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Badclassicist

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Posts posted by Badclassicist

  1.  

    I'm considering buying a 2003 V11 Sports with20,000 miles on it.

     

    I would just use this for relatively fine weather riding solo.

     

    I would appreciate any opinions - I'm going to book a test ride tomorrow - the only issue for me might be the position on the bike, the Norge is very comfortable , but I'd probably only ride the V11 for two hour rides

    ...

    two hours isn't nearly enough. :)

     

    Seriously though, the V11 Sport is one of the most comfortable bikes I've ever ridden. It's just so nicely proportioned.

     

    (a fellow UK rider, if you ever want to compare notes.)

  2.  

    Many years ago 3 women arrives a the Sligachan camp site on Guzzis and in conversation they made it clear their lesbian leanings. To be honest this left me with the lingering thought that Guzzis must be 'dykes bikes'. This was reinforced a year later when talking to a stocky big handed 'woman' at a local university.

     

    Well, that makes it official: Guzzis are butch bikes. As opposed to femme ones. ^_^

  3. I have been touching up the red frame on the V11, with:

     

    Halfords Tool box red

     

    and I can honestly say it is an absolutely perfect colour match. I'm really pleased with it. I used a touch up stick that as well as a small brush has a needle application for use on tiny chips.!

     

    Paul

     

    Excellent to know! I've been using Hammerite smooth red, which isn't bad, but this is clearly better. And will be cheap. :)

     

    Gideon

  4. Ha ha Sicily or Orkney in the winter,hmm which,which one?

    Glencoe is pretty spectacular in all seasons though :thumbsup:

     

    As places to freeze and starve to death go, Glencoe has earned its place in history, alas - but if you're well wrapped in modern kit and have a ticket out of there, it is feckin' gorgeous.

     

    That the Romans never made it that far may suggest some basic common sense - or, then again, a pre-modern sense of aesthetics and a shortage of good ancient motorcycle dealers.

  5. This is exactly the answer I needed to find, and where else would I have found it than on the V11lemans forum...

     

    That third bolt (and lack of alternate holes to screw it into) was mocking me, and now I know it's stupid and I can ignore it, I feel much better. :-)

  6. Green? It is Scotland, it is wet...

     

    I like those short V11, they're always good for nice pictures.

    Is that an actual one, by the way? So green the landscape already? Makes me a bit nervous. The filled up tank is a good thing, you can let it stay closed a bit longer then :)

     

    Hubert

  7. Forum readers who'll be in Rome before the end of January 2012 may wish to check out the Quirinale - the presidential (former royal) palace, which is open in the evenings right now for an exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of Italy as a state. Some info, in Italian:

     

    http://www.quirinale.it/qrnw/statico/artecultura/mostre/2011_SantEgidio/SantEgidio_home.htm

     

    The reason I bring this up, other than it's an amazing place to visit and it's free, is that they have a bunch of former royal/presidential vehicles on display in the courtyard, including the most gorgeous 1952 Falcone Sport, used, I guess, for presidential motorcades.

     

    I only have my iThingy here and can't make it post the pics in a forum post - anyone with a proper computer willing to be emailed them and stick them up? Thanks.

  8.  

    Hm, this might be based on a very common misconception of the Alps and the streets there. The point is NOT to be very fast on the straight parts. You normally start low down, in warm and green landscape, and end up very high in a totaly, at least very different environment, cold and rawboned. In-between lays no racecourse but constant search for the correct line, timing the overtaking, smooth shifting, listening to the engine,things like that. Take the hair-pin bends in second, the straights in third, max. fourth. With this concept and on a Guzzi you do a favour to yourself and to the landscape. Besides that you won't be the last one at the top - mostly because of the second gear in the bends.

     

    Hubert

     

    I skipped the Alps cuz I'm a wuss - well, mostly because I was in a hurry to get somewhere - and took the Autotrain from the Netherlands down to Alessandria in northern Italy; if you're ever down that way, the Autostrade (toll roads) in that neck of the woods are *fantastic*. The Italians are great highway engineers and they've had some very dramatic landscape to play around with there.

  9. It's funny you should mention the chromed plastic. That was one of the things that put me off buying a 1200 sport rather than the V11 that I ended up with. Plus, of course, I was simply smitten with the looks of the V11. I can't put my finger on it, but it just seems more classy.

     

    Trev

     

    That nails it for me, too - I'm sure the 1200 is nice to ride and all but it's not really *trying*.

  10. Yeah, the mule. It's always been the cause of hassle and a big selling handicap. Good to hear that they swapped to a more business oriented type of give aways now. I'm not sure whether this will help in your particular case, being a married teacher, at least it'll make it easier to shed it at your neighbours'.

    BTW, are you sure the mule in your dream is not yourself?

     

    post-3723-1321985698461_thumb.jpg

     

    Hubert

     

    This plus leather harness could get me in a lot of trouble

  11. My Strange Moto Guzzi Dream

     

    My name's Gideon, I live in Birmingham (the UK one: home of the people of Beorm); my wife and I both teach at the university there, although we're both in Rome for the Autumn. As you can imagine, this last bit hasn't helped banish my Guzzi cravings at all. I currently ride a yellow Suzuki TLR, which my wife has named 'Buttercup', but there is a black Guzzi V11 in Scotland that is calling to me (hi Mark!) and that I'm hoping to pick up in January once I'm back. Last night I had the strangest dream.

     

    In my dream, I was looking again at the particulars the seller had posted when I saw I'd missed an important detail first time round. The Guzzi came with the official Guzzi accessory of a leather mule harness (a very nicely made piece of kit - recommend it), and a mule to tow it. It wasn't the original mule - that had died after a year - but the replacement was still going strong. I'm aware that Guzzis come with issues character, but I admit this gave me second thoughts. How was I going to get it home? Ayr to Birmingham is quite a haul, and the obvious route is by the motorway, but at mule speed that wasn't an option. Would I have to rent a special trailer?

     

    And what about when I got it home? Where was I going to keep the mule? We don't have the kind of garden you could keep one in (a hedgehog maybe) and I couldn't just leave it on the street. My parents have a vegetable allotment, but they don't live locally, and an eighty-mile round trip to pick up the mule would kind of negate the whole point of better fuel economy.

     

    Anyway, I've given a firm 'yes' to the bike, but I still don't know what I'm going to do about that mule.

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