I had sold Alex my TE250.  I had sold Grant my KLR.  Having successfully created people with whom to ride, we now needed to get the bikes dirty.

Alex was way ahead of me.  He and his brother, Teddy bought another Husky and were heading out to Gorman quite often.  They are both very new riders but their enthusiasm makes up for their inexperience. 

This past weekend. we had planned to head up to Gorman but it was on fire. 

A bunch of forum-reading later, we decided to head to San Gabriel OHV.  There seemed to be a ton of fire roads running out of a large play area. 

Grant rode the KLR to my place, we loaded it into the truck and headed out.

When we got to the ranger station, there was some bad news.

The fire roads were all closed to vehicle traffic.  We would only be able to ride, “the pit”.  I had visions of doing donuts in a dirt parking lot for an hour, getting bored and going home. 

The ranger then told us that the river crossing was over one-and-a-half feet deep.  River crossing?  Yes Virginia, before you can get into the pit, you need to cross the river. 

Grant and I suggested Alex and Teddy drive their truck through the river and unload on the other side.  Since our rented Silverado was 2WD, we wouldn’t be allowed to take the truck off the paved parking lot.  Nothing to do but cross the river.  Having never done this before, Grant and I shared a look and then jumped in.

Safely on the other side, Grant and I high-fived and picked up the Brothers Baroian on their matching TEs.  About 100 yards of rocks later, we came on another river crossing. 

Alex and Teddy were a little nervous (and fair enough) so Grant and I rode our bikes across and then walked back in possession of our new-found aqua skills and rode the Huskys.

Through these two crossings, we found, “The Pit” was  actually about 2 miles long and filled with all kinds of different terrain.  There were rocks, sand, gravel, riverbed and brush. Hardly a dirt parking lot, this place was a playground.

The four of us all sort of split up and enjoyed the hell out of this place. 

The far end of the area was bordered by a lake where we stopped for a rest.  We all looked at each other.  It was 68 degrees with a cool breeze coming through the valley.  We were all beaming.  It was a good day.

On the way back, we explored the outer edged of the park a little.  We found some loose inclines on which to play. 

Grant got his KLR good and stuck on one particular climb. 

We pulled the bike out only to have Grant bury it again.  

I told him he was on his own this time.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the park and doing donuts in this big dirt parking lot.  I had underestimated how much fun that could be.

On the way back to the trucks, we told Alex and Teddy we really wanted them to try the water crossing.  They were probably good enough to do it and they were certainly good enough to give it a good shot. 

I led the way with Grant following.

Much to their credit, they both dove in and both made it.

While the boys loaded the TEs, Grant and I had one more crossing.  Grant stalled the KLR halfway through and was upset that we all took pictures instead of helping him.

When back at the truck, we dumped the water from our boots and reflected on a really fun day.

When I bought the KLR, Grant kept telling me how he always wanted one too and referring to it as his bike.   I called his bluff and sold it to him. 

This left a 650cc-sized hole in my garage.  No worries.  I had also always wanted a DR650 and dealers seem to have more than a few leftover 2012s.  Oh and Suzuki is offering 0% financing.  Sold.

The DR and I spent our first day together riding around Malibu and having coffee at Deus.   I’m thinking we’ll get along just fine.

With the metal work done on the frame and fenders, it’s time to make things pretty.  The guys at Andrews Powder Coating took care of the frame, swing arm and center stand.  They’re not cheap, but when they bored me explaining how they dehumidify and then refrigerate the air used in their blaster to make sure there’s no moisture, I knew they were my guys.

I was surprised at how much easier it was to transport the frame by subway in New York than it was to get it in my car.  Oh well.

Back home with the wrapping off, the benefits of double-secret-special air became apparent.  It was beautiful.

I dug out the original head badge I had been saving for exactly this moment and bought myself a riveter and some stainless rivets.

I stood back and looked at my work and was a little overwhelmed.  This feels like a big corner has been turned.

While this was going on, the tank, fenders and other bits were at Venice Beach Auto Body getting painted.  Now the color of this bike has been a long process. 

