New Tenni

[ferguzzi]

I’ve spent most of the winter and following lockdown giving the Tenni some love.

I met a fellow Tennisti in St. Louis on a trans America trip in 2018(Iwas on a triumph)and his bike put mine to shame.A mixture of shit Irish weather, bad Italian paint, ethanol and me being lazy meant it was starting to look sad. 
The tank was suffering from severe measles, so that was the start, and it grew from there. 
I had one built by MCS in brightlingsea, UK, took about 5 months, not bad considering Covid had just hit. 
I had  various bits of plastic repainted by a pro, the Tenni paint came from Holland(rocking horse poop). I powder coated wheels, triple tree, cylinder and alternator covers and a few other bits. 
Taking the wheels apart was the hardest bit, all nuts and bolts had turned to cheese, so a local engineer used his box of tricks to help.
Apart from a small electrical problem (see technical topics, “thirty amp fuse failure), she rides exactly the same. 
she just looks better. Here’s to another 20 years!

 

 

 

[footgoose]

congratulations ferguzzi. can't wait to see/hear more. (your link doesn't work for me)

[Admin Jaap]

Great to see you still own the Tenni! Looks great. 

[docc]

Is the tank polished alloy? Looks delicious!

[fotoguzzi]

The pic looks like almost a thumbnail, can you post more bigger images?

[ferguzzi]

This might be a little better...

[ferguzzi]

Maybe a little better...

[fotoguzzi]

Looks real nice.. but gotta wonder what the designer was thinking with the red pork chops.. with out a red frame they look out of place..

I have a pair from a Centauro that look like polished aluminum, they would match the tank nicely... I'll make you a good deal on them if interested but shipping from the States will probably be around $60-80US dollars. Just a thought.

[docc]

I had to give these guys a look.  I was rather hoping they had posted some images of that delicious V11 Tenni tank . . .

https://mcs-engineering.co.uk/

[gstallons]

Is that for a Paris-Dakar crotch rocket ?

[KINDOY2]

1 hour ago, gstallons said:

Is that for a Paris-Dakar crotch rocket ?

Isn't that an oxymoron?

[gstallons]

Yeah.......

[ferguzzi]

I found MCS to be really good to deal with. It’s a smallish 4-5 man operation in a boatyard, and they had several interesting projects on the go when I dropped in to pick up the tank. Various car and bike parts.

Lee is the man I dealt with. Very professional, and honest. I got the polished alloy, it’s lovely, but I’ll never stop polishing it because the sheen isn’t mirror-like(like that v7 tank?), but it still looks great.

he has an old external fuel pump tank in the workshop so he got the dimensions from that. The fit isn’t exactly perfect, but almost, and took a little fiddling to fit, but I’m happy.

i think he would have painted it, but I specifically wanted the polished tank, which cost a little more.

cost probably varies, but expect about £1100 plus delivery. I didn’t haggle. It’s much lighter then the original, and does give a more individual “cafe racer” look. 

The pork chops are the only things that didn’t get painted, the nuts were a bastard to loosen, and there’s still one I haven’t gotten to,I think I’ll get a local engineer to loosen it for me, then I’ll paint them. Another winter project. I quite like that the colour doesn’t match anything else, but there was too much variation in the other colours on the bike for my liking, so I’ve simplified it a bit. You’d need to compare with another tenni to see what I’ve done.

I’ve owned this thing since new, it’s got 26000 miles on it, and has let me down more times then I care to remember. ( pawl spring, exploding clutch, regulator failure etc.). I’m actually in the middle of writing an article for the UK Guzzi club magazine describing some of my adventures...I’m a long  haul airline pilot so have a lot of spare time on my own at the moment. I’m still flying, but get locked in to my hotel room for the duration of my time abroad now. I’m writing this from an airport hotel room in Johannesburg.....

The thing is, even though I have a few other lovely bikes, there still isn’t anything out there that has the V11’s combination of all day comfort, speed, and, I suppose, style, that I’d replace it with. So I didn’t feel too guilty about spending some cash to revitalise the bike a bit.

 

 

 

 

[ferguzzi]

[hammershaug]

Wow! Nice tank.