GuzziMoto

I assume you mean the shop on the south side of Baltimore, not Beltsville. I don't want to beat on them for issues I have with them. They just have not serviced my bikes in a manner that keeps me happy. I am not suggesting that anyone else should stop going there. If you are a happy customer of theirs, great. If you want to PM me to talk about it in private, that's fine. I don't want to air dirty laundry in public.

Well played my good man, well played. No, I did not have you confused, I was just poking the bear. Bad habit of mine.

Motomonster, I would buy that, but the biggest flaw in that is that a high quality radial master cylinder is not going to really make the brakes more prone to locking up. What it does do is increase the feel at the lever (allowing you to hold it closer to the point of maximum braking) and decrease slightly (very slightly) the amount of effort required to achieve a given amount of braking. If you reflexively grab a big handful of brakes at a moment of panic your front wheel is likely to lock either way. That is not a proper reflection of the brakes but of rider error. It can happen to anybody. The more time you spend riding at the limits in a controlled enviroment the less likely that is to happen, though.

What does a pad compound that has too much initial bite (a bad thing on the track or on the street) have to do with improving your brakes? It does have something to do with the fact that looking ones brakes is not a direct reflection of how good they are. Being able to lock tour front tire is not the point of brakes, stopping the bike is. And if you change a part on your bike so that it can stop in a shorter distance, how is that a bad thing. But then, arguing that point with someone who has resorted to the "If god meant for man to fly he would have given him wings" approach is pissing in the wind.

According to Dictionary.com it is the same as Technique, "technical skill; ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result." But I just did not feel it was needed to type an extra two letters. My apologies.

I'm probably going to regret pointing this out, but "locking the front wheel" is more a measure of poor braking technic then it is braking power. The fact that you can lock the front wheel if you grab a big hand full of brakes all at once is a measure of brake performance about as much as doing a burnout is a measure of horsepower.

I agree with Pete about the Griso being one of the most stylish bikes from Guzzi in a long time (I would rank it second to the MGS01), but I like the Zero as well. I think it looks great, but I would not trade my Griso for it. It trades style for usefulness. The Little Italy bike is much less modified and much more useful. But I do prefer my RacerX pipe to theirs. I think the Griso is only really in need of a bar swap and a paint job to be right for me. How long it will take me to do that remains to be seen.

Clearly if you ride any Guzzi, you care not only about performance that can be measured but more importantly you care about performance that CAN NOT be measured. Otherwise, you would likely ride a Honda. There is not much, if anything, that a Guzzi can do measureably that a Honda cannot do better. But there are many things in life that cannot be measured that are worth having. I, for one, prefer the way a Guzzi feels to the feel of a Honda. There is also the issue of better performance through higher quality parts and/or better feel. You can measure the shorter stopping distances that better brakes provide. I have not done so because I have better things to do. If anyone else is bored and feels the need, go right ahead. Do you or I NEED those better brakes and the feel and shorter stoppng distances they provide? That is a personal question much like whether or no to own a Guzzi is. Not everybody wants or needs better brakes, some people may want them but not need them and some may not want them at all. But if someone does want them the fact that someone else does not want or need them has little relevance. If my pointing out that better brakes will do a poor rider little or no good makes you feel like you are being attacked, oh well. If you think pushing your limits on the street is a good way to polish your skills, then I hope to never be riding around you. That is just wrong. The street is a bad place to push the limits. Where I'm from we would call those people "squids". My guess is you did not really mean that you push the limits on the street. I hope you meant that you are content to ride on the streets and consider riding itself an act of "polishing your skills". That is not polishing your skills in my book, but it's a free country.