When I first bought it, I started obsessing over what color to paint it.  I poured over Ferrari and Alfa color charts from the 1970’s.  I created a huge collection of jpegs found on ADV’s Old School forum, Bubble Visor, Le Container and Bike Exif.  I did dozens of terrible cobbled together paint renditions to see what the bike might look like wearing Porsche Macadamia Metallic or Ferrari Tour de France Blue.  No color was off limits and I’ll be damned if this thing is black like every other Eldo.

As this project has dragged on, my interest (obcession?) over the paint hadn’t waned.  As I got closer to needing to actually commit to a color, there was a certain amount of anxiety.  Over beers one night at Oli’s house, Cadmar from Garage Company quipped that paint isn’t something you can think about for a year.  You need to just make a decision quickly. 

He was right.

I went back to a picture Oli had sent me that made me swoon and focused the conversation.

That was the ballpark.  It’s almost Mini Cooper Silk Green Metallic. 

But no quite.

It’s almost a color Scion used to offer too.

Then I saw a Range Rover Sport in a really excellent shade of blue.  I ran to the Google and found Marmaris Teal Metallic.  Yup.  That’s it.  Let’s just do it. 

A few weeks after providing the paint code to Martin, I had my parts back.  I’m not at all disappointed with my choice.

And remember all those holes I filled in on the rear fender?  Yeah, me neither.

I’m always looking at bike classifieds.  Some people wake up and read the paper.  I wake up and look at the ADV and BARF classifieds. 

One particular morning, I spot a green 1998 KLR650.  It had been up for a while and the seller was asking $1750.  I send the link to Grant asking if we were going to buy that.  He replied, “we might buy that”. 

We bought that.

My first ride on the KLR was to BevMo to put a bottle of bourbon in the Ortleib saddlebags.  The bike was hilarious.  I don’t think I’ve ever been on an easier to ride bike. 

For the next week, I use the KLR exclusively.  It’s great.  I wring it’s neck in between stoplights.  I look for speed bumps to hop over.  I fantasize about places to ride it.  I look at maps of the Trans America Trail.

I’ve always wanted a KLR.  Turns out I was right.

Between getting back on track the other week, being at that Las Vegas Auction and spending time with Oli Holtzman at work, I was reminded of the simple fact that I love motorcycles.  Part of that love means resurrecting this once loved and long-forgotten Guzzi.

With that - and inspired by a passive-agressive note from my apartment management saying tenants weren’t allowed to store stuff in the garage (“But it’s a motorcycle” I protested.  Never mind…) - I moved the Boxes O’ Guzzi into my empty guest bedroom.  That’ll show ‘em. 

With the bike’s sorry state of incompleteness taunting me every day, I dig back into it.  First up was finishing the frame so I could send it out for powder.  Luckily I found a 3rd Ward-esque place here in LA that would allow me to do the work myself.

Molten Metal Works is in Glassell Park and owned by a guy named Matt.  He teaches welding and lets people use the shop for their own projects.  Most guys seemed to be working on furniture but this place was perfect for my needs. 

After running a phosphoric acid-based rust converter through the frame to kill any corrosion that might have happened, I closed up all the speed holes I made back in New York.

With that, the frame, swingarm kick stand and center stand went off to Andrews Powder Coating to get pretty. 

Andy had recommended me a painter and while gathering the stuff to take over to him, I decided that I wanted to take a shot at doing some basic bodywork myself.  Again, doing this myself - even if the results aren’t great- is kind of the point here, right?

The rear fender looked as if it has had every taillight in the J&P catalog bolted to it at some point.  Poor thing.  After blasting the black, white, blue and (!) red paint off, I had a clear view of the challenge. 

The internet tells me that a small piece of copper can be useful here. The weld wont stick to it but it will support the molten metal and absorb a lot of heat so you don’t blow through the fender.  Great.  Where to get small pieces of copper? 

Thankfully plumbing supply places are lousy with small copper fittings so I bought three of them and flattened them in a vice.

Armed with my new tools, I went to work. 

After several satisfying hours in the metal shop, I was pretty happy with my work.

As I write this, the parts are at the painter and should be back in a week or so.  I’m pretty excited. 

The email from Mike had the subject line, “Dangerous”.

It was a link to a classic bike auction Bonham’s was holding in Vegas in a day or so.  I didn’t think a lot of it.  Non-moto people send me links to motorcycle-related things often.  Mostly, they don’t have a lot to do with me and I assumed that a Bonham’s auction in Vegas was going to be a ton of over-restored Indians and mega-dollar exotica.  That definitely doesn’t have anything to do with me.

