Other bikes

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

Can you put a big bore kit in that thing?
 

been commuting on this thing I picked up late spring for $1200! w/1500 miles on it.. pretty fun, can go near 60mph.

 

[Coppa53]

Hello folks. I am somewhat new to the site, just want to say thanks for all the great information available. Much appreciated. Attached are two of my toys. A Coppa, and a California Vintage.

[docc]

What a sweet brace of Guzzis! I absolutely love the black CaliVin!

 

Just waiting for one to appear on my doorstep like an abandoned baby . . . 

 

What is it like, the difference between riding them?

[motrhead]

 

I have acquired a couple more bikes ....... in Ontario for now, stored at a friends place. Maybe keep one in the east ..... in case I want to ride some of the great roads there.

 

 ........ or should I ship one to Europe and ride there?

 

 

 

 Love the Laverdas! Always wanted a Jota myself, but the 750s are pretty awesome bikes too (someday I want one of each and a Moto Morini 3-1/2...lol). I am thinking about flying my LeMans to Germany to ride the Alps in 2017. I am committed to another Yukon/Alaska trip next year (probably on my Buell X1), so the Alps have to wait for more holidays. 

[Calijackalbob]

 

looking for another Guzzi, Now I have Guzzi Virus.

Shame they are so rare (and expensive) in Singapore. (A V7 costs around $29000.00 Singapore dollars!)

 

Hate this place.

 

Guzzi virus is good for you. 

 

Singapore is crazy expensive on vehicles. Isn't there a way to keep a bike or two in Malaysia?

 

 

Can't really keep a bike in Malaysia, and if you could, it'd probably be stolen or run off the road and then you'd get robbed at gunpoint while locals look on. 

 

But it's not all bad news.

Just bought this with the Insurance payout from the @#$$#! that killed my BMW.

Gasp! Cost $9000 SGD. (He was asking $11000.)

2008 model with only 25000kms on the clock.

A good price considering the locale. (A new Honda CB400 costs $22,000 !) Wish I was Stateside!

 

 

It's a Bellagio, for you unlucky yanks who never got the chance to try one. (Someone in Mandello Del Lario needs to do market research! Not available in the US !!!!  ???? It would have sold like hotcakes I reckon.)

 

The Bellagio a Schizo bike. A real Jeckyl and Hyde,...... Looks like a cruiser, rides like a maniac sportster, Short stroke 940cc engine that loves to rev, handles brilliantly.

 

It's currently going through a cafe transformation. I'm aiming at this. Got a V7 seat and tank already,...... waiting on clipons and a few other bits.....

 

 

...................though I'm considering keeping the (cut down) Bellagio seat, just gotta do some fiddling with tank and seat placement. (Sitting too high in the pics. due to tank sitting on the soon to be removed airbox.)

Would be nice if I could either seat as the mood suits. A bit of screwing around to make two interchangeable seats possible, but I love a challenge. 

 

 

what do YOU think?

[docc]

I had to poke around for a proper place to post this, but wanted to share with you guys. Having been laid up all week with the epizootics, I felt good enough today to service up the Honda GB500 (a rare 60ºF mid-winter's day with clean roads). She hasn't run in four months. Now, do not despair: she sits in a controlled environment with her own heater, gets her battery discharged/charged on a regular basis, and is dusted with a lambswool duster like some exhibit in a fine arts museum. So, yeah: Shop Jewelry.

 

Then the conundrum: suit-up - then kick. Or kick - then suit up . . .

 

Decided to suit-up.

 

> Petcock/choke/ignition/run switch on. Flip out the kick lever.

> Run the kicker through once, and again a bit more briskly to *prime* the combustion charge.

> Slip the piston just past compression . . .

> One kick = START!  Yeah, baby, life is good!

 

I know it's not mid-winter everywhere, but I think we all know what a joy it is to get out and ride when "it's been a while."

[czakky]

Never ridden a GB but I always think: “essence of motorcycling” with bikes like that. They are so cool!

[docc]

Thanks, man! She is a delight. "Maybe" 30 hp, under 400 pounds. As Gordon Jennings once wrote, "Equal to a gentlemanly pace."

[toofat2fly]

2014  Stelvio NTX

2016  Guzzi Stornello #101

2015 KTM Duke 390

about 7-9 mopeds (Guzzi's, Puch's and Morini's)

[Scud]

...the Honda 

 

...One kick = START!  

 

 

Good try at storytelling, Docc. But a story that begins with Honda and ends with it starting is hardly a surprise.

 

One of my dirt-biker buddies used to say "Honda means 'doesn't break' in Japanese."

[docc]

Haha . . . well my son, V7café, might have dropped the gauntlet when he said his mid-70s Honda CB200T "cranked right up and idled" yesterday; allowing that "15 kicks is cranking right up."  Since new, this Honda GB had issues starting after sitting. So I re-jetted it. Ten times. Modded the exhaust .  .  . (I know y'all are shocked.)

 

Unlike my Italian heart-throb, the GB500 reminds me of a passage from Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind and the Willows" (1908) in the chapter Dulce Domum ("Sweet Home"):

 

"But ere he closed his eyes

he let them wander

'round his old room,

Mellow in the glow of the firelight

that played or rested

on familiar and friendly things

which had long been unconsciously part of him,

and now,

smilingly,

received him back,

without rancour."

[GuzziMoto]

We have some warm temps right now, but there is still too much salt on our roads. So my girls (and the wife's boys) are still in the garage.

I find that the trick is learning what it wants to start. I have had one bike that I need to turn off the petcock and let it run until it starts to die. Then turn it off. Then, after a few weeks, I turn the fuel on / kick once or twice with the choke on until it starts to fire / then chock off and kick and it fires right up.

I do like that Honda, and for me to say I like a Honda is pretty rare.

[Nihontochicken]

Bike I ride: 2005 Suzuki DR 650.  Nice pavement scooter, a dirt bike it ain't!  Though I did push it down the McGinnis Creek Trail at Pozo a couple of times.  It doesn't respond very well to body English!

 

 

Bikes I own and don't ride:

1980 Bultaco Sherpa T (with under 100 miles on the clock, and, yes, the clock is still on the fork leg!)

1970s (I think) Bultaco 360 Astro

 

Have owned over thirty motorcycles in my lifetime, starting with a Bridgestone 175 street scrambler (!) in 1970, an excellent use for my one and only student loan.      Among the bikes I owned I had at various times about six Ducati 350 and 450 singles, a Ducati 750 Santa Monica, a water buffalo, a Suzuki GSXR 750, a Maico 490 Sand Spyder, a YZ490, a YZ250 and 250F, a KTM 300EXC (best dirt bike I ever had), and even a first issue Moto Guzzi 850 LeMans.  Yeah, I wish I'd kept the last one, but now I'd even more like to have a V11, currently on the hunt for a good deal, hence my new membership here.  Serious dirt riding is over with, just want to mellow out on the street now. 

[Chuck]

Talk to Scud..it would be hard to go wrong with that greenie.

[r3datom9]

Nice GB Docc!

 

I have had many a CB of all sizes from the 70's heydey.  Always lusted after the GB, must be the best looking "classic" bike honda has ever built.

 

For me, I am down to a one bike right now.  My new to me 03 V11 Sport, hoping to add a Thruxton R next January when I can pick up a leftover 18 for a good deal.