wsholar

Just put Q2's on my Scura over the weekend, and I'm really loving the improvement over the old Qualifiers. I think the stiffer sides provide support that makes the bike much more stable in curves, at low or high speed. Took the Scura up to an indicated 140 mph (top of the speedo) for just a second or two this morning just before dawn, and it was perfectly stable. It also had some left at 140, although I can't imagine it had much left. Never tried to push it that fast before-- never trusted it to hold steady, given no frame-mounted streamlining. Pretty amazing bike, especially with the Q2's.

Thanks for the well wishes. Great to be back in the loop.

Just re-introducing myself after taking some time off after a pretty nasty accident in 2007. I'm fully back in the saddle now, and I'm focusing primarily on track riding, limiting street riding to occasional runs into my favorite canyons and getting my bike to the shop, etc. So, far, I've done the Horse Thief Mile at Willow Springs and Buttonwillow (counterclockwise) over the last couple of months. Looking forward to doing Laguna Seca and a few others over the course of the summer and fall. The Scura is generally running well, but I need to have my rear shock serviced. Because of the CA emissions laws possibly changing, I'm going to leave the intake/exhaust/emissions bone stock. Bike runs fine as they built it. Cheers all.

_

thanks for the anonymity, guys. it was i who fell on jon's nice v11 lemans-- ugh. can't really discuss the case here, but fyi, i fractured my left wrist and pretty much snapped off the head of my right shoulder. that's about it, plus a few other nagging aches and pains. i go in for shoulder reconstruction (or replacement if necessary) thursday morning, so send healing vibes toward century city, LA, CA when you can. thanks for all the concern/kindness expressed here. catch y'all later. cheers!

If you know of any axles & bits floating around anywhere, please email me at: wsholarchampmail.com Need these ASAP. Thanks in advance

On this board, there's only been one US Scura clutch/flywheel failure, and it was not a catastrophic failure (serial number S288). Maybe best to look for a US Scura with a serial number as close to S600 as you can find? Re: other bikes, word on the street is that the valving/springing of the Ohlins of the LeMans Corsa, Coppa Italia, and Cafe Sport models was closer to the mark than on the Scura. If you would rather go with one of those, note that the LeMans has clip-on bars, whereas the Coppa Italia and Cafe Sport have riser bars-- so depending on what type of riding position you need, you might want to consider that. Of course, you can always mod the bars to suit your needs.

Well, Todd's bar-mounted camera was right behind his windscreen, so I think placement is what made it work okay in the first video. In the remaining three videos with the lipstick camera, the mic was placed under the seat, but died after only a couple of minutes for one reason or other-- possibly the amplitude of the motor and pipes at speed overloaded the input limits of the mic. Just don't know for sure.

I tried to talk Todd into Edgar Varese and Milton Babbitt, but he was having none of it.

The audio was lost on the helmet-mounted "lipstick" camera-- that's why videos 2 and 3 have music instead of motor sounds. The bar-mounted camera in video 1 had some vibration problems-- that prompted the switch to the lipstick camera for the rest of the ride.

Yeah, in the first video, the five of us encountered that pack of kids at the last light at the foot of the Crest. Dispatching them was pretty easy, although I think the guy on the 1000S (Bob) might have been stuck with them for a few miles. When you start up the Crest, it's good to make use of the first couple of passing lanes before the first ranger station. After that, getting around folks gets a bit dicier.

Yeah, on his Jackal, Todd can pass pretty much anybody he wants on any curve that's slower than a buck thirty (mph). Only thing limiting Todd on curves is the hp/vmax of the bike he's riding. I haven't ever ridden with him when he's on a fast bike, but I hear (from his fellow track day instructors) that he's right up there with a lot of current superbike racers. That was Rich R. on the other Jackal, me on the Scura, and Rich's friend, Cain on the MV Agusta 750 F4. We weren't racing or anything, just playing cat and mouse for the camera. Whenever Todd starts a pass, we give it up willingly. To do otherwise would be just silly.