It was slow at work and I started looking through the lots.  To my surprise, there were a number of weird, cool, inexpensive-looking bikes. 

I should maybe back up.  A few weeks ago, I decided that there was a hole in my dining room about the size of a small motorcycle.  You see, when I started getting into racing, I lived in a small apartment on the ground floor and wheeled my race bike into the living room.  I loved having it in there as a piece of furniture. 

I had been looking at Cragslist for a $500 non-runing something but this auction piqued my interest.  There were a few Honda S65s and several awesome and obscure small scooters from the 1950s  that would be perfect.

I focused my attention on two Victoria scooters and a particularly weird and beautiful Flandria moped.  All were expected to sell for about $1000. 

Registering for a Bonham’s auction is easy.  A few forms and a credit card number. 

When you call them on the phone to ask a question, they all have British accents.  Perfect.  When I got confirmation that I was a registered bidder, I wondered if a, “Bonham’s Client Number” (of which I am now an owner) comes with a smoking jacket, a pipe and a droopy basset hound.  Spoiler alert:  It doesn’t.  I should call someone about that.

Anyway.  The auction started slowly at 10am with some road signs and posters.  I started to get the feel for Bonham’s clunky online live bidding site.  I also continued to scour the listings for bikes.  I absolutely fell in love with something called a Terrot. 

It was expected to fetch $3-5k and I thought for $3,000 I would buy it.  When the motorcycles started coming up, it became clear there were deals to be had.  The S65s sold for under $500.  A 1980 XT250 went for $700.  Jesus.  For that money, I should have bought it, ridden it until April and then sold it for $2,000 to one of the hipsters who hang around Deus ex Machina.

I bid $500 on cool 1980 Honda C70 step-through (it sold for $900) and I bid on a cool Bultaco flat track racer that sold for $200 more than my bid.

The Terrot went for just above what I was prepared to pay and at about 4:00, my scooters came up.  At this point I was pretty excited.  The energy of an auction is infectious - even if bidding online.  I had a feel for the rhythm of the bids and was ready to buy one of the Victorias or my Flandria.  I felt like Wayne Carrini.

I was also annoyed at having, “lost” the Bultaco and the Terrot for so little money.  I was aware that I was being emotional but I was also having a lot of fun.  For all the hours I’ve spent watching Barrett Jackson and pretending to spend money, the real thing felt great.

The first Victoria came up and quickly went past it’s expected take.

It ultimately sold for $3400 - three times the estimate.  Then the next Victora came up and the pattern repeated.  Surely no one else was looking at the Flandria.  Right?  Wrong.  I bid more than once but quickly saw it head way past $2000.  I liked it but not that much.

As the auction came to a close 7 hours after it started, I was tired and a little sad.  I had signed in hoping to buy something.  Grant was texting me all day asking if we had to go to Vegas to pick up a bike.  We didn’t.

Later that night, a thread on ADVRider pointed me to something called the Mid America Auctions.  Also going on this weekend.  Also in Vegas.  Ok, I thought.  I’ll look.

Whoa.

The stuff for sale here was amazing.  Perhaps 600 motorcycles and almost all of them awesome.  Tiny MV Agusta singles, several BSAs, a ton of excellent flat trackers, an RC30, two spotless 1961 Harley XLCHs.  It was a little overwhelming.

The next morning, I signed up to bid and started watching stuff go by on my computer.  Very early, it was clear this was a different auction.  There were few bargains to be had.  There was a different rhythm to the bidding.  I left the auction up on my computer and went about my day.

I came out of a meeting to see a small red thing coming up.  It was a 1954 Moto Parilla and it was beautiful.  The descriptions read, “A very nice older restoration on a rare Parilla 150 Sport. Good running condition. 26SS Dellorto carburetor. Factory aluminum rims. From the Michael Harper-Smith collection.”   Oooh.  From the, “collection” of a guy with a name.  I have to have that.

Bidding started at a very reasonable number.  It stayed at that reasonable number for a while.  I jumped in and was quickly outbid.  Annoyed, I bid again and was outbid again.  I became acutely aware of the psychology of auctions.  I was now in a competition with some other dude for MY motorcycle.  All I needed to do was be more committed than this joker and I’d win. 

