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@audiomick I made contact with a dealership in Peoria, "go AZ west", they are supposed to contact me to let me know if they have suitable tires in stock. Although I gave him the sizes, he asked for the model and did not even know that Quota existed... Once I see the bike, I will be able to determine if I can ride it back straight away. I also need to check the brakes, the lights, the suspensions.

The distance from Peoria to Houston is 1200 miles. The owner sent me the pics of the tires today; would you say that in their current state, they have enough thread left? The rear rim reads Takasago EXC; the rear tire has some cracking showing.

@GuzziMoto I think common sense should prevail. There are riders who don't give a toss about being followed, others have a strong view upon it. I remember Jorge Lorenzo who had a specific sign when he was being followed. I read a commentary from Mike Doohan about this very topic; he said that this was not new, and pilots trailing existed before. However, he said the gentleman's agreement was if the frontman did not like it, and asked you to not do it, then you would stop. Clearly, times have changed....

As a subscriber, I got the email too. I am hopeful they will sometimes publish a book about the Moto Guzzi Le Mans over the years. Although the V11 Le Mans cannot be considered a real Le Mans, was I told by a purist.

I may be wrong, but like everyone else, the stores are all turning to Internet based orders. Zero stock, and when you want an exotic size, or less on demand brand, you now seem to have to wait more. This is exactly what happened to me with the Michelin Road 6. I don't know what is going on with the supply chain nowadays. But as far as choice for sizes and categories, I find there are lots of brands that manufacture tires for our V11. Including the "GT" moniker for many of the same model tire. The Dunlop Roadsmart IV can also be had in V11 sizes standard or GT.

One may argue that purposely waiting in the pits until the rider you are targeting exits could be considered "interfering". You know what Jorge Martin was doing to Francesco Bagnaia and of course, MM93 with Franco Morbidelli, who actually sacrificed his Q1 because Marc was trying to get a free ride on his tail. There maybe a safety aspect to it too. If you decide to abort your lap for any reason, you may induce the pilot following you to hit you; this has also happened before. In certain occasions, using the slip stream of a pilot may result in you beating his lap time. I think I like @GuzziMoto suggestion to have the pilots setting their quali. time on a single lap, and alone. One sighting lap, and go. This format would also eliminate the yellow flag issue, when someone crashes in front of you while you are making an attempt. We have seen many aborts last season because of it. However, I believe this would be less spectacular than the current prequalification, then Q1 to get into Q2.

I suggest you read the above thread until the end. I am currently having Michelin Road 6 being fitted to my V11 Le Mans. I had Michelin Road 5 all 2023, and I put more than 10,000 miles on them. When it comes to tires, we are all pretty opinionated on what we think is the best choice for our V11. I personally liked the Road 5 from Michelin because they have dual compound front and rear. Now all choices are subjective. Michelin is about the most expensive available on the market.

The bike did not sell, Kaplan has relisted it with a slightly lower purchase price: $6750; initially $7500. Just in case someone would be interested: https://www.ebay.com/itm/395152071269?hash=item5c00e61a65:g:oM4AAOSwIellnyD~

My only wish, is that he stops his antics such as taking the slip stream of other riders, even after they clearly show they do not want him to do it;

We just had the Gresini presentation of their motorcycles for the 2024 season; staring the Marquez brothers... You can find the show on YouTube. Needless to say, that bookmakers are already putting MM93 as their favorite to win the 2024 world championship. Marc is trying to temper the exuberant expectation, however I believe he will be the most motivated to win the season. With only a one-year deal, and with the necessity to equal Rossi's number of world titles, he will absolutely make everything in his power to come on top. It is all speculations, and he said that all the existing Ducati riders have a lot more experience with the GP than he does, but I would not be surprised to see him win the first outing, either the sprint, the race, or both. The oncoming tests will probably give some hints of where he stands, the first one being in Sepang starting on February 1st. The answer will come on the 8-10 March in Qatar for the first GP of the season.

Those testy photos..... you only need to copy their URL into the message, however some sites such as Amazon Photos do not allow embedding. This site does not let you upload photos as it would require much more storage space. To post a photo, you need to upload it/them into a photo hosting site, and insert the link into your post. I personally use flickr.com, which let you upload up to one thousand photos without subscribing. But there are others. You create an account, upload your pics, open the photo you want to post here, copy the URL, paste it and voilà, le tour est joué!

