Greetings fellow Guzzisti,
I sit here looking at my 2 day old (to me) 2004 Cafe Sport (with a custom Coppa Italia paintjob) with it's seat off having it's Odyssey PC545 battery charged after not starting twice on it's maiden voyage yesterday, I am wondering what I have got myself in for.
Getting to this point has taken me a greater percentage of my 55 year existence on Planet Earth. It is the culmination of a journey involving 30 odd motorcycles and many many thousands of kilometres. Mostly all of them enjoyable and very many memorable.
The V11 is the one I chose as THE motorcycle. My old man rode a Vincent and as much as I love them, I'm never going to be able to afford one. 'Specially the one I would like to build.
And even though it runs in a different direction, has shaft drive and is Italian. A V11, to me, encapsulates that spirit of big twin glory that is motorcycling. So that's why I bought one.
And when I rode it home from the shop last Saturday I was the happiest man in the world.
And then it broke down on it's first ride.
Twice. With 5 other mates on their hotted up harleys (please not lower case "h").
After bump starting when the battery appeared to be a dud, it ran perfectly, magnificently even. When we came out out of one sweeper at about 120kmh into a long straight and I hit the next gear on full throttle at about 5k the way it rounded up and spat out those harleys was priceless.
And an affirmation of why I did this.
Which brings right here, right now as I write this and I have to say to all the posters on this forum that you guys are awesome.
The stuff you guys know !
And the way it gets discussed and evaluated shows that you're all humans as well. This is also very good.
Long may it last and I am very proud to finally be a part of it.
John Egan
Warrandyte, Australia