Well, tuns out I was more committed.  The hammer came down and my computer played a silly, “applause” sound.  The screen turned green and the words, “You Won” appeared.

Crap.

What did I just buy? 

I texted Grant and told him that I had once again done something stupid and I’d pick him up at 6am tomorrow so we could drive to Vegas and pick up my 1954 Moto Parilla 150 Sport.  He asked what that was.  It took a little Googling before I could answer with anything other than, “a motorcycle”.

The next day, we were on the road at dawn and at the South Point Casino by 11 am.

I walked into the auction hall and found my little bike.  It was beautiful.  It was also in much better shape than I imagined.  On the one hand, it was leaking a little bit of oil.  On the other, the oil coming out was brand new and spotless. 

I loved it. 

After some paperwork, I wheeled my prize out of the auction hall and loaded it into our truck.

Grant and I then hung around the auction and tried to find a bike we didn’t want to own.  We failed.  I very quickly decided that buying another bike wasn’t completely ridiculous and spent a good amount of time with those XLCHs.

Thankfully sanity prevailed (and the Harley’s sold for way more than I was prepared to spend) and I came home with only one motorcycle. 

While driving home, I said to Grant that Mike was right: This was a dangerous thing to learn how to do.  Grant wondered if today was the day I became a collector.  I wonder the same thing.  The slope is slippery.  While at the auction, I bumped into Yoshi from Garage Company.  He dismissively said he had only bought three motorcycles.  After the last two days, that didn’t seem like a ridiculous statement. 

Short answer is that I can.  Slowly.

Now that I’m back in Los Angeles, I can spend more time at the racetrack.  It’s one of my favorite places to be and living here makes weekends spent destroying tires and burning gasoline an easy thing.

But can I still ride? 

In order to find out, I headed out to Chuckwalla Valley Raceway on a weekend when Andy would be there with some friendly faces.  I took the Tuono to ensure that I didn’t feel any pressure to go fast.  This was the first time I would have the Aprilia at the track since getting off of it at the entrance to Turn 7  at Thunderbolt and I was excited.

Chuckwalla is far.  By the time you’d be at Willow, you’re not quite halfway to Chuckwalla.  No matter.  It’s an excellent track, the weather was perfect and Andy was there with El Mechanico, Drew Price and others from the AP Moto Team.  Jason Pridmore was there teaching a school and Rich Oliver was hanging around talking about how he wished he brought a bike to ride. 

We all spent two days going around in circles at vastly different paces and telling jokes in the pit.  On the second day, I had my Tuono cranked over in Turn 15 when Drew came around the outside of me, patted me on the ass, then turned around and waved.  

Good times.

Life gets in the way of projects like this.  Progress stalled in the late winter and Ryders Alley is all but uninhabitable in the summer due to the fact that it sits right on top of the water heaters for a large apartment building.  In August, you have about Ten minutes in there before you want to kill yourself.

Before the stall, I found myself confronted with the desire to do a little cutting and welding on the Guzzi’s frame in order to clean up some brackets and holes I wouldn’t use.  I decided that I wanted to do that work myself which meant I needed to learn some new skills.  That’s the point of this whole thing right?  

I found a place in Brooklyn called 3rd Ward that along with carpentry, cooking, computer programming and fund-raising classes, offered a basic metal shop class with a focus on welding.  Perfect. 

Four, three-hour classes (including a hilarious hour writing words in metal with a plasma cutter) later, I had some new found skills to take to the Guzzi.

First off was the steering lock.  I don’t think I’ve ever used one on any bike and its ugly so I wanted it gone.  I used a drill and a Dremmel to (inelegantly) hack out the lock.

I then went to work with my new fabrication skills and an angle grinder to get rid of the stump.

That left some nice clean metal with which to work.

I then carefully filled in the hole by laying beads around the edges with a MIG machine until I sealed it up. 

After a little work with a grinder, I had completed my first metal work job.  The sense of satisfaction was immense.  Working with metal is also a ton of fun.

Like any good New Yorker, the Guzzi rode the subway home from Brooklyn.  Not a single person looked at me funny for carrying a motorcycle frame on the L.  God bless New York City.

