Experiencing my Moto Guzzi
Riding this motorcycle is like having a conversation
After five years, I think I’m finally understanding my 2019 Moto Guzzi V7. It’s a standard motorcycle that likes to be ridden like a cruiser most of the time, but can also show speed when necessary. Most of all, it has character, kind of like a person. It rumbles, it grunts, it whines on the intake. However you look at it, it’s a living thing. It is not the same as a Japanese or German machine, all precision and refinement. The Guzzi is an iteration of a design that originated in 1967, a machine inspired by the past with the addition of a select few modern electronics, like traction control and ABS. Motorcyclists know it’s a Guzzi because the two big air-cooled cylinders stick out of the sides of the bike, an unusual configuration; it’s a transverse V-Twin that shakes from side to side on startup and then immediately smooths out when you get moving. It’s a little front heavy, but willing to play. It also has good stopping power with quality Brembo brakes.
The motorcycle was built in Mandello del Lario, a small town on Lake Como, in northern Italy. Mandello has been home to the Moto Guzzi factory for more than a century.
The company was founded in 1921 by two World War One-era aviators, Giorgio Parodi and Carlo Guzzi. They were friends with another pilot, Giovanni Ravelli, who died in 1919. He was supposed to be their third partner. Parodi, who financed the startup, and Guzzi, who was in charge of production, decided to honour Ravelli’s memory by choosing a winged eagle as the logo for their motorcycles.
The V7 model is both an urban and open-country motorcycle, adaptable for a variety of everyday rides, but happiest when it’s taking a road at a comfortable pace, as if heading for a Sunday picnic. The rumble from the exhaust pipes is a gurgle, the opposite of the Harley Davidson chop-chop-potato-potato kind of sound. Its heart is set on easy-going, relaxed fun.
When I’m riding it, I’m having a conversation with it. It’s not a conversation in words, of course, but it’s a dialogue based on sound and vibrations; comments from the accelerator, the clutch and gear changes; a conversation modulated by the front brake and the rear brake. Inputs from my arms, wrists, fingers and ankles do all the talking for me. When I turn off the engine somewhere in the country, I can hear it cooling down with a metallic tick-tick-ticking that punctuates the silence.
What a glorious thing it is to ride a motorcycle on a winding country road on a warm and sunny spring afternoon in Mennonite country. I got lost the other day and almost ran out of fuel, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was better than a party, better than watching beautiful people on a beach. The experience made me happy.
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The Asian sibling
The Guzzi is one of two bikes I own. The other is a 2018 Kawasaki Versys x-300.
The Kawasaki is a very different motorcycle than the Moto Guzzi. If the Italian is all grunt, the Japanese bike is a sewing machine that delivers speed through the lubricated movement of small parts at a very fast pace. It’s powered by the venerable engine of the Ninja 300 sportsbike, which features two small cylinders that move up and down at high speed in very short strokes, all the way up to a 12,000 revolutions-per-minute redline.
It’s Japanese refinement in a small package.
The Versys name comes from the contraction of the phrase “versatile system,” and it’s designed as a lightweight, multipurpose machine, capable of carrying luggage and travelling off-road as well as on the pavement.
I’ve written a number of articles about my life with the Kawasaki.
Here are some links, if you’re interested:
A closing note:
Like a farmer trying to decide whether to stick with a single crop or rotate, I have struggled somewhat to nail down a topic or theme for this newsletter, which is a key success factor in connecting with readers, we Substackers have been told. But I am not selling anything other than my personality and observations of the world. If this newsletter were an extension of my work life, I might indeed be a specialist, selling what I know, looking for customers. But the truth is that I am mainly a curious explorer. My faithful subscribers know that I write about a variety of topics.
I see this newsletter as a regular postcard from life’s voyage; destinations vary along the trip, subjects and impressions change along the way. I hope you can travel with me. I would like to grow my audience. Please let me know when something resonates, or if you have ideas about where we should go next. Perhaps you can share my home page with someone else who might find my material interesting.
Anyone can scroll through some of my previous posts by sampling the tab list at the top of that page.
Thanks for reading. I appreciate you.
Until next time,
-Renato Zane.
Renato - thank you for giving us the opportunity to travel with you. It’s a journey I look forward to whenever I see your posts. Carry on - for my own selfish reasons. I miss my sketch though - lol. Maybe next post.