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Looks like I've bought Richards 03 Cafe Sport ! The new owner is pleased too slowly cleaning her up and waiting for a little carbon fibre fairing for the front. IMG_20200202_112537 by Neil Morgan, on Flickr

Oh yeah. 5-6K in the canyons.. Careful, now..be *very* smooth with the throttle as you add it through the turn. Whew! These things sound amazing.. Chuck, Deacon Church of Guzzi

Put on the last bits of unicorn poo reinforced unobtanium, finishing a post-purchase teardown. Also replaced all the shiny useless buttonhead bolts with something a little scurier.

“Pushes in a crazy way from 5500...” Yeah baby! Like my v11 haha! 6k on the v11 is happy times man!

I picked up Van Morrison's latest "Three Chords and the Truth". Van seems to release a new record every couple of months. He has a great journeyman band and kick out lots of good tunes, I like his stuff. Anyway, Van has done so much spiritual stuff, "Kingdom Hall", "Bright Side of the Road", Wonderful Remark", "Whenever God Shines His Light". When I saw the title, I thought it might be a gospel or spiritual record, something inspirational and loving. Rather than describing this record, I think the titles of the songs will suffice: "Bags Under My Eyes", "Read Between the Lines", "Stop Falling Apart", "Fame Will Eat the Soul", "Nobody In Charge" The record is full of delicious cynicism and irony. It's just great and a little funny. I couldn't be happier to have assumed wrong. I think it's pretty good, this one and another recent album, "Roll With The Punches". So I am taking a vacation in Feb for my first time in Vegas. Have tickets to see Van. The Vegas deal is kinda of a runaround since the good tickets are comp'd to the rollers (not me), I should've "read between the lines".

Always like Kukko pullers and tools. Expensive but I haven't found a bearing it couldn't pull yet.

Hi Mark, yes , they are more comfortable as for grounding its not with the wet and greasy roads we have at present in the Cork-Kerry mountains that i will be trying to lean too far ... I changed the bars as well for a second hand triumph set and between bars and foot pegs it makes for a much easier ride with less weight on the front wheel. AND : heated grips...(used to be for Sissies but perceptions changes)

If it is made of the same stuff as the lid, I have a spare which I can check and advise of the type of plastic it is. From the pic which Paul Minnaert posted above, it appears that it might be glass-filled nylon, which can be bonded with liquid epoxy, JB Weld (steel-reinforced epoxy) or similar. If it did not melt and ball up on the hole saw, it is probably a thermo-setting plastic.

A couple of nice points I took away from the article- Swapping the helical gears in the gearbox for straight cut. Cam is good enough for racing. Valvetrain weakest link. Almost 140hp at around 8500rpm was enough to win against more powerful or lighter bikes because of the power delivery/torque curve. Ride it a different way to get the most out of it (in racing). One of the most interesting features I gathered from the article is the lack of drag in the drivetrain compared to a chain drive. Always good to hear from a racer that competed on a budget DIY bike and came up against the odds - a winner. It's a marvelous achievement and one of the admirable features that I loved in the Britten story.

Van's 'Into the mystic' is in my all time top 5 ... maybe 3. Glen Hansard of Swell Season covers it nicely .... Van fans..... , Glen meets Van for the first time ... pretty cool story

The Clutch is one thing. ask when it was last serviced - tappets, belts, air filter oil etc. Not sure how much that costs in the states, but in Aus - that would be the cost of the bike. $300 for a basket, $150 for clutch plates, 500 for someone to do the tappets (plus 60 per tappet part), 120+ for the belts, oils/filters $150. Plus some labour costs excluding tappets already allowed for. Then theres also chain, sprockets, tyres - potentially $600 there. Thats just standard service and wear items. If anything needs repair then add that into it.

Or one of these and you get a folding tip as well. Just position it fwd instead of dropped like I have it. Ciao

Well I know next to nowt about this sort of thing but I did raise a brow when ol’ lumpy came out! It’ll be a Guzzi thing I thought! Hammers n such...

Interesting video's. I'm always amazed that people will go to the trouble and expense of investing in something like a K-line kit and then not spend the $25 on a cheap air driven impact gun to drive the liners and the sizing arbours. Hammering them in and the arbours through with a lump hammer is silly. All that stuff bouncing around on the bench etc and the fact that one of the reasons you use a 4000 bpm driver is so the sizing process is fast and fluid and produces a uniform ID not a stop start irregular interior. Its way easier with the impact driver believe me. Also why dont people spend a little time making a simple jig or cradle from wood to hold the component, head in this case to the bench so when you're doing this sort of work you're not chasing it all over the place and watching it wobble around while finish reaming. I made up my own simple cutter to trim the liner which worked fine. I'm not actually convinced that the K-line reamer is compatible with the guide material Guzzi use as I see he has the same trouble with the process as I did. Surprisingly hard to ream the guides. I have since found out that Kibblewhite have 2 types of reams for the different types of guide material they sell and the reamers shouldnt be used on the wrong type. Ciao

Wow, knumbnutz, thanks for taking time to post the article with those individual panels! Made it a delight to read and zoom in on the fabulous images. And if I am reading correctly (and the translation is correct), as meticulous as the Guareschi were, they only lightened the MGS-01 5,5 kg/ 12 pounds? Seems the wheel change alone would have been greater than that (?)

Thanks for that.

V11 swingarm bearings . . . > groan < . . .

Mine was a Cafe Sport first registered in the UK in 2006, Chassis No. ZGUKTB0104M112083 I got it converted by Ghezzi Brian to a V11 Trofeo. The original looked good but I feel it's now an even better handling sports bike and 30kg lighter!