robbiekb

my fiance has been riding my 2001 V11 on occasion, she's 5ft 4 and 118 . her main issue is the stretch to the bars.

remember those crazy ice storms we had in the nwest about 2 years aback that brought all the trees down ? When i jacked up the suspension i'd be able to get over em with just enough ground clearance to just scrape up the skid plate and not much more. Total pain in the ass and nope i dinnae have any pictures seeing as i was 1)pissed at being late for work, 2)having no hot water, 3) having a tree fall on my garage, smash the garage roof in and land on my V11 3)having no water to flush toilets 4) listening to my fiance complain because her rear wheel drive m roadster had just been banjaxxed by a tree and was imovable due to the snow.. but yeah i certainly wouldnt want to buy my truck once i'm done with it, its had a reasonably tough life to date. i do have pictures chopping trees at the weekend with the trusty chain saw however ...some of those evergreens up in the seattle area get pretty darn big (says the scotsman from the country with bugger all trees)

sigh,, yeah but a chevvy pickup is a piece of shit in the snow unless you go the sandbags route, even then you need to get it lifted which depending on your dealer can have warranty implicitons. My truck came with 34 1/2 " tires, the weight dispersion is great for snow etc.I gave up on pickups as my dedicated snowbaording rig after spinning my fair share of em coming down from various different ski areas (typically 200 days snowboarding a year). Prior to the H2, my list of broken "trucks" was kinda long and tragic, it seems to have held up pretty well, although some of the "cutsomer comfort" crap they put on their malfunctioned and was repaired under warranty, Why can't you buy a vehicle with manual everything so that you can replace it when it inevitably breaks ? ***laughs*** I really wanted a H1 and actually for a while there, the H1's were considerably cheaper, but for what i use it for, I'd be going through wheel bearings like naeone's business. ...now on the other hand if i still lived up in seattle, I'd definitely be buying myself a H1 Alpha. I think of my H2 as a stylised lifted escalade with better weight distribution for driving in the kinds of road conditions that i see most of the time so theres definitely no delusion of thinking that it was purpose built for any kidn of serious offroading. All in all its been a good truck, not as bad on gas as people make out (all my lifted trucks have gotten crappy gas mileage) reasonably reliable and comfortable for long roadtrips. oh yeah and there was the time that the lesbian coke addict t-boned my fiance at an intersection in vancouver , so destroying her own vehicle, but mine was ok to finish our vacation, so i'll not knock it as long as it gets me home in one piece! This does remind me of one time back in the late 90's on microsoft campus when i saw a couple of programmers get their new H1 stuck behind the redwest campus parking, wedged between some trees.... the Hummers are just too wide for that kind of thang

actually Jim beg to differ thats actually a h2 SUT which does have fairly good offroad capabilities. I know because i offroad mine all the time, well used to while living east of Seattle. The H3 i have no experience of, but seeing them on the road they kinda look like a trailblazer with plastic sidepanels?? The idiot in this pics, hasn't even bothered to take the siderails off. He has the "lux" rails that are kinda cosmetic, mine are the offroad plates that detach with two bolts to give the correct amount of ground clearance. otherwise you run the risk of tearing the damn things off. I bought mine because the H1's are notororiously unreliable (they've since fixed that problem alledgedly with the H1 Alpha with the duramax motor) and It's impossible to buy a TDI D90 here due to import restricitions, so you end up spending serious coin if you want to go the landrover route. I used to live 4 miles up an old logging road and frequently in the winter i'd be hopping 30-40 Evergreens down on the road if i wanted to get to work at times when if i stopped to saw em , i'd have been there all day, so its been a good truck for me.. now that i live in santa monica however, it's a different story **laughs**

a GS Guzzi ? I've been looking at the Buell Ulysees but would much prefer a lighter 2V Guzzi with a luggage option and bonafide trail capbailities

you can get it at the barneys beanery in santa monica and stone is from san diego methinks

do i detect a note of jealousy as to the greatest of my circa 90's hairdo ? **laughs** I think that the arrogant bastard and the phenominal microbrews that i was drinking in the pac nwest melted all my hair over the last 10 years...

thats what i'm thinking hotrod the V11 and have the Buell with luggage for long getaways where i can beat the hell out of it the only downside is that Todd E winnae talk to me anymore if i buy one ..or a least come help me fix it if i break it i'd consider a Quota if they brought one out reasonably soon, it's just always so convenient to buy yer bike with all the luggage etc already there and fitted to the bike rather than have to mess around fabricating brackets etc. plus the buell wheelies

arrogant bastard is awesome i miss the pac nwest

ya'll don't know a good guitar now this is what i call a good guitar ! (great hair on that young man playing it as well...hahahahaha) YAMAHA SG BABY ! Coupled with my olde JCM 800 Marshall Stack, it was the musical equivalent of my V11 with the TI Mistrals and K&N pods

