Motoguzzimackers' Moto Guzzi Diaries

Went for a spin out through central Vic, through Daylesford and Creswick.  On the way back we stopped at the Glen Lyon General Store for lunch.  This has recently been renovated, with a new outdoor entertainment area for live music.  We had the dukka chicken for $12.50 which was excellent.

Afterwards I had a few beers while cleaning the bugs off the bikes:

Copped 29ml of rain on Saturday, but Sunday was fine.  Did a 300+km run through Sutton Grange, up over Mt William and out through Harcourt to Mt Tarrengower at Maldon.  The rain had been heavy here, as the road up the mountain was covered in gravel and rocks.

The lookout was erected from the poppet head from the Comet mine at Bendigo.  It was dragged up the mountain by horses in the 1920s and was one of the first fire lookouts.  Triangulation is used from several lookouts to pinpoint bushfire outbreaks.   Looking around here, 30,000,000 ounces of gold were extracted, a third by immigrant alluvial gold diggers!

A strange effect from the sun hitting the quartz in the carpark

When I was last here, during the recent drought, no water was visible.  Fanged home through Newstead, Clunes and Daylesford.

Completed the 70,000km service on the Cali Metal.  Here she is set up for the recent Spaghetti Rally:

Moto Guzzi California Metal with Ventura rack.

I use Penrite oils for my Guzzis, Jane’s Duke and our cars:

I use Penrtie mostly in my bikes and cars.

Did a 250km test ride to Tarnagulla to check out the cemetery:

My grand-aunty married one of the Hatts.  Earlier, David Hatt discovered the Poverty Goldmine in 1854 from which they took 13 tons of gold in 13 months.

So far, none of the gold has trickled down to me!

Mandello de Lario is located on the eastern shores of Lake Como in northern Italy.  Lake Como resembles an inverted “Y”; Bellagio is on the junction, the city of Como is at the bottom of the left-hand arm and Lecco at the right-hand arm.  We had booked online and found a hotel at Vercurago, just south of Lecco, about 20 minutes by train from Mandello.  The lake is surrounded by mountains – it’s only a few kilometres from Switzerland – and the shore line is narrow, so numerous tunnels stitch in and out of the ridges and spurs to cater for the highways and train lines.

After a week in Scotland visiting my ancestors, we had taken the train from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross, walked the 50m or so to St Pancreas, through passport control, to catch the Eurostar to Paris then the train to Milan.

The train passes through broad-acre farms before entering the mountains, winding its way through valleys, around lakes and through alpine-type villages, with castles and monastery’s on adjacent hills.  It’s all quite magical.

Unless, of course, you have the Australian From Hell in your carriage. A teacher from Canberra with a piercing voice, she zeroed in on passengers.  There was no escape from her relentless verbal stream.  A taxi had forced her out of his cab in the middle of the night in the “ Latin quarter of Paris “ (there isn’t one – it’s the university district near Notre Dame – we sided with the taxi driver),  her husband had left her 3 months after their baby was born (a tough one – but the husband got the nod).  A French woman went up to her and said “Ssshh, Madám” in a fruitless effort for some peace.  The AFH taught us (no-one was out of earshot) about Australia, Vegemite, that Kakadu was in Queensland, etc.  Then she got stuck into the French, their arrogance, rudeