived brain believes my bike is ready, though I haven’t test-ridden it or even started it, so who knows? My clothes and gear are also ready—packed and ready to be lashed on. Unfortunately, I am physically spent. Sore. Totally drained. All week, I’ve put in a full days at the job and then a full night in the garage, re-assembling the bike, such that I’ve had a total of 9 hours of sleep since Tuesday. I decide to lay down for a half hour and then decide what to do.

 

In the few moments it took me to lose consciousness, my mind reviewed how I had come to be in this pickle. It all began several months earlier, as an effort to repair some damage after a friend had crashed my Eldo lightly on one of our rides. It ran and rode great, but the fairing was cracked and scraped, and I wanted it to look better for the National. Then, of course, it snowballed into an enormous project. If I’m painting the fairing, why not also paint the fenders and sidecovers? If the bike is down for that, why not also do some more upgrading? The biggest of the upgrades was to swap out everything from the swingarm aft, to replace the drum brake with a disc. Since I was replacing the rear wheel, why not seal the rear wire wheel so that I could run it without a tube? And since I was converting the rear to be tubeless, why not the front also? Since I was going that far, I wanted to try out some ideas to improve the air-intake system. On and on the list grew.

 

That plan sounds looney, I know, but I love trying out new ideas on this bike. To co-opt a few metaphors, my Eldo is simultaneously the “plumber’s sink” and the “mad scientist’s laboratory.“ Everyone else’s bike gets worked on first, and when it does get some attention, it’s usually in the form of trying out on it something new, weird, or seemingly pointless. It makes no sense to most people, but I have had endless fun riding on and tinkering with this bike. The sum total of all this tinkering is a bike that looks old but surprises everyone at how long and hard it can run, and it sneaks up on and surprises a whole lot of middling riders on top-level sporting iron in the twisties. I really can’t imagine circumstances that would make me part with it.

 

Over those two months I had been chipping away at the latest upgrades whenever I could snatch back a little free time over the past month, with the plan of finishing up by working on nothing else the previous two Sundays and Mondays, my days off. True to form, though, on all of those days, I’d been called on to help someone else finish their bikes instead of working on my own. At this point in my sleep-deprive reflections, the mental lights went out, and the snoring began . . .

 

. . . to be shortly interrupted by “Braap, braap, braap, . . . ” Errggh. Can it really be 5:30 already? On autopilot my arm shoots forward to silence the alarm. I dress quickly and waddle to the front door to see if anyone has yet arrived. Just then, I hear a Ducati burbling and see MotoMonster pull up on his cherry red GT 1000. “Bastard’s always early,” I grumbled while wedging matchsticks between my eyelids to prevent their closing.

 

At that point I just knew there was no way I could make the ride on a half hour’s sleep, so I explain the situation to Monster, who agrees to lead the group onward while I sleep for a few hours and then ride hard to catch up later. That group would consist of Motomonster, Pedro, Pete and Esther, and Easy. (Steve and Stefano left a day early, so Steve could take care of some business in Southern Cal, and we’d meet up with them down there.) Monster is a good rider, a guy who always keeps his head about him and one I knew I could count on on to be thinking both of what was ahead of him and for those behind him. I ask Monster to leave a message on my voicemail at each gas stop to tell me where they are at what time, so I could judge best how to catch up. I then sleepwalk back to lay down again.

 

 

While I snooze, the MADV mob waits on Easy, who’d overslept. At left is Motomonster and his Ducati. That’s Pedro in the center with his 1974 Eldorado, and Esther at right with her 2005 Nevada.

 

“Braap, braap, braap . . .” Hello, 9:00. Feeling like half a buck, I shuffle toward the shower, to find Easy in the kitchen, chatting with Jennifer. Turns out he had overslept and got there just before I woke up. Perfect. I’d at least have someone to ride with me. Shower. Shave. Grab a quick bite. Check the bike over quickly. Lash on my gear. Suit up. Fill the tank. It was 10:30 by the time we pulled out of the gas station down the block from my house.

 

Before pulling away, I check my voicemail, to find word of them moving fast and already into Oregon. There was no way we’d catch them if we took the coast route, so we decide to start out blasting down I-5 and cut over to the coast later.