There is a site, named "ragazze in moto", which specializes in publishing user's female motorcyclists photos. This morning, I decided to sift through the plethora of photos, and could not find a single one on a Moto Guzzi! What does this tell us? most of the posts are from Italian ragazze, but not only. Ducati seems to be the number one choice; that makes sense, Ducati is sexy looking, even on its own. I was expecting to see a few V100 Mandello here and there. Instead nada, or should I say niente! I peruse this site often to get some inspiration for a possible photo shoot with the red Le Mans.

When I was in France in November last year, I did try one of those Helite Airbags; They seem to have reached out to FortNine for some exposure. Next time I go to France, I think I will get one and sell my Alpinestars AirTech 5 which is useless to me in that you need to wear it underneath a jacket, and I don't think it would be wise to wear directly on your skin either, since it is not the kind of garment you can wash if you sweat in it. Helite does not require a subscription, which should be pricing Klim outside the market, given the ludicrous amount of money one would have to spend to unlock all the safety features, some of those features in recurrent payments? how can a company be greedy with safety? I am going to try combining my Bowtex Helite with an Helite H-moov backpack in the Texas heat. I was not aware you could remove the pack from the bag itself, which makes it ever more appealing. The self recharging comes handy too, compared to my TechAir five that needs to be sent back to Alpinestars every two years or 500 hours, whichever come first. This is an additional 179.95 USD + Taxes, + shipping. I think the Helite H-mooV is a better solution.

I thought I should give you an update on my Quota Quest; I am waiting on the current owner to give me an update on the tires' status. It all comes down to that I want to bring it back to Houston, riding it. Also, the cold front was not really ideal to ride. The communication is slow, and I do not want to pester him since he hinted that selling the Quota was not a big priority, that he had some more pressing matters to settle, and he was overwhelmed by the number of email he was receiving. Anyhow, we established that I was interested to purchase it, providing it was in the state shown on the photos. I believe those pictures are old, as the sticker is dated 2020, however he told me that he had re-registered the bike more recently. As soon as I get the word on the tire, I will schedule my flight to Phoenix. This will be my second attempt to come back with a bike via the road. The first one did not go too well.

I am very fond of his ballads; "Cry for you" is one of his oldest, and kind of his signature song, which he plays to end most of his live performances; the version shown in this YT video is recent and done without his band. Nevertheless, a pretty good effort. I have the exact same guitar, purchased in 2000. Unfortunately, I now know that you need more than just the guitar to be a serious guitar player.... duh! Last photo is him and me, in Frankfort Germany, at the Music Messe. He is checking my guitar, and will letter play it during his set. Caution: we both looked a lot younger there...

I am not an ace at troubleshooting a V11, but the discipline is always the same, for any investigation: -start with the easiest and obvious, and get deeper and more technical; have you checked the fuel? is the pump turning on when you switch on the ignition? are all the fuses ok? then check your plugs, check you have ignition...

We had about 275 degrees K, it was freezing....

I renegotiate my insurance policies each and every year. Especially housing insurances. What they do, is once they have onboarded you, they increase the premium each year, sometimes by stupid amounts; thus, since I have purchased a house, in December 2016, I have changed my housing insurance each and every year. Each year, the previous insurance companies increased the premium without any justification. I would actually self insure myself if I could. As you stated, those premiums you pay are all lost funds. Any damage you have, there is always a clause that you did not know about that is used to avoid reimbursing you. I am in a flooding zone, although we never got flooded, I am in a hurricane zone too. My household insurance does not cover flood. I do the same for energy. I change my power provider each time my contract is due. They usually have attractive deals to capture you. Where I am trapped, is with my ISP. We only have two providers, and there is no difference between them, even if they try to make it difficult to compare. My Progressive policy is due in March, so I am going to shop around to see if I can get two bikes for less than 40 bucks a month.

I go from 25.17 USD per month, to about 40. USD; But it is not one in storage and the other active. Both are fully insured at all times, so they can be ridden together. I just need to develop ubiquity. The full coverage includes medical and litigation protection.

I found the lack of ABS can also be a factor for a greater premium. Taking a safety riding course can be a decreasing factor, however.