V11 Sport vs R1100S

[Guzzirider]

it better be damned dependable because I'll put a couple thousand miles on it a month.  Who here will garantee me that?  I can take care of the rest, and I figure the tonti is the best frame.  But will I be out in the backroads, sitting on the side with a relay problem, a clutch problem, a shifter problem???

 

88236[/snapback]

 

Go to a Guzzi rally, talk to the owners and look at the mileages- you may see some huge miles. Yes, like any vehicle they are not infallible but if you are the sort to want 100% reliabilty buy a Honda.

 

Although, unlike many Hondas, Guzzis are easy to fix and mine has never left me stranded.

 

I have nothing against BMWs- I quite like the new R1200S but BMWs are not perfect either.

 

In fact, I don't like perfection, I prefer soul.

 

Guy

[jbuzbee]

I prefer soul

 

There's only one ride I have with a soul:

 

[Baldini]

...The more you sort the suspension, the more you notice the limitations of the frame. To me, it feels very lacking in tortional strength....So, you can get the suspension perfect, and you'll still have all kinds of wiggling going on when leaned over and going over bumps....

 

Yup!

 

V11 is over 250kg wet, the larger part carried at the back + flexible frame & s/a = very willowy over bumps if pushed.

 

But...V11's can be ridden fast on bumpy roads. Ashley Law managed to get a pretty much bog stock Tenni to the finish at IOM TT, at a respectable pace & grounding out the sump in the process.

 

V11's feel is a lot to do with confidence - feels like it's going to do something bad but even pushed hard it mostly settles down & is a pleasant bike to ride. I soften (Ohlins) suspension for bumps & let it get on with it - & it does move about quite a bit. Scura also has Ohlins steering damper & decent tyres.

 

Sticky sports tyres really help confidence & handling... but probably magnify frame deficencies.

 

In very fast sweepers input thru the bars wil unerve unloaded front & it's hard to keep your wt over front cos of tank design - but a loose grip on the bars helps it stay settled.

 

Re stressed engines: Tonti's do use motor to stiffen frame - look how it's put together!

 

KB

[Guest golden goose]

In July of '99 I picked up a non-ABS R11S at Kari's in Mountain View. Left shortly thereafter for the Wasatch (Salt Lake City area) for a 9 month military base cleanup contract. Rode the beast all over my favorite roads throughout the Rockies and fell in love with it. Fantastic bike, Telelever really makes this bike handle like a cat.

 

A buddy of mine opened a tuning shop in Ogden and he flowbenched the heads, added a Techlusion post-processor for the fuel injection, and a set of Staintune pipes. After dynoing it in, this thing hauled the mail...

 

In January of '02, I picked up a new LeMans. By then I was back in LA, and going thru sets of Metzeler Z4s every 5 weeks carving the Crest with my buddies on the sweetly modified R11S.

 

Consider that both are sportbikes in the 1100cc class, and essentially air-cooled twins. For all their similarities, they couldn't have been more different. The R11S was by far the more powerful, but the LeMans was definitely the more enjoyable to ride. Far more enjoyable. With conventional suspension (for the times), that V-twin just made the difference. The feel of the power pulses was so much different than the BMW, and the sound through the Mistrals was to die for.

 

And die I nearly did on the 28th of July '02. I was riding the S, having hit Newcomb's for breakfast with the Dawn Patrol, and then did the backside (9-mile, Angeles Forest and Mt. Emma) to Mile High. Having the radar detector, I was the designated lead and when we left Mile High for the return to the Crest, I thought everyone was behind me. A few miles into the twisties, I looked in the rear views and no one was there! Right about then the radar detector started screaming bloody murder, and sure enough, here came John Law the other way. It wasn't hard to figure that the guys leaving a minute or so after me were shredding rubber to catch me. Being forewarned, I was just tooling along when he went by, but as I pulled up to the stop sign at the Crest, two (of my four) buddies roasted by without stopping and shot onto the Crest. The other two settled in behind me and we went into cruise mode (5mph below the 55 limit) and eased on down the road towards Newcomb's again. Just past Cloudburst Summit, on that long stretch, the only stretch where you can legally pass, a deer shot out in front of me.

 

I T-boned it. Went vertical airborn, and landed on my left shoulder blade and head. Bounced a few times. It was the end of the S. An obligatory helicopter ride to Huntington Memorial followed, and they released me one month later. I was a mess. Snapped the shoulder blade in half, sheared 6 ribs off a few inches from the spine, bounced a few times, breaking each of them again on the left side, separating them from the septum and shattered the clavicle. The last surgery was in March of '03. A long period of therapy later, I rode again the summer of '03.