...i was thinking aboutgetting one but now the Buell Ulysses is higher on my list for a touring do everything bike

i just bought the titanium mistrals and fitted the sport 1100 passenger footpegs to angle my cans towards the sky

..well it's revenue actually i've noticed that speed limits are very agressively enforced in WA. I lived east of Seattle for 8 years and had a few close calls while mostly riding like my grandad (well my grandad just retired form riding his Katana, so he was kinda atypical). Honestly though, for the most part, WA highway patrol will pull you for anything more than 6 over typically, pain in the ass but true

ah he must be one of those "pc" people then heh when are you racing your Indian next ? I met a guy last night that has a 67 bsa lightning that he's owned since 73, and he was frothing at the mouth when i was telling him that you're doing the vintage motorcycle racing thing.

Hey Todd, i know that Jim sometimes is gone for periods of up to a week while he's working so it might take hime a few days to get back. Robbie

wow i've heard nothing but good things about those bennelli's.. personally i kinda fancied a Bimota Santa Monica just for the hell of it really, i mean that tl motor is a good engine and i'm sure htat chassis and parts are worth 40 grand right ? **laughs** http://www.bimotausa.com/imgs/samonica_1_600.jpg

hey laddie, i get all my parts from mgcycle.com moto international and moto guzzi classics. mgcycle has been consitantly great in getting me hard to find replacement parts (liek when my stucchi flyscreen got smashed by a falling tree!) Moto international and moot guzzi classics are phenomenal dealer resources, between all those guys, they know everything there is to know also, todd eagan is THE man on the west cost when it comes to performance tuning etc on the v11 motor, you might want to try http://www.socal-guzzi.com/ and ping him there ( i know he occasionally reads this forum as well)

yah el mirage would be a blast ! my issue is that my bike still needs some service love as well think traction would eb a problem on a guzzi though ? the damm bike eats back tires as it is there's so much frickin weight to it. thanks for the tips on coping with the salt, i used to ride every day back home in scotland and i'ev lost more than a few bikes to pitted forks and the salt monster over the years.

I'm thinking of entering Ingrid (see avatar) on my 2001 V11. We'll see though as i saw a bike at Mark Etheridge's shop that was destroyed by the salt and i'm not too enthralled to lose my baby to corrosion. Ingrid only weighs 110 pounds and should be able to haul ass when tucked in under the itsy bitsy bikini fairing.

i have to disagree with at least one of ratchethacks statements. I have a 2001 V11 Sport with 7000 miles on it. I've owned it since new and never wrrenched on it myself once oh yeah and i'm not rich either the bike has been ridiculously reliable once the initial teething problems were taken care of **knocking wood*** in fact i just caned it up to Laguna Seca and back, never even checked the oil level **oops** in short my bike gives me everything that i ever had from my old XBR 500 but with way more character . Dinnae be letting the naysayers of doom put you off on the wrenching front ! (living near a good dealer helps though )

Hey there, Has anyone fitted Michelin Pilot Race tires to their V11's yet ? I was considering trying their "medium front" "medium rear" combo for the V11 as opposed to spooning on some new Pilot Race tires. Any thoughts ? oh yeah i don't "do" superslab anymore with the V11 , it's mostly confined to my canyon carver and soon to be track day bike nowadays, hence the desire for stickier rubber.

there's nothing really limited edition about that LeMans either. AS long as it's a "real" 2003 (i forget which paint schemes came in which year) you won't have the engine bubbling paint problem to deal with. If the rest of the bike is in great shape, you'll most likely want to change the pipes for something lighter and sexier anyways so I wouldn't let that put you off. When i bought my bike brand spanky new, the right hand silencer was already scuffed to blazes. According to the dealer they always used to come like that

yeah mine does it too, the only time its truly bothesome is if i want to let my fiance ride my bike. She's used to a kawasaki which of course never has issues like that to deal with I figure that it's either dirt or moisture in the sensor.

i could only manage 5 minutes there myself before i gave up and went to look at the Buells. Ingrid got to sit on her Paul Smart that is apparently now showing up in November over on the ducati island, so the marketplace was fun and interesting, just not the Guzzi prescence.

heh dave, we'll call you on saturday and definitely will plan on leaving the bikes behind so we can enjoy a few cold ones on saturday night