Once I arrived back at Ryders Alley with the frame, I noticed that some water was coming out from inside the frame.  I traced it to a weld just under the head tube. I cut off the mount for the crash bars and discovered that the weld had corroded through. 

Crap.  I ground away material until I saw clean metal but I was also concerned about internal corrosion in the frame rails.  I hope to ride this thing after all. 

At the advice of the internet (how could that go wrong?), I used a center punch and a hammer to see if the various tubes were still strong.  They all passed that test.  Concerned that there might still be moisture in there, I drilled a few small holes into the frame and ran compressed air through the thing. 

The plan is to then follow up with a rust converter and then weld the holes shut.  One the one hand, this sucks.  On the other, I get to play in the metal shop some more.

While this was going on, I had taken the first batch of stuff to powder coat at AMS in Queens.  AMS had done some work for one of the other guys in the garage with good results and I was anxious to keep pushing things forward with the project.  This involved another subway ride with a big, heavy box of motorcycle parts.

The stuff I brought came back looking excellent. Grant had told me that it’s a special moment the first time you start to see parts come back finished.  He was right.

The gas tank also came back from Moyers in Pennsylvania.  They pressure tested it to make sure the seams were still good then cut a large hole in the bottom and blasted the inside.  After that, they welded it back together, coated the inside and primered the outside. 

From there, the project sat.  

As the summer came to a close, and the garage started to cool enough to spend some time in there, I got a job opportunity that I couldn’t pass up.  In Los Angeles. 

Without any idea what kind of space I’d have out there, I boxed up the project as best I could and told Demian I’d send for it… eventually.

A few months later, I was settling in to my new apartment in LA and had a guy with a van bring me my boxes of Guzzi.   For now, they reside in my shared underground garage with my other bikes.  I hope soon I’ll find some work space and be able to make use of the ample resources that Southern California provides.

Hi.  I am asshole. 

I should have seen it coming.  I broke every rule that I ride by.  I didn’t sleep much the night before.  It was the first session of a very rainy day and traction was a question that hadn’t yet been answered by others.  I rushed to get out for my session.  I was riding in the race group despite having not a lot of recent track time and felt pressure to go fast. 

At least I navigated 6 turns in on the first lap before hitting the ground. 

I was tip-toeing around in the wet when someone on a 600 came underneath me with their knee on the ground.  Thinking there must be much more grip out there than I thought, I went into turn 7 a little harder. 

As soon as I turned in, I was on the ground sliding along next to my bike. 

Damage to the bike was minimal.  Damage to me was nonexistent. Many thanks to Aprilia for designing really effective crash bungs.

I’ll be quieter now about making fun of guys who crash on practice days.

Everyone gets hurt on a motocross bike. 

Forget Nicky Hayden, Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso - though they’ve all banged themselves up pretty good in the dirt. The fastest guy I’m friends with - former WSMC #1 Brant Wiwi - came away from his first couple of days in the dirt with a broken back and a lacerated spleen.

So when the guys in the garage found two motocross tracks on Long Island, I hoped it wouldn’t catch on.  It did.  Demain, Ilya, Doug and Fabrizio all bought MX bikes and started going.  A lot.

After months of resiting, I agree to come along and scare the crap out of myself.  I wasn’t disappointed.

We arrived at the track and unloaded the bikes.  Doug was on his KTM 250sx monster,  Demian on his 2003 CR250, Fab had his YZF250 bought from a local racer and I was on Demian’s CRF250x since my Husky failed to start that morning. 

When we arrive at the track office, we see guys flying by us.  Sideways.  On the rear wheel.  Pinned.

Looking around the track, we see guys 15 feet in the air in several places.  “We have no business out there” I whimper.  Demain tells me its fine.  We’ll go slow. 

Now here’s the thing I understood about MX tracks: You can’t actually roll around them. There are areas where speed and air are simply required to get through stuff.  Turns out I wasn’t wrong but more on that later.

We all sign in, get our bracelets, pay our fees and head back to the truck to change.  There’s no safety briefing.  I suppose it’s a pretty self-selecting sport.  Unlike a roadracing track day, there’s no part of this that looks like you could just go out there and do it - at least to everyone other than the guys I’m with.

Oh, there’s also no skill groups.  Demain and I fire up our Hondas (well, his Hondas) and head out to share the track with guys who can actually do this.