 

Both bikes are simply superb. Both handle remarkably well, perhaps the S a tad better then the Goose. But its the motor that really makes the difference between these two bikes. That darned Italian tractor donk just gigs me and makes every second an absolute joy.

 

I finally replaced the S with another S, the K1200S, a year ago. With almost twice the power and third generation suspension (Hossack front-end) the K12S is like nothing else you can ride today. It makes a cat's handling look positively ancient by comparison, and you might think nothing substitutes for more ponies than you can easily use, but every time I take the Goose for the long loop (like I did today)(that would be Laguna Niguel to Newcomb's, the back side, then on to the San Bernardino's, over to Big Bear, down to the 10, then over to Idyllwild and over Ortega and home), that darned ancient rock of a donk just stirs the soul like no 4-banger can even hope to. You miss the awesome power that you have gotten used to, but the fine, more or less conventional suspension teamed with that willing lunk of fine looking motor, just does something to you that gobs of ponies can't.

 

Stick with the Italian vixen. If you want more power, skip the R-series and get a K12R or S. But if you are into motorcycles as drugs for the soul, power is only one of the ingredients. Nothing competes with, well, pure soul. And that's what a V11 temptress is all about.........

[Guest SDKFZ111]

Mate, I used to own Lilacs! You don't get softer than that! 3 x LS18's for starters, now THAT'S soft!

 

I'm not absolutely against anything that isn't Guzzi, far from it. But I DO detest muddlesome complexity for it's own sake, I find the endless quest for more power that few people ever use for more than a few seconds and PARTICULARLY the Sacred Cow of German superiority that always follows BMW's round like an abandoned puppy tedious and annoying.

 

I will give them credit for experimenting with a new front end design. For my money Guzzi could take a leaf out of their book and thumb their noses at orthodoxy and put some of their meagre development budget into developing a front end that actually separates the steering and suspension functions, some sort of HCS system would be brilliant.

 

Look at the other things about them though? They all run through gearboxes like a dog with dysentry. My mate john turned up on his V11 LeMans one Sunday in Bungendore when the BMW club were here and they were all over it. One bloke said he thought the bike looked and sounded brilliant but he "Needed the BMW reliability." In the very next sentence he was telling us how he'd had the gearbox rebuilt three times under warranty   and his tacho on a 2 year old bike only showed 25,000Km! How reliable does it have to be if the longest ride you ever undertake is from Canberra to Bungendore for Coffee on a Sunday morning! I know we're weird in the country but @#!#$# Me! It's not like you're going to be eaten by the twin-heads on the 30Km of road between the two.

 

Then there is their vile FI system and the fact they surge and pop and burp the whole time and shag out their brake rotor bobbins and their horrible version of the CARC drive must be the ugliest thing ever bolted to the back of a motorbike! It looks like a trench mortar that's been marinaded in vomit! It must weigh about a zillion Kg as well? It can't be lighter than the CARC which is in itself a bit of a porker and none too pretty!

 

There are plenty of motorbikes around that I think LOOK stunning. The only problems I have with them are that I can see how bloody dificult it is going to be to work on the wretched things, I think the amount of power they offer is a joke and I can see that they aren't designed to be a true 'Consumer Durable', at least not in terms that fit MY description of same. Sure, I love Guzzis and I fully accept that I often come across as an irracible, one eyed, bigot. This is because I am   but there are plenty of other machines on the market I like, the thing is nobody else, apart from lunatics like me, would rate them. So there is no point in talking about them.

 

I also love small bikes, always have, always will. If great fat turd like me can have fun on a single cylinder 250 on a tight road you'd have to push the bloat-o-meter off the scale to be able to claim that you couldn't have fun on one!

 

Pete

88196[/snapback]

[Guest SDKFZ111]

Mate, I used to own Lilacs! You don't get softer than that! 3 x LS18's for starters, now THAT'S soft!

 

I'm not absolutely against anything that isn't Guzzi, far from it. But I DO detest muddlesome complexity for it's own sake, I find the endless quest for more power that few people ever use for more than a few seconds and PARTICULARLY the Sacred Cow of German superiority that always follows BMW's round like an abandoned puppy tedious and annoying.

 

I will give them credit for experimenting with a new front end design. For my money Guzzi could take a leaf out of their book and thumb their noses at orthodoxy and put some of their meagre development budget into developing a front end that actually separates the steering and suspension functions, some sort of HCS system would be brilliant.

