Hot, busy day

Today was a very hot day, with the Heat Index here in NC reaching 110 or better. I was out in it most of the day.

At 7:30 a.m., I left for Wake Forest to form a flagline in honor of World War II Veteran James E. Steffens. There were more than 20 PGR members there and we lined to road to the service on both sides. The family was gratified.

I ate lunch at the Olive Garden in Wake Forest, then visited Barnes and Noble until time to leave for the second service of the day.

World War II veteran Richard Kantzler's funeral was held at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Goldsboro. There were about 10 PGR members there. Once again, the family was gratified.

"Jammer" Bill served as Ride Captain for both events. He did a superlative job. He is conscientious, considerate, and makes everyone feel good about what is going on. I always enjoy working with him.

I ate dinner at Bojangles on Best Road in Goldsboro: a place to avoid.

Got home late. The Triumph functioned perfectly. An excellent bike for the freeway, just as I had hoped.

The heat was punishing, but I wore my Veskimo cooling vest. It did a great job. Every time I started getting overly hot, I turned it on and it circulated cold air under my shirt. It is going to make standing on the flagline a lot less unpleasant this summer.

A lovely noise

I went to celebrate Thanksgiving with my sister, and returned that afternoon: 125 miles on Scarlett each way, temps in the 50's Fahrenheit.

What a lovely noise the 750 Breva makes! A kind of barking growl, not a scream, not a cough, not a vibration. No thumps, no bumps, no shrieks, no whines. Just a constant reminder that the motor is waiting under you, ready to go faster than you want or need, yawning at 55, mildly pleased at 65, pleased at 75, happy at 85. Going, and going, and going, like the road has no end and you have no destination, and you are on this magical thing, riding forever, like Sleipnir, the tireless, eight-legged horse of Odin, who ran on 4 legs until those tired, then ran on the other 4. And you are borne up, like a knight or a demigod, untiring through the chill and the fog and the dark.

So you leave it, to go indoors, while it sleeps, waiting--dreaming perhaps, of places you have never gone, to which it wishes to bear you away.

Long, wet day

James Micheal Harris II's funeral was today and I rode with the PGR to honor him.

Left Jacksonville at 9:10 in the rain for Washington, NC. Then helped transfer the casket from the funeral home to the hearse. Then we escorted the hearse to the family home, where the family joined us, and we went to the cemetery, near Pantego--about 45 miles away. At the cemetery, the rain finally stopped, so I took off my Frog Togs rainsuit. The funeral was fairly long, and the ride there and back was longer, so I was running behind.

I left the cemetery and started back to Washington, then Jacksonville. It started to sprinkle, but I decided to ignore it and press on--big mistake. By the time I hit highway 17 back to Jacksonville, it was coming down in buckets and I was soaked. So I kept on.

By the time I got back home, I headed straight for the Presbyterian Men meeting. Delicious dinner.

250 plus miles on the bike, most of it in the rain.

My Frog Togs rainsuit did very well, but no rainsuit will keep you dry when it is in your saddlebag.

The mystique and reality of Moto Guzzi

Moto Guzzi is an Italian motorcycle manufacturer that specializes in bikes with a unique engine configuration. They are the oldest continuously-operating motorcycle manufacturer in Europe, and the second-oldest (after Harley-Davidson) still making bikes. They make comparatively few machines every year, assemble them by hand, and sell them in the US through a very tiny dealer network.

They have been in the past powerful agents of change and progress in the motorcycle world. Many great experiments in cycle design and manufacture have been tried by Moto Guzzi. As in all such cases, some have failed, but some have succeeded brilliantly.

The current products of Moto Guzzi are unique. No other manufacturer produces a full line of 45-degree V-twin engines set perpendicular to the main axis of the frame, using a shaft drive. The only marque that comes close is the BMW parallel twin engine, with its cylinders set at 180 degrees opposition, instead of 90 degrees. They are excellent bikes, but they are big, fat, wide bikes--in comparison to Guzzis.

Guzzis have a unique look, an unmistakable sound, and a very different feel.