The track is large and for the first 30 seconds, I’m fine.  Then I see the first large jump.  It’s a wall approximately 10 feet tall.  I watch Demain gas up it and loft his bike perhaps only a foot in the air.  Ok then.  I follow, roll off the gas just at the top and manage to keep my wheels on the ground. Whew.

We slowly tip-toe around and I get a little less scared.  Maybe we CAN simply roll around this place. 

Nope. 

I round a left hand turn and find myself looking at the face of the, “Tunnel Jump”.  This monstrosity is perhaps 20 feet tall and nearly vertical.  The dirt at the lip has worn away exposing a concrete edge that could be easily mistaken for a curb on any street.  

Nothing to do but give it a little gas. 

Here’s where I should explain my fear about motocross:  The consequences of getting a very small, simple thing wrong can be dramatic. 

I head up the face and roll off the throttle at the top.   I’m surprised when the bike doesn’t react.  It was probably because my wheels weren’t actually on the ground.  It’s actually a nice feeling.  One that I would enjoy were I consumed with the fact that I’m pointed off the side of this thing and looking at two stories of empty space between me and some hard looking dirt.

Thankfully, I land on the right edge of the jump and make it down the other side.  Whoa. 

At this moment, I’m not having any fun.  I’m rolling around this place in total self-preservation mode - a mode which if working properly would keep me from riding a motocross track in the first place.  It’s conflicting.

Coming on to the start/finish there are a series of whoops - the first of which is bigger than the rest.  When we were signing in, I watched the fast guys triple off this one.   

I try to roll over it only to find there is no back side to the jump.  Roll over it like I do and your front wheel falls off a 3 foot cliff and then has to climb up the next 2 foot jump.  The bike’s upset.  The position of my right wrist means when the bike climbs up the next whoop, I unintentionally turn the throttle launching the bike up the face.  Now I’m upset.

I’m just trying to stay out of everyone’s way and not fall off.  Not in that order. 

I do another lap, find myself unintentionally in the air three or five more times and then pull off.  Panting.  Demian comes by and asks how I’m doing.  I think I curse at him.

I calm myself down and head out for another five laps.  I’m exhausted after two.  Each time I try to keep my wheels on the ground over the Tunnel Jump and I actually succeed once. One time, my rear tire hits the concrete lip hard enough to send it into the air followed by the front.  I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to do it.

I find myself being passed by an airborne motorcycle many, many times.  I pull off and decide I’m done. 

I watch the boys go around looking pretty comfortable. 

I change back to street clothes and realize I’m pretty conflicted about going out again.  The reality is it’s a ton of fun.  It’s also proper dangerous.  But I can see how this makes you a much better rider and when you get it right, it looks awesome.

So maybe I’ll go back out. I hear the other track on Long Island is smaller and perhaps a little less intimidating.

Many thanks to Demain for the loan of his 250x and not taking, “no” for an answer - no matter how many times I said it.  Thanks also the fast guys at LIMX for not being annoyed at this baby deer trying to learn how to walk while they were galloping around me. 

When I committed to this project and started tearing the bike down, I wondered why anyone wouldn’t finish a project they started.  What I didn’t realize is the beginning of a project is full of immediate rewards.  The bike comes apart quickly and if you’re anything like me you spend hours in the office thinking about what color you’ll paint it. 

Now that the bike is apart though, I’m finding that I’m spending hours in the garage and not feeling like I’m getting a whole lot done. Paint feels like it’s an impossibility when you’ve spent 7 days working on one stuck bolt. 

That’s where I am now. 

On a Guzzi Eldorado, the shock mounts are large bolts.  One such bolt on the swingarm refuses to come loose.  No amount of penetrating oil, heat, hitting it with a hammer or yelling insults at it has made it move.  It’s the last piece that needs to come out before I’m ready to send stuff out for powdercoat. 

Well, that’s not true.  I need to figure out what I’m going to do with some small details on the frame.  There are some bits that I’d like gone but I don’t have the metalworking skills to patch the holes removing them might create.  Perhaps I take this opportunity to learn how to weld.  At least the headbadge came off in one piece.

With a build date of January, 1972, my bike turned 40 last month.