I have nothing positive to say about I-5. I hate even to admit I was settling for that route, but it was the only way. Easy and I wick our Eldos up to about 80 and trust to my radar detector and eyes to keep us out of trouble. A rhythm quickly finds us: ride hard ‘til we hit reserve, fuel up, and check voicemail, to find that we were only very slowly gaining on the group. They were seriously on the move, too.

 

While Easy and I were sweating out the freeway, the rest of the mob were enjoying the coolness and scenery of the Oregon Coast.

 

So, I wick it up some more to 95 or so. Easy’s bike was then tapped out , and mine kept feeling like it was on the ragged edge of the “wobble zone.” One more increment of throttle, and I’d be in big trouble. The wind is horribly gusty, especially when we pass semis, plus I am heavily loaded with camping gear, and this is the very first ride with this combination of rear-end parts and tires, so I couldn't really be sure what was causing the wobbleys. Nevertheless, I’d yet to meet a head shake I couldn’t ride out, so I just hold grimly to the bars, keep it in the 90-95 range, and kept making the best time possible. Slowly, we gain on the MADV Mob. When we get to Grants Pass, Oregon, we cut west on 199 toward the coast.

 

Adios I-5

After 440 miles of freeway, we are very excited to get off the freeway, or at least I am. Easy actually seems to enjoy freeway cruising, whereas I just hate it. We gass up in Grants Pass and talk to the attendant there to make sure the road is open since we had heard that fires in the area might be encroaching. He assures us we can get through but warns that another motorcyclist was killed a few days earlier after hitting a deer.

 

Almost immediately, the road starts climbing and getting more sinuous and the temperature cools—a vast improvement over the heat and boredom and straightness of the freeway. And the road just gets better and better as it winds us further away from I-5, taking us through a bunch of small towns with quaint fake cop cars parked alongside the road. Then 199 starts writhing as it bears us across the California border, through the Smith River NRA, and into Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. At some points, the road is pinched hard between the drop-off to the river on the left, and sheer bluffs rising from the very edge of the pavement on the right. It would’ve been easy to drag my helmet along the bluff on every right corner, but I resist that urge and just concentrate on keeping the throttle screwed on in every corner to try and round over the flattened centers of my tires after so many freeway miles. All the freeway fatigue melted away because this road was serious bliss—all curves, with no traffic and no cops. Too soon, the fun is over, as 199 T’s at Hwy. 101, just a few miles north of Crescent City.

 

Pulling in to Crescent City, we spy a liquor store and stop to get some beer and bourbon to ease the aches. In walks Pedro, MADV stalwart and master of a very fine 1974 Eldo. Pedro informs us that our motel is just down the street, and that they got there only 15 minutes or so before our arrival. We did allright. So did they. Time to share stories of our two very different rides and have some more fun.

 

We all unpacked, had a drink, and then walked into town for a pretty good meal at a Mexican place before having a few more and drifting off to sleep.

 

First day’s misadventure: 525 miles.

 

The next day’s misadventure? Who could tell? All I was sure of that it would include my favorite stretch of road: Hwy. 1 from Leggett to the coast.

 

To be continued . . .

 

A tongue-in-cheek sticker that I may have a few copies made of. Sticker designed by Wistah Sean/Guzzisean and Dhipsh*t

[Fred C. Dobbs]

Thanks Greg!

 

What a delightful story and refreshing riding philosophy. It is so easy in our "work, buy, consume, die" modern society to become slaves to fashon, unconsciously conforming to the trend of the moment. The other day in town I saw three GS Beemers, identical right down to matching gagetry, and symmetry of product stickers on their aluminum box luggage. The riders had matching BMW riding gear. Same helmets too.

 

Nothing wrong with that, for some folks. But I suspect most Guzzi riders (non-conformists by virtue of their choice of motorcycles) are a pretty eclectic group, tending to focus more on the quality of the JOURNEY, rather than procuring the latest electrical and mechanical "me too" around-the-world ballast.

 

For me, the elemental nature of my Ballabio is its greatest virtue. Currently it sits at rest in the cool dark of my shop, front wheel pointed south, loaded and prepped for the road. Tomorrow at six, we will head for Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele Utah for the AHMA races there, by way of Bonneville. Assuming that the God of the Road cooperates. If not, I just might have me an Adventure!

[Greg Field]

Godspeed on your journey toward adventure.