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And here's Champion's helmets answers:

I ran a few checks, and it appears the price shown on their website do not include VAT. Which is surprising, but it is The Netherlands. Their program checks for VPN too, so I could not set my local in any other country that the USA. But I input a few European addresses, and I saw that for shipping to those destination, VAT was added. I am not worried about the sticker per se, but the law stipulates that helmets in the USA have to be DOT certified. Would an insurance company use a non DOT helmet loop hole to avoid reimbursing you?

The 85TT was prepared by Gianfranco e Vittoriano Guareschi, historic Moto Guzzi custom shop in Parma. Placed at the 9th and 8th place against the usual Yamaha and KTM. It looks nice!

Champion Helmets Ettenseweg 2 4706 PB Roosendaal The Netherlands Thanks for the tip! they have the "Red Shark" helmet in stock, the one I was looking for. I just have to check if I can have one with the DOT certification. Usually, helmets sold in Europe have the E-22/05 certificate. Also, and I mentioned this in another post. Keep in mind, by law prices shown in Europe have to include the local taxes. If the goods are shipped outside of the EU, they should remove the VAT from the price. The Shark Helmet I am looking at is shown USD 726.62; VAT in The Netherlands for this item is 21%. So the helmet price for a US base resident should be USD 600.51.

Here's the list of all the FIM certified helmets by brand. To obtain it, the helmet needs to pass more stringent tests than those required by the various governments' entities. So I am sticking to my Shark Race R Pro, even if it is not the best in terms of ventilation and probably noise level. I do have the internal jettison feature too, and I wear prescription glasses. Out of all the helmets I tested, the Shark was the only one which allowed me to slip in the branches of my glasses in an acceptable time. Again, a black helmet. Shark has a red model I would be willing to purchase, not imported in the USA.

It would like to see other colors and designs. But as a new model, they are going to go with what most people would purchase.

I agreed with the principle " since you are there, you may as well". Since he had the lower part of the sump already out, it seemed reasonable to check as much before bolting everything back. This was the line of my thinking; in principle. Obviously you guys know much more than myself about the inner works of a V11, as I have never done anything on mine, and it does not look I will any time soon.

Interesting. Nord-Lock made a video that compares various anti-turn locking solution against their own design. Are they really objective? are those results shown telling the truth? I cannot tell. I can only say, that we installed lock washers of the Grower type on the road wheels, support wheels, drive sprocket, tension drive. Then we drove the tanks in terrain to test components. Sometimes we sent vehicles to be tested by the military for different environments. If anything, the bolts were more difficult to remove after the trials. And we also received field used battle tanks for upgrading. I did not once come across a loosened fastener. However, there is a small difference with the video shown above. We did not have nuts on our bolts. The bolts were screwed directly into threaded holes in the chassis, and the Grower washers on top of flat washers would be situated underneath the heads. The threaded part of the bolt is much longer than that of a nut. As far as vibrations though, if you have been in a continuous track battle tank before, in terrain or on asphalt, vibrations are constant. Conclusion: I would probably agree that a Grower washer underneath a nut is not very effective. When we had nuts to secure, we would have a hole drilled through the nut and the bolt, and a spring pin would be inserted and lock secure the nut onto the bolt. Those pins we called Mecanindus Pin. And the company still exists! http://www.mecanindus.fr/en/

Biltwelll also proposes retro looking full faces helmets at much lower price point. But not with the refined design that characterizes Ruby.

Honestly, they are really not in the same category. The Koura, which seems to be the equivalent of the full face helmet appear to be only available in the one color. At least for the launch. Ruby Helmets are exclusively made out of carbon fiber and with many different designs and colors. Davida helmet have a more modern take on the retro look. Not really appealing to me.

Yes, I think this is what I meant by Tee, which I should have named clamp. Tee was a literal translation from my language since English is not my mother tongue. As for the Grower washers, we installed them systematically on the battle tanks, and they seemed to do the job.

