In early July of this year, I bought a Ducati Scrambler.
After working on the Scrambler constantly for three months, I realized that I'd only put about 450 miles on it. There has to be a reason for that, no new motorcycle I ever owned got so little mileage in that amount of time. Sheesh, I bought my iZip Sumo bicycle in April and have put over 850 miles on it, and that's a bicycle!
It just didn't want to be mine. I didn't like its power characteristics, the snatchiness of its clutch, or its feel. It hurt my butt and wrist to ride it more than thirty miles. I worked and worked and worked to make it comfortable, to tune the engine so it would work smoothly...
I thought I wanted a nice, light, fun standard bike to ride. I've always had bikes that were modded into some form of moderate cafe racer and I thought I wanted something a little more gentle. Well, turns out I was wrong. A standard bike is too painful for me to ride; a moderate cafe racer is what my body is comfortable with. A nice, light, fun bike for me *is* a cafe racer.
Since I thought of the Scrambler from the beginning as a project, I'd budgeted way more money than just what was needed to re-gear for riding and buy a bike to ride. When I discovered that a shop in the area had a Racer to sit on, I immediately went there and sat on it. Ah, satori! This is what I wanted. It's just right. I took it for a test ride and within 500 yards knew the answer. I told the salesman it was mine on the spot.
When we worked the deal the next morning, he finally looked at me after calculating and verifying with the shop's owner the value of the Scrambler, gave me a price, and asked if that seemed a good deal. The price he gave me was $2000 less than the minimum I thought he would say. I responded by pulling out my checkbook and writing a check for that amount on the spot.
"The Big Problem is that you have MY bike in YOUR showroom. This check will correct that problem. Please be sure the Scrambler goes to a good home and gets loved."
The 1975 Moto Guzzi 850T that I rescued from the scrapyard and customized to suit me—exactly the way I wanted MY bike to be—in 1995 was the last project bike I built. Despite all the many, many thousands of wonderful rides on the Ducati 750GT, Thunder, the Ducati 907IE, and my beloved Moto Guzzi LeMans V, when I think back to those days the motorcycle I loved the most and enjoyed riding the most was that funky, sport-ified 850T.
The Moto Guzzi V7III Racer is without any doubt in my mind a factory-made reincarnation of that bike: it feels exactly the same ... only better with modern brakes, ABS, Traction Control, engine management, and handling. It's not super powerful; like the 850T, the exhaust sound is rather restrained. But it is just exactly right, it works just the way I like. There's very very little I can do to it that will make it much "better." I rode it to breakfast at a cafe in Mountain View yesterday: the smile on my face was so big that the top of my head cracked off and blew away.
I've bought a few detail things to finish it out from Todd: mounts for my bar-end mirrors, a better headlight bulb, the engine management/ECU flashing tool, stainless bolts for the valve covers. I might be interested in a nicer sounding set of mufflers as long as they're not too loud (my gold standard is the gorgeous sound made by my Moto Guzzi LeMans V fitted with its OEM LaFranconi 'turbo' mufflers). I'll need some bags to fit when I go traveling—because this bike and I are going to travel, make no mistake about that.
Beyond that, all I want to do is ride it. I am beyond happy.
onwards!
G
After working on the Scrambler constantly for three months, I realized that I'd only put about 450 miles on it. There has to be a reason for that, no new motorcycle I ever owned got so little mileage in that amount of time. Sheesh, I bought my iZip Sumo bicycle in April and have put over 850 miles on it, and that's a bicycle!
It just didn't want to be mine. I didn't like its power characteristics, the snatchiness of its clutch, or its feel. It hurt my butt and wrist to ride it more than thirty miles. I worked and worked and worked to make it comfortable, to tune the engine so it would work smoothly...
I thought I wanted a nice, light, fun standard bike to ride. I've always had bikes that were modded into some form of moderate cafe racer and I thought I wanted something a little more gentle. Well, turns out I was wrong. A standard bike is too painful for me to ride; a moderate cafe racer is what my body is comfortable with. A nice, light, fun bike for me *is* a cafe racer.
Since I thought of the Scrambler from the beginning as a project, I'd budgeted way more money than just what was needed to re-gear for riding and buy a bike to ride. When I discovered that a shop in the area had a Racer to sit on, I immediately went there and sat on it. Ah, satori! This is what I wanted. It's just right. I took it for a test ride and within 500 yards knew the answer. I told the salesman it was mine on the spot.
When we worked the deal the next morning, he finally looked at me after calculating and verifying with the shop's owner the value of the Scrambler, gave me a price, and asked if that seemed a good deal. The price he gave me was $2000 less than the minimum I thought he would say. I responded by pulling out my checkbook and writing a check for that amount on the spot.
"The Big Problem is that you have MY bike in YOUR showroom. This check will correct that problem. Please be sure the Scrambler goes to a good home and gets loved."
The 1975 Moto Guzzi 850T that I rescued from the scrapyard and customized to suit me—exactly the way I wanted MY bike to be—in 1995 was the last project bike I built. Despite all the many, many thousands of wonderful rides on the Ducati 750GT, Thunder, the Ducati 907IE, and my beloved Moto Guzzi LeMans V, when I think back to those days the motorcycle I loved the most and enjoyed riding the most was that funky, sport-ified 850T.
The Moto Guzzi V7III Racer is without any doubt in my mind a factory-made reincarnation of that bike: it feels exactly the same ... only better with modern brakes, ABS, Traction Control, engine management, and handling. It's not super powerful; like the 850T, the exhaust sound is rather restrained. But it is just exactly right, it works just the way I like. There's very very little I can do to it that will make it much "better." I rode it to breakfast at a cafe in Mountain View yesterday: the smile on my face was so big that the top of my head cracked off and blew away.
I've bought a few detail things to finish it out from Todd: mounts for my bar-end mirrors, a better headlight bulb, the engine management/ECU flashing tool, stainless bolts for the valve covers. I might be interested in a nicer sounding set of mufflers as long as they're not too loud (my gold standard is the gorgeous sound made by my Moto Guzzi LeMans V fitted with its OEM LaFranconi 'turbo' mufflers). I'll need some bags to fit when I go traveling—because this bike and I are going to travel, make no mistake about that.
Beyond that, all I want to do is ride it. I am beyond happy.
onwards!
G