In the mean time, there are a million small jobs to do.  Guzzis of this vintage have 22mm bars on them.  There aren’t a lot of options for 22mm bars and I’m one of those folks that believe handlebars create a huge part of a bike’s stance. 7/8” is industry standard and there are no limit to the options available in that size.

I ask the Guzzi brain trust if anyone has reamed out an Eldo’s risers to accommodate the slightly larger bars.  I’m surprised when the consensus seems to be that people just bolt them on.  It’s only 0.225mm difference after all.  I buy myself the 7/8 bars I want and have a look at what 0.225mm actually looks like.

I don’t like it. 

I decide that I’ll carefully take a little material away until the risers mount flush all the way around.  I start on one and it seems to work well.

I then do the rest.

The results make me much happier.

Satisfied with a (small) job well-done, I unpack the basic polishing kit I received a few weeks back from the good people at Caswell.  I’m not much for the polished look but there are some parts that I’d like to have shine.  I get started on the rear brake lever.

The Caswell kit is several wheels and three compounds.  They fit into any drill and are pretty simple to use. 

I’m not very good at this yet but the results from a first time half-assed job are pretty satisfying.

I’ve decided that the dust covers on the wheels wont be black after all but rather a mild polish.  I start on the right front since it is the most simple of the three on the bike.

After not that long, I have the finish I was after.  It’s not quite a full polish (it doesn’t show fingerprints) but it’s nice and shiny. 

I look at the final drive housing since I’d like to get that back to Charlie so he can fill it full of new gears.  I see something that makes my heart sink.

Looks like it’s time to find a new housing.

Perhaps on another bike, I’ll rebuild the engine and transmission myself.  On this one, they’re going to people who wont screw them up. 

Thanks to the Loop Frame Guzzi Yahoo Group, I found The Guy for Guzzi transmissions and final drives.  Charlie Cole is famous in Guzzi circles and lo and behold, he’s on Long Island.  When I called Charlie, he said he was about four miles from a Long Island Rail Road stop and he’d come pick me up.  I have no car and hauling the 50 lbs of tranny and final drive (yes we weighed it) on my back while riding the Tuono might have been appealing if it wasn’t 30 degrees out. Besides, there’s something fun about the idea of taking the LIRR to South Hampton carrying my bike’s transmission.

“Nonsense!” said Demian when I told him what I was going to do.  Actually, I think he said, “That’s retarded.”  He gave me the keys to his brand new Fiat 500 and told me to drive instead.  Well, if you insist…

When I arrived at Charlie’s house in Sag Harbor, I’m greeted by a Indian with a factory side car.  Charlie tells me he thinks it’s one-of-one since all the Indian guys insist Indian wasn’t building civilian side cars during WWII. 

Charlie knows more about Guzzi transmissions than I know about any subject.  He’s exactly who you want working on yours.  He gets to looking at mine and we start chatting about racing bikes, wasting money and people who post opinions on the internet.  I like him a lot. 

While he’s working, I see a newly-rebuilt transmission by my feet.  Making conversation, I ask who’s it is.  Charlie says it’s for a guy in California named Todd Egan.  I laugh.

I explain that I bought a Guzzi V11 in 2003.  I promptly joined a Guzzi forum and was talked into doing a track day by Todd.  He was a Known Fast Guy and sometime test rider for one of the rags we all read while on airplanes.  He patiently spent a day with me at Buttonwillow riding his Jackal with one hand as I went faster than I thought possible. 

Charlie and I both think about the coincidences that needed to happen for me to be standing there next to the transmission I followed around a race track for the first time 3,000 miles away and 9 years ago. 

Charlie gives me my final drive housing back so I can take it home and powdercoat it.  He tells me the transmission will be done in about two months.

Back in the garage, I set about getting parts ready to go to powercoat.  I decide that this bike wont be a restoration but rather a bit of a hot rod.  To that end, I want to get rid of some of the tabs on the frame I will no longer need.  between that and some stuck bolts, it means I get to take the best trip to Home Depot ever - the one where I buy an angle grinder and a blowtorch. 

I also pull the forks apart.  I’ve got all new seals but need to make the decision on the bushings. 

I turn my attention to the last big piece and pull the seat cover and foam off.  I’m playing with the idea of making my own seat but before that happens, I’m going to include the pan with the parts that are getting blasted and powdercoated.