Part of what makes a "radial" master cylinder better is that it offers a more direct path for the force from your hand squeezing the lever. The other part of the equation is that it is a higher quality piece than the mass produced stock part. To answer your questions, 1. I have not found that the stock brakes are not powerful enough, but I have found that they require more effort per unit of braking force than a higher quality setup provides. 2. Yes, they lack feel. This is something that people will likely not have an issue with unless they have ridden bikes with better brake feel. Once you get used to better brake feel, what seemed acceptable before is no longer. If yo can not feel the difference, that does not mean it is not there, only that you are not able to feel something that others can. I can not measure your ego, does that mean it does not exist? 3. No, I have not found them to be prone to fading on the street, but a radial master cylinder has little to do with that anyway. 4. Occasionally I have found that the stopping distance of the stock equipped bike is a little long for my tastes. This has not been a major issue as I tend to leave extra room for stopping on the street. But on the street unexpected things happen, and it is better to have a larger margin of safety rather than a smaller one. 5. A high quality radial master cylinder will give you more stopping power for less effort due to the better path for the energy of your hand. It also will give you better feel of that energy to allow you to modulate the brakes better. This would allow you to maintain a higher level of braking with a larger margin of safety, with the obvious result of shorter stopping distances should the need arise. Note, all this is dependant on the riders ability to take advantage of the improvements. If you suck as a rider, a higher quality master cylinder, radial or not, will not make you a better rider. I can't help you there. Edit; Normally I ride my Guzzi on the street, but both my wife and I have been known to take part in sanctioned parking lot racing and an occasional track day every couple of years to blow out the cob webs. If you don't polish your skills every now and then they rust.

It's better then the black or red color choices we got.

Dumbing a bike down in the name of making it run better. Why am I not surprised.

Better quality braking components are a good thing. Replacing a stock brake component on your Guzzi with one of higher quality is a good thing. It will not make the bike "dangerous". That is ignorant. Replacing your stock master cylinder with a radial unit of higher quality (individual brand preferences aside) can improve the power and feel of the brakes. It will not improve the talent of the person riding the bike, but that is your problem.

It is Europa Meccanica (spelling?). They are right off I-83 south of Harrisburg. Their main business seems to be vintage Porsches, but they dable in all sorts of vintage sports cars and vintage Italian bikes. They sell and service only Guzzis. They only have one Guzzi mechanic as far as I know, but he seems very talented and I like their attention to detail. I would imagine that comes from dealing with vintage Porsches and their owners. My experience with them working on my wifes bike was excellent. They are not, however, a typical motorcycle shop in that they do not stock helmets, gloves,tires, or any of the other standard stuff. But their shop is worth a visit just for the cars and bikes they have. They are nice people to boot.

Sounds like plenty of helpful Guzzi owners here. Hope it works out. I'm with you on Speed's. Merely suggesting that Joe has a Guzzi and he might let you ride it. But it sounds like that won't be needed. As a side note, after having service issues at my local Maryland shop, I found a shop on the south side of Harrisburg, Pa that is excellent. They are a vintage Porsche shop that also is into bikes. They sell and service Guzzis and also love vintage Ducatis. The shop is worth a visit even just to look around. See you around.

I'm on the south side of Baltimore. My wife has a 2001 V11 that has Ballabio bars added on. It is not a Lemans, but the seating position is not to different. Not sure if she'd let you ride it (she doesn't let ME ride it much) but I'm sure she'd let you sit on it. Might I suggest, though, that if a Multistrada is on your short list then a Guzzi may not be right for you. They are very different bikes. The V11 is a sportbike in GT clothes, the Multistrada is a sporty bike in ugly clothes. Anyway, let me know if I'm close enough to you to justify the trip just to look and sit. FYI, Joe, a salesman at Speeds, has a V11 (a Rosso I believe). Maybe he would let you ride his, he is supposed to be selling Guzzis after all.

While I would think the Guzzi stand would be a good choice, particularly after covering the ends, there are many companies that makes swingarm stands that do not require spools. I use an old one from Lockhart-Phillips and have seen them from Pit-Bull and others. Since you already have a Guzzi stand I would try to modify that so it did not scratch the pork chops first, but if that fails there are a few brands to chose from that make swing arm stands.

The only problem with what your saying is that "W" has done more crap that is unconstitutional and infringes on our constitutional rights then any other president I can think of. Yet you seem to think that it is only the democrats that do that sort of thing. I would agree that the federal goverment is too big and spends too much of our money, but to suggest that it is only the democrats that are to blame is absurd. The only difference between the two parties is HOW they spend our money and WHICH parts of the goverment grow.

And they added a cross-over pipe in front of the engine. The front cross-over adds a point of failure, they tend to rattle and/or crack.

To me a gun ban means just that, BANNING guns. That would be stupid. What types of guns are allowed is regulating guns, and that is a horse of a different color. Arguing gun regulation is a waste of time in most cases. Most people already have their ideas about what is right and what is wrong and what you say will not change anything. My only issue with what Skeeve said was that the constitution is clear and definitive about the right to bear arms and there is no room for interpretation. The fact that in the DC case before the supreme court 5 justices voted that it was un-constitutional and 4 voted that it wasn't proves that the 2nd amendment is not free from interpretation and that there is room for it. If one more justice thought it was constitutional it would have gone the other way.