I decided how I want to install the Formation instruments. I will use the upper fork tee, and install two 1/4" stainless steel bosses which I will glue to the tee. Now, "gluing" is not the best possible bond, especially those Formotion dials are not super light. The other options, would be to drill and tap the holes for 1/4". I don't know if the tee is in steel or alloy. If it is in allow, then I would need to drill for helicoils since you don't thread directly into light alloys else you strip the threads, or welding a 1/4" boss on the tee. Here's below the hardware I selected, for the glue maybe the high-strength urethane? What is your opinion? I know that mechanically, glue is not the best.

As a matter of principle, I only wear a full face helmet, and when I ride, I keep the visor closed, including promenade speeds. The last thing you want, is to have an insect hitting you in the face. If you are at high speed, it can be painful but the insect may not survive. At lower speed, getting a wasp, a hornet, a bee through the visor opening of your helmet may turn unpleasant and... dangerous.

The Ruby brand has been claimed by Paradise Cycle in Paris France. As a matter or fact, I knew them from before. They are located on avenue de la Grande Armée juste on the other side of the Champs Elysées. And they are a Moto Guzzi dealership. Check their store front, and you can see they have the Ruby logo. https://paradisemotoshop.com/

By popular demand, the Ruby Helmet...

@lowriter; I don't know which age tranche you are, but back in the seventies, racing helmets looked a bit like those proposed by Ruby, and as I understand other brands who want to cater to the "retro" look. They had "snap buttons" for the visor which are no longer used today, but which are kept for the "look". I was drawn to the color, since it matches the red of my Le Mans, plus I liked the look. The visor system is not convenient. Air circulation may not be well suited for Texas weather. The inside padding is not removable, so you can't wash it. They have a lot of cool designs, which are a major deviation from today's norm.

From a photo posted in the GOG thread (Girls on Guzzis), a lady was wearing a Ruby retro looking helmet. I looked for information about the Ruby line, and found they were proposed by a company based in China. These helmets are expensive, but after more research, it turns out the Ruby company based in China may not be the legitimate rights' owner of the brand. This is the "About us" posted on what they claim as being the sole official Ruby Helmets market place: https://www.ateliers-ruby.com/pages/about-us Succinctly, they say they are not manufacturing any helmet as of now, and all those are available from the Internet are not legitimate "Ruby" products.

I am still looking around for my best solution, and I found this, from Anderson Stands in Australia. Another company that went bankrupt, but as with the exhaust (Stayintune), they got purchased. I found this in a forum. The input is from 2012. I sent an email to the new company, and asked them if they still manufacture the stand. Also, the OP mentioned that it interferes with the gear lever and brake pedal.

I concur with Scud's advice. Since you have already removed the sump lid, you may as well keep going and eliminate all the possible causes before re-assembling. Rationale being, if the pressure sensor is not the root cause, then you need to disassemble again. I would also go with the pressure gauge check as Scud offered. You may spend a little more for just the "one time", but at least you will get a full assessment of the pressure profile. I made a video of my flat six engine oil pressure from start to warmer, thought I would post it to give an example and decided against as we all know how the oil pressure behaves in an engine So you start at maximum pressure (cold oil), and the build up is about .5 of second from starting the engine cold. For my flat six, it is 5 bars (1 bar=14.503 psig). As the oil temperature increases, the oil pressure diminishes. idling at 800 rpm. At nominal oil temperature, the idle is about 1.2 bars, and above idle above 2 bars.

What Claudio Dominicali says about the special affinity of people around the Ducati brand, is valid for other brands too. However I believe the charisma behind Italian bikes is special. There is a lot of enthusiasm with BMW and Triumph, and I am not going to ignore Harley Davidson here in the US. I have been to one of the WDW, and it felt like thanksgiving in the USA. All the family reuniting around the patriarch. I also attended the LoneStar annual rally in Galveston and the reunion was not HD centered, unlike in the case of WDW. Not saying WDW is better. Simply stating the celebration and team building were different. To some extent, the V11 forum here does it everyday. It would be interesting if Piaggio was compelled to organize a similar event here, in the USA for the Moto Guzzi fans.

I pay 355 USD for 12 months. Compared to what I pay for my car, it is nothing. In Europe, motorcycle insurances are more expensive than car's. And if you just got your driver's license, some companies refuse to insure you. So here in Texas, it is less expensive to insure a motorbike than a car. I don't get it.

She gives out the impression to be a happy lady. Something too rare nowadays....

You can't really see it under the helmet.