Member meet up, big Guzzi and a spirited ride

[the Ferret]

A couple weeks ago the new Guzzi dealer in town invited me and my brother out to ride the new 1400cc Moto Guzzi Eldorado when he got one in. This is the same dealer that Guzzihoarder...er I mean Hondahoarder bought his latest Guzzi from. I was going to ride up to see him the day his new California came in bit timing was not right. Anyhow I asked the dealer if he had gotten his new bike and they said he had, and that he had traded in his CB1100 and that they had already sold it. Anyhow my brother and I got there at 10:20 and another customer was just taking off on the Eldorado for a test ride. We would wait. An hour later we decided to go het some lunch as the tester had not returned yet.

After lunch we came back and the Eldo was there, but there was also an old Honda K in the lot. Either 79 or 80 I figured as it was a DOHC. Walk inside and lo and behold, there sat Hondahoarder. That was Curts 81 CB that he keeps up here to ride around on. Apparently he had just returned from Italy and had stopped in to chat with the dealership guys having only had the time to put a whole 60 miles on his new Guzzi. Hondahoarder says HI to all his CB1100 forum friends.

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Anyhow my brother was now in the batters circle and he would soon be riding the Guzzi

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He really liked the big Guzzi. Said it was very comfortable, handled nice ... easily dropping into turns, transmission was smooth, brakes were very good, comfortable seat, good ergos and he loved the heel toe shifter. Seemed to have plenty of giddy up and go too. It did shake like a junkie waiting on his next fix under 20 mph but smoothed out nicely as speed climbed. They offered him basically nothing for his FZ-1 in trade ( he was keeping his Triumph) and they wanted 16 large for the Guzzi. I elected not to test ride it after all. So we left without it. Impressed though.

After leaving the dealership, my brother and I took a spirited 100 mile ride. He on his Bonnie a me on the CB both delighted with the bikes we were on. At one point, after a period of silence in our intercoms, my brother simply said " I can't believe I just test rode a sixteen thousand dollar motorcycle" and we both had a good laugh.


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