One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, People should not be afraid of their goverment, goverment should be afraid of it's people. When I saw that movie for the first time I could not believe how much of it was actually happening (I did not see it in the theatre) and how erie it was.

At this point I think it is safe to say that while we do not completely agree on how the second amendment should be interpreted (but we are not that far apart), I hope we can both agree that it is something that must be interpreted. Indeed, that is what the supreme court is for. Just as they must interpret the most important amendment, the first amendment. I am not one for debate on the merits of a gun ban like England has, I do not believe that is likely to happen in my lifetime. The original question was, is the 2nd amendment clear and unequivocal as written. My opinion is that it requires interpretation and that interpretation has changed over the course of this country, as evidenced by the changes in gun laws over the course of this country. I do not support gun bans nor am I a gun nut. I do own guns, but I think owning a gun is a responsibility both to the individual and to society. It is a powerful thing.

I believe the loop thru the woods is gone now. Not just not used, but gone.

The relays are in plain view under the seat. It is a good idea to keep spares around as a failure in some of these can stop the bike dead. If you pull the seat and see five little relays in a row and any of them say "Siemens" on them, replace them as soon as possible. Otherwise, it is just a matter of good practice to keep spares of those around. The ones from DPGuzzi.com have a lot of research into what would work best, the stock Siemens ones do not and WILL fail. But that is just good general practice. I don't think it applies to your running issue. That sounds like a case of the bike being a bit lean at that rpm and throttle postion. It could be a stock map (they are lean at the bottom and too rich at the top stock) or one custom made for your bike (just because its a custom map does not mean it is perfect), either way those symptoms are typical of being lean. It could also be a tps issue, particularly since they pulled the old one out. If they did not set the new one up quite right while installing it that could be it. A mis-set tps, along with out of sync throttle bodies, is likely to be more of an issue at smaller throttle openings and go away as the throttle is opened farther. As others mentioned, I would suggest you learn to work on the bike yourself. Guzzis are reliable bikes but they do tend to have certain flaws that need to be worked out and it can be expensive and difficult to have this done by others. Often it takes a more intimate knowledge of the bike and what it is doing to correct these issue then a mechanic is likely to have. Not saying it cannot be done, just that paying others to fix the bike can be the harder more expensive way. If I where you I would, in order, check the valve clearances, check the TB sync (or pay someone to, that is much harder then the valves and you need special tools), check and set if needed the TPS (there is a range for this setting and room for adjusting, small changes can make a difference in how the bike runs). If none of that works, I would start to consider getting a PowerCommander or other such tuning aid to correct the issue. Good luck and keep at it. Once sorted these bike are some of the most rewarding bikes out there.

It is a shame they altered that track. It was up there as one of the great tracks and now it appears to be but a shadow of its former self. Many great races in many forms of motorsports have happened at the old Hockenheimring. My favorites were some of the 500cc GP races from the late 80's and early 90's from there.

First off, that post WAS way too long for me to bother reading, sorry. Learn to be more concise and I'll read your posts. Second, I am not against guns, I keep them myself. All I said was that the second amendment does not say that the goverment shall not enact laws that regulate or restrict the gun trade. What it says is "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.". How you interpret this is up to you. You posted evidence of other people backing up your interpretation of this. That is fine. But you did not even address my point, which was that in the end it comes down to how our society interprets this or any other constitutional amendment. They, like all our laws, are only words. It is the meaning given to words that means something. What it means to you may not be the same as it means to me. But it is how they are interpretted that counts. My point was that there have been restrictions, thru law, on guns since atleast the mid 19th century in this country. We as a society have decided that the goverment can regulate arms in this country. If you do not agree with that I'm sure you will post another novel on how wrong I am. But the fact is there have been laws regulating guns for a long time. How much the goverment is allowed to regulate guns is where the issue of opinion comes in. Some people opinions count more then others, but everybody is allowed to have their own opinion on this. That is one of the most important aspects of this country. It is what makes America what it is. Freedom of thought. Now, while your opinion on how the second amendment should be read has been made reasoably clear (but not completely as you never answered the question on whether you think the goverment has any right to regulate arms at all or if you are just of the normal right wing approach) please do not attack my interpretation of it, since I have not even told you what it is. Again, my point was not HOW the second amendment should be interpretted, but that it IS interpretted and will always be interpretted (and that interpretation may change as times change).