With the arrival of the proprietary tool needed to remove the swingarm bolts, I could finish breaking down the bike.  It all came apart pretty easily thanks in no small part to two bottles of penetrating oil.

For shits and giggles, I weighed the motor on the shop scale.  127lbs without oil or the transmission. 

My Guzzi is now a pile of parts and a lot of carefully-labeled Zip Loc bags.

I’m a motorcycle enthusiast. If it has two wheels and a motor, I’m a fan.

I’ve owned a bunch of cool stuff and I’ve bought the beginning of a project twice before (an SR500 and an RD400 that were sold in the same state they were bought).

But this is different.

About 9 months ago, one of my best friends bought his own project - a 1980 BMW R65. I watched with jealousy as he began his tear down. He would text me pictures of a newly-powdercoated kickstand and I’d swoon.

One otherwise unremarkable morning, I was on eBay looking at bikes (like I always am) and I happened across a 1972 Moto Guzzi Eldorado. The seller said he was going to part it out since it hadn’t run in over 20 years but before he did that, he’d take a chance and see if any idiot wanted the whole thing.

I thought: I’m just that idiot.

I had a Guzzi once before. My first new motorcycle. I rode my 1983 GPz550 to an Aprilia dealer and came home on a 2003 V11 Sport. In a fit of being, “financially-responsible” I sold that bike a year later and regretted it ever since.

My desire for a project of my own and my desire for another Guzzi apparently intersected in an airplane hanger just outside of St. Louis.

There was a couple of emails, a phone call, a wire transfer and some shipping arrangements. Then the bike was in my garage.

In the 1960s, Harley Davidson ruled the touring bike market. Two brothers in New Jersey heard the pleas from foreign bike distributors for an imported touring bike and shopped the request around. Moto Guzzi heard them and built a touring bike to take on Harley - but one with a decidedly Italian accent. That bike (the V700) became the Eldorado in 1972.

A little earlier - and perhaps drawing inspiration from Puccini’s opera, “La Fanciulla del West” - Italian filmmakers found some success shooting films set in the American West. They had American stories but an Italian cast and technical staff. The genre became the namesake for my Eldorado project.

Project: Spaghetti Western.

I ordered my copy of, “Guzziology”, joined the Loop Frame Yahoo Group and began the teardown with the basic stuff coming off first. 

I was done racing.  I promise. 

In 2009, I spent ALL my money chasing a podium in the Solo Series at Willow Springs. In 2010, I sold my beloved SV and moved to New York. 

I really was done.  I swear.

There was this day though.  This day at New Jersey Motorsports Park riding a GSXR600 when I went good.  You know those days when you just go good?  Yeah.  It was one of those. 

Maybe just a little more racing.  Maybe just a basic SV.

This one would be different.  This one would be basic.  Cheap even.  I was very clear.  This would not be another $10,000 SV with all kinds of cool shit on it.  This one would be nothing pretty.  I underscored this several times. 

It didn’t work.  We ordered all kinds of shiny bits because… well… they’re shiny. 

After a few months, I fly out to LA to collect my new ride and take it up to Willow. 

I park hoping to roll my new steed into my rental pickup and head to the track.  When I walk in to shop, I see my new race bike.

So maybe we don’t sleep tonight. 

Omar and Andy are hard at work tearing the donor junkyard bike down.  Chad is in the shop putting decals on the bodywork he painted.

At about 9, Ludwig shows up and lends his hands.

By midnight, it’s starting to look like a race bike.

By 2 in the morning, we were done and it made noise.

Good thing too since we were out of Red Bull.

The next morning at the track, it was clear that we had screwed up and built me another pretty SV:

In order to break in the bike, Gary and I entered ourselves into the Team Challenge.  It would be a 1 hour endurance race with a Le Mans start.  The first rider could pit at any time after 20 minutes but before 40 minutes and tag the second rider who would finish the hour. 

I warned Gary (a three-time Ironman finisher) that I had spent the last many months in New York drinking beer and ordering dessert so I would start but I would pit as soon as I could. 

I’m not sure what happened, but I went out there and turned 1:39s for a good 35 minutes.  I pull in and Gary takes over and throws down 1:39s for until they throw the checker.  That performance was good enough to bring home a new book end.

Ok.  So now  I’m done racing.  I promise.  For real this time.  Honest.