 

Look at the other things about them though? They all run through gearboxes like a dog with dysentry. My mate john turned up on his V11 LeMans one Sunday in Bungendore when the BMW club were here and they were all over it. One bloke said he thought the bike looked and sounded brilliant but he "Needed the BMW reliability." In the very next sentence he was telling us how he'd had the gearbox rebuilt three times under warranty   and his tacho on a 2 year old bike only showed 25,000Km! How reliable does it have to be if the longest ride you ever undertake is from Canberra to Bungendore for Coffee on a Sunday morning! I know we're weird in the country but @#!#$# Me! It's not like you're going to be eaten by the twin-heads on the 30Km of road between the two.

 

Then there is their vile FI system and the fact they surge and pop and burp the whole time and shag out their brake rotor bobbins and their horrible version of the CARC drive must be the ugliest thing ever bolted to the back of a motorbike! It looks like a trench mortar that's been marinaded in vomit! It must weigh about a zillion Kg as well? It can't be lighter than the CARC which is in itself a bit of a porker and none too pretty!

 

There are plenty of motorbikes around that I think LOOK stunning. The only problems I have with them are that I can see how bloody dificult it is going to be to work on the wretched things, I think the amount of power they offer is a joke and I can see that they aren't designed to be a true 'Consumer Durable', at least not in terms that fit MY description of same. Sure, I love Guzzis and I fully accept that I often come across as an irracible, one eyed, bigot. This is because I am   but there are plenty of other machines on the market I like, the thing is nobody else, apart from lunatics like me, would rate them. So there is no point in talking about them.

 

I also love small bikes, always have, always will. If great fat turd like me can have fun on a single cylinder 250 on a tight road you'd have to push the bloat-o-meter off the scale to be able to claim that you couldn't have fun on one!

 

Pete

88196[/snapback]

Vile FI system? your talking rubbish! If either of the FI systems is rubbish its my V11s, that is the one thats doing the surging popping and burbing. As to brake rotors wearing out, with the amount of engine braking available I'm yet to wear out any rotors,besides that fault is not only confined to BMWs. My own R1150 has covered 21,000 miles in just over 2 years, no gearbox rebuilds yet. The only reoccuring fault so far is the rear pinion oil seal which has failed twice,the Guzzi engine was removed at its first service for a clutch seal leak. There is no bike that is produced that is 100 percent reliable and BMW are no worse or better than all the other mainstream producers (although in the past I think they were a superior product)I have just bought an Aprillia Tuono which has just developed a coolant leak (2,900 miles on the clock).As to final drive units is the Breva unit its self not the subject of a recall(no change there then!).But as you say you are you are a bigot.Is it BMWs you hate or anything German? So kindly lay off BMs there are' no sacred cows' we are not all snobs!

[g.forrest]

There's only one ride I have with a soul:

 

88287[/snapback]

have to agree on this one can't be soul in machine.only the effect on your own.

[mike wilson]

thats gota be the ugliest bm ever made,.and in the running for ugliest motorcycle imho.

88244[/snapback]

 

 

Google for "Ducati Apollo"

[Admin Jaap]

That IS ugly. And a shame.

[dbdicker]

Sunday:

choice of bike for morning ride -- V11Scura vs. ST1300.

 

only question to ask -- is it over 50 degrees F. ?

 

The ST is more comfortable, more confident to ride, has more capacity, is faster.........

 

The V11 is entirely different ----

sure, it hops a bit in fast, bumpy stuff.... the engine pinks while passing

 

But i start out at 7AM and go 150 miles on the Scura, and i want 150 more.........

 

 

 

F$#K the analysis, that's the truth -- I'll never again sell my Guzzi. It makes me smile.

 

I've never gotten that feeling from really anything else. If you do, that's what you should ride. Most of the guys on this board have the same feeling about their guzzi's, (except of course, for Pete Roper, who just loves a bike that he can get x-country with only duct tape and a pair of pliers)

 

Now, how you gonna compare that to anything ?

[beauchemin]

There's a reason that the fastest Guzzi riders I know stick with Tonti frames . . . or even loop frames

I'm looking for the right Tonti... must be patient...

 

 

Stick with the Italian vixen.  If you want more power, skip the R-series and get a K12R or S.  But if you are into motorcycles as drugs for the soul, power is only one of the ingredients.  Nothing competes with, well, pure soul.  And that's what a V11 temptress is all about.........

I like the K12R for the Hossack front suspension alone. How do you find the rear end on your K12S?

 

 

To all respondants - thanks for your thoughts. I have no intention of selling my V11 - just looking for viewpoints to help me choose a truly modern companion for it.