For anyone that cares to know a brief history of myself, Todd, the owner of this website and GTM.
I'm the third generation rider and racer of my family. Both of my parents only recently retired from riding. My grandfather below, was a hill-climb and dirt-track racer, commercial electrician, machinist and engine builder/mechanic.
My grandfather Bill Balsis:
c1936 HD
c1951 on his Vincent Black Shadow:
My Dad & Mom:
My addiction apparently started when I was still in diapers, as my parents told me my grandfather would disappear with me out to the garage the second I was carried into the house, where he rode me around on the gas tank of his R50/2. When he returned, my parents say I screamed when they removed me from the bike, only stopping when they put me back on. I still recall holding onto the crossbar on his handlebars on the BMW (photo) below. I also vividly remember the very first ride sitting on the seat behind him.
c1967 on his /2 at a slow ride competition with the Baltimore Ramblers, which he was a co-founder of.
I spent my formidable youth in his garage. I was a tinkerer as kid, doing everything my Grandfather allowed me to help him with (and likely far more I shouldn’t have touched). I was taught to ride at the age of four by way of a work/trade negotiation by my grandfather via a neighbor who was a dirt-track racer, along with his son (one year older than I). They got me into dirt-track racing at the age of eight, and I won one indoor many outdoor class Championships.
My grandfather unfortunately passed away when I was just ten years old. I spent my pre-teen and teen youth in the dirt, muddy woods and farm/fire road riding in and around the Mid-Atlantic region, along with having fun on the frozen Chesapeake Bay tributaries in the Winter, which involved sheet metal screws and learning all about cold-seizing two-stroke motors.
After my grandfather passed, I began truly working on my own motorcycles via "sponsorship" of a local Yamaha dealership and racing owner & son, of which their 'race room' housed one of the best builder/tuners in the country; Gary Nixon's dirt-track & road-race engine/bike builder. Under his guidance, I raced, wrenched and built my own dirt track engines (turning Pro at 16 yrs old) and then went on to road race for almost 10 years, 8 years professionally, earning a single digit national # with no sponsors.
From 16 years old, I surpassed one million street miles before I was 25 years old. Of which, while just starting in college, I became a self-employed residential home designer and builder starting at the age of 19~20, which quickly segue-way'ed into becoming a residential Architect on multi-million dollar East and West coastal homes.
Having owned at least one of most every brand outside of older vintage machines, I finally found my way to owning a Guzzi after having ridden many in the 90s. My very first was a green frame 1000S at a Rider Magazine Rally in Pittsburgh PA in '93. I went to see and hopefully ride the Dr. John Daytona 1000; It was pedestaled with ropes around it, so didn’t happen. There, I did meet and am still friends with the National Sales Manger John Stoddart, of whom I later worked briefly for with MZ Motorcycles short-lived relaunch with the MZ1000.
I’ve now been nostrils deep in Guzzis since '99 when I bought my first (brand new) Jackal, which is a fun story unto itself. I rode it a total of 264k miles (40k of which was track time as an instructor, of my own track school), before transforming it into a GTM build on it's 20th Anniversary. To date I have personally owned well over 50+ Guzzis, collectively totaling well over a half-million plus miles on them alone, not including any of my GTM Builds. I've also successfully raced a ultra-rare factory Guzzi '49 Dondolino race-bike in AHRMA, and got to put some track time in on a MGS-01 (both photo captured below in my signature).
I'm still a professional rider for OEMs and media sources, and have piloted many pre-production machines and was the only one to ride Indian's Spirit of Munro for their short movie found HERE. Behind the scenes below.
I've also been well paid for my R&D input, skills and riding abilities including my good friends at Arch Motorcycles (me in center of Gard on left, and Keanu of course).
I assisted as a Cycle World Magazine Associate Editor/Tester from c2000~2007, during of which I was the Series Manager of the AMA Pro Racing SuperMoto Series ‘03~06.
Add to that I was a MGNOC Rep for many years, in two opposite successive coast states, threw numerous small events, a National Rally, and have offered free endless support help here online and in person since late '99. And the list can go on and on from there.
Creating this website in 2001, and digging deep into Guzzi performance and fueling, I turned fully to it in 2007, and finally opened a Guzzi workshop in 2015 because working from home got too overwhelming. This was in addition to the Guzzi rental business launched in 2014. I’ve likely personally purchased and maintained more new Guzzis than anyone in the Western U.S.
My shop, GTMotoCycles.com handles full service, fabrication and tons more. I fix all of the bikes that the dealers can’t, screw up and/or blame the owners for, and we are proactive in what we know goes wrong, all for far less $. For many years now, I've been building custom frame up bikes, and very successfully building big bore motors, both small and big blocks, including Supercharged and nitrous builds.
This broadly summarizes a small handful of my moto resume, and is posted as a general rebuttal to the Penis Rotor AssHat thread HERE.
