At last

[mdude]

Yesterday, after returning from an Easter holiday of skiing in the sun, reading crime novels and drinking beer with my father it was finally time for first run of the year in cold but sunny weather.

 

I left last season with a hopelessly understeered and nervous bike with soggy performance, which at more than one occasion made me wet my pants by suddenly directional changes midturn. luckily I wear cordura pants, which dry up quickly.

 

late last autumn I put on the MG Tis but didnt have time to test them properly.

and I've put on the tail tidy as sold by corsaitaliana and rossopuro. pics will come when I learn to use my new digicam.

 

So last monday, the last thing I did before leaving for holiday, I cranked the spring adjuster on the Sachs nearly 20+ mm towards the firm side. I wanted to really firm it up just to see what happened, and I used Ouiji Vecks method of "visual sag adjustment" (which must be qualified as a bona fide bodge) because I had no one to help me. The ride height went up nearly 15 mm on the rear, and rear laden sag is now just a tad longer than front laden sag. I also released damping and compression all around to try to make a more compliant ride.

 

What a revelation. Now I understand what you guys are talking about. The bike tracks as on rails, no nervousness, neutral and nicely controllable turn in and no surprises mid-turn.

 

The Titan pipes gives a beautiful bark and lovely bassy thunder on the overrun, no flat spots anymore and infinitely increase in driveability. It might have had more poke though (can you ever get enough??), and a problem is that it doesnt idle, at all, but that may be because of tight valves: next thing to do.

 

So despite my completely numb and freezing hands and aching butt (being the first ride of the year) I couldnt help myself from laughing in my helmet through the hairpins on my favourite run. The bike rode especially well downhill which leads me to belive that I should try to lower the fork in the clamps 5mm or so.

The fork feels a bit dead with not much feedback from the road, that may be helped by the Wilbers fork springs I picked up on the post office today.

 

And I must say, as a complete novice when it comes to wrenching (as opposed to any kind of carpentry, decorating, masonry...) I hugely enjoy this fiddling about. Aided by this forum I now feel confident enough to take on more complicated tasks; changing fork springs, adjusting valves and so on.

 

Kind of cool to pull in to the bikestop as the only barking, macho Moto Guzzi amidst masses of anonymous jap machinery and Ducce 916s. I like that.

 

Its driving season!!