There are now 3 videos, with a 4th to come late tonight or early tomorrow. Go here, read the disclaimer, and click the link to the videos. Shot from the camera on Todd Eagan's Mad Max Jackal (pacing, not racing): http://www.socal-guzzi.com/PHPBB/viewtopic.php?t=632 Stay tuned...more to come.

Right on, Keith.

Hey, you've got a year and a half to plan and save. Get started now and we'll see you in Malibu summer 2008. If you make the trip, a bike will almost certainly find you when you get here.

Cool. The poll will remain active between now and then. When you know one way or the other, please respond accordingly to the poll. Hope to see you (and your mgs) there.

Hey, Rich, don't forget to vote in the poll.

Heh heh. Just wanna make sure everybody sees it since it isn't going on the homepage. So, are you coming? Are you coming??

Please respond to our poll to determine whether to arrange a track day during the 2008 MGNOC National Rally (US) in LA/Malibu. Here's the poll topic: http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9826

Please respond to our poll to determine whether to arrange a track day during the 2008 MGNOC National Rally (US) in LA/Malibu. Here's the poll topic: http://www.v11lemans.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9826

So, we'd like to put together a track day during the US 2008 MGNOC National Rally in LA/Malibu. Thing is, we won't even start to put it together if we can't get enough interest from the core go-fast Guzzi guys on this forum, hence this poll. So, if you'd like to come to Malibu, ride the Santa Monicas, do a track day at Willow Springs, and drink a lot of Grappa and beer on the beach, here's your chance to make all of that happen. It's up to you! We're hoping we can generate enough interest on this board to make it feasible to front the money and reserve the track. It should be a great time hitting the track with a bunch of V7 Sports, 850/1000 LeManses, 1000S's, 1100 Sports, Daytonas, Centauros, V11 Sports, V11 LeManses, Grisos, etc., etc. You might even see some Ghezzi&Brians, MGS-01s, Quotas, Smallblocks, Loopframes, and Jackals out there too. Let's make this happen, okay? EDIT/UPDATE: If you're interested in more details about this event as they unfold, check out/register at the SoCal-Guzzi Web Forum and respond to/monitor the following poll/thread: http://www.socal-guzzi.com/PHPBB/viewtopic.php?t=630

Yeah, Seca's got a coupla spots that can nail you, primarily Turns 2 and 11-- you're carrying so much speed going into those turns that you don't want to have to brake as hard as you must in order to keep from running off the track or highsiding. The Corkscrew (Turns 8A & 8B) takes a couple of laps to get the hang of, but after that, you're pretty much ready for it when you get there. There's a crested turn just before the Corkscrew that gets your attention, so everything usually falls into place from there. I botched turn 6 badly once and mildly a couple of other times. You're carrying a lot of speed into Turn 6, and if you turn in just a little early, it can send you right off the outside of the track coming out of the turn. I like these two photos-- like mirror images: Cheers.

Groovy. Sunday, 2/18 looks good for Seca. Then Buttonwillow in May, June, and September. Wrap up the year again at Seca, and we'll call that a year. Would like to do Infineon, but the dates just don't really work for us LA working folk. Thanks, Todd!

Barber is probably a better track, but Laguna has a pretty long history-- makes riding there kind of "spiritual." I highly recommend Red Shift as a track day organization-- they're a bit more expensive than most, but it's kind of like real estate; they price the riff-raff out. You get a safer track as a result. The instructors are excellent (Todd Eagan of SoCal MGNOC is a regular instructor there), the food's pretty good, and the track monitoring is excellent. We only had two guys fall all day, and both got up immediately after their falls (although one guy got has bell rung pretty badly-- didn't know what day it was). One of the falls was due to riding behind the camera bike, probably thinking about how he looked rather than what to do. He clipped the camera bike going into Turn 5 too hot. Red Shift's '07 schedule isn't posted yet, but you can monitor their schedule here: http://rideredshift.com Thanks-- frankly, I need to get used to hanging off. I'll carry more speed through the turns by not scraping my cans and boots. Nice thing about the V11 Sports is that in stock form, you never have to worry about low siding (unless of course you slam it down so hard that you end up sliding out on your exhaust). The knee draggers on the race bikes have a vested interest in feeling where the ground is-- they'll lowside before scraping anything.