They are not the biggest, the fastest, the most responsive, the cheapest, or the most fashionable bikes. They excel in no single category.

Except character. Or if you prefer, soul. Or perhaps feel. or maybe you prefer passion.

Those of us who ride them speak of the "character," or "soul" or "feel" or "heart" or "passion" of our Guzzis. We are not talking about something abstract caused by our adherence to a specific brand. We are talking about something that is real and concrete, but not quantifiable. It is something so many riders have felt that it has become impossible to say it is just a subjective impression caused by our love for our marque.

People who have no love for the marque have ridden Guzzis. When they ride them for a short time, they may feel nothing. But I have never read a review from a person who has ridden a Guzzi every day for a month that denied that there was something about a Guzzi that was different from every other bike he had ridden. He may like it, or he may hate it, but he will never deny that it exists.

It is a combination of all the characteristics of a bike: its geometry, its engine, its suspension, its riding position, its control locations, its sound, its speed, its responsiveness, its very method of moving you from one point to another. There is no single number, and no set of numbers, that can quantify it. But if you ride a Guzzi for a time, you will feel it.

I am giving every single biker who reads this log a challenge and a warning:

Go out and ride a Guzzi. Not a momentary ride around the block, a long, varied ride over several days and a considerable distance. You may be captivated, or you may be repelled.

But you will never forget.

Harley is having troubles

Harley-Davidson, the world's oldest continuing motorcycle manufacturer, has been forced to close one factory, laying off more than 1,000 workers. It's financing arm is seeking to be part of the government's financial bailout, like GMAC was.

Personally, I feel that if GMAC is going to be bailed out, Ford, Chrysler, and Harley's financial subsidiaries should be eligible as well. So should GE Capital and other loan makers for goods. If we want to pump up our industries by having people buy, then we must have places where they can get financing. Most of us can't simply walk out and buy a car or a washer and dryer for cash. And these dedicated credit arms offer far better terms than credit cards do.

I know, a Harley (or a Guzzi) is not a necessity. But some kind of reliable transportation is for almost everyone. And although fancy backyard grills are luxuries, most families really do need a washer and a dryer.

As a biker, I am very concerned about how the state of the economy is affecting the motorcycle industry. Harley probably has capital to weather the storm. Piaggio, which owns Moto Guzzi, is the major scooter maker in Europe, and scooter sales actually tend to go up with the economy goes down, as they offer cheaper transportation than a car. The Japanese marques are all affliated with major industrial concerns. But I think that a lot of smaller marques may go under, especially if they are stand-alone operations. I wonder about Triumph, Ducati, and Victory. Are they part of larger operations? How well can they weather a big turndown? And if the turndown is big enough, can even Harley and Piaggio weather it?

I do not have a Harley, partly because the models I like are out of my financial reach, but mostly because I like Guzzis so much. I just think they are cooler-looking bikes.

At the top is a picture of a red Moto Guzzi Breva 750ie, like mine.

Motorcycle break-in

I am going to restate something I just posted on Wildguzzi.com, a discussion board for owners and fans of the greatest motorcycles in the world, Moto Guzzi.

It addresses an old problem: the fact that most bikes have break-in periods during which you are asked by the manufacturer to voluntarily limit how hard you ride the bike. Moto Guzzi has a particularly long break-in, with a series of gradually diminishing restrictions in RPM.

Some bikers (I am one) try to follow the restrictions as well as we can. Others advocate the "ride it like you stole it" philosophy: start riding the bike the way you intend to ride it all the time.

I look at it this way:

The manufacturer knows that bike buyers want to run their new bikes hard or at least without niggling restrictions, and they certainly don't want to deliberately do things that makes new buyers have a negative opinion of their product.

But they also know the cost of warranty work, especially as it directly affects their bottom line.

So when a manufacturer takes the risk of alienating their customers by putting in those break-in restrictions, they must be calculating that the cost of increased warranty work on bikes that have not been broken in correctly is greater than the cost of lost repeat business because of break-in restrictions.

If it is that important for the manufacturer, it must be important to the motorcycle. And as I pay a good bit of money for my motorcycle, I want it to last a loooooong time.