I'm the third generation rider and racer of my family. Both of my parents only recently retired from riding. My grandfather below, was a hill-climb and dirt-track racer, commercial electrician, machinist and engine builder/mechanic.
My grandfather Bill Balsis:
c1936 HD
c1951 on his Vincent Black Shadow:
My Dad & Mom:
My addiction apparently started when I was still in diapers, as my parents told me my grandfather would disappear with me out to the garage the second I was carried into the house, where he rode me around on the gas tank of his R50/2. When he returned, my parents say I screamed when they removed me from the bike, only stopping when they put me back on. I still recall holding onto the crossbar on his handlebars on the BMW (photo) below. I also vividly remember the very first ride sitting on the seat behind him.
c1967 on his /2 at a slow ride competition with the Baltimore Ramblers, which he was a co-founder of.
I spent my formidable youth in his garage. I was a tinkerer as kid, doing everything my Grandfather allowed me to help him with (and likely far more I shouldn’t have touched). I was taught to ride at the age of four by way of a work/trade negotiation by my grandfather via a neighbor who was a dirt-track racer, along with his son (one year older than I). They got me into dirt-track racing at the age of eight, and I won one indoor many outdoor class Championships.
My grandfather unfortunately passed away when I was just ten years old. I spent my pre-teen and teen youth in the dirt, muddy woods and farm/fire road riding in and around the Mid-Atlantic region, along with having fun on the frozen Chesapeake Bay tributaries in the Winter, which involved sheet metal screws and learning all about cold-seizing two-stroke motors.
After my grandfather passed, I began truly working on my own motorcycles via "sponsorship" of a local Yamaha dealership and racing owner & son, of which their 'race room' housed one of the best builder/tuners in the country; Gary Nixon's dirt-track & road-race engine/bike builder. Under his guidance, I raced, wrenched and built my own dirt track engines (turning Pro at 16 yrs old) and then went on to road race for almost 10 years, 8 years professionally, earning a single digit national # with no sponsors.
From 16 years old, I surpassed one million street miles before I was 25 years old. Of which, while just starting in college, I became a self-employed residential home designer and builder starting at the age of 19~20, which quickly segue-way'ed into becoming a residential Architect on multi-million dollar East and West coastal homes.
Having owned at least one of most every brand outside of older vintage machines, I finally found my way to owning a Guzzi after having ridden many in the 90s. My very first was a green frame 1000S at a Rider Magazine Rally in Pittsburgh PA in '93. I went to see and hopefully ride the Dr. John Daytona 1000; It was pedestaled with ropes around it, so didn’t happen. There, I did meet and am still friends with the National Sales Manger John Stoddart, of whom I later worked briefly for with MZ Motorcycles short-lived relaunch with the MZ1000.
I’ve now been nostrils deep in Guzzis since '99 when I bought my first (brand new) Jackal, which is a fun story unto itself. I rode it a total of 264k miles (40k of which was track time as an instructor, of my own track school), before transforming it into a GTM build on it's 20th Anniversary. To date I have personally owned well over 50+ Guzzis, collectively totaling well over a half-million plus miles on them alone, not including any of my GTM Builds. I've also successfully raced a ultra-rare factory Guzzi '49 Dondolino race-bike in AHRMA, and got to put some track time in on a MGS-01 (both photo captured below in my signature).
I'm still a professional rider for OEMs and media sources, and have piloted many pre-production machines and was the only one to ride Indian's Spirit of Munro for their short movie found HERE. Behind the scenes below.
I've also been well paid for my R&D input, skills and riding abilities including my good friends at Arch Motorcycles (me in center of Gard on left, and Keanu of course).
I assisted as a Cycle World Magazine Associate Editor/Tester from c2000~2007, during of which I was the Series Manager of the AMA Pro Racing SuperMoto Series ‘03~06.
Add to that I was a MGNOC Rep for many years, in two opposite successive coast states, threw numerous small events, a National Rally, and have offered free endless support help here online and in person since late '99. And the list can go on and on from there.
Creating this website in 2001, and digging deep into Guzzi performance and fueling, I turned fully to it in 2007, and finally opened a Guzzi workshop in 2015 because working from home got too overwhelming. This was in addition to the Guzzi rental business launched in 2014. I’ve likely personally purchased and maintained more new Guzzis than anyone in the Western U.S.
My shop, GTMotoCycles.com handles full service, fabrication and tons more. I fix all of the bikes that the dealers can’t, screw up and/or blame the owners for, and we are proactive in what we know goes wrong, all for far less $. For many years now, I've been building custom frame up bikes, and very successfully building big bore motors, both small and big blocks, including Supercharged and nitrous builds.
This broadly summarizes a small handful of my moto resume, and is posted as a general rebuttal to the Penis Rotor AssHat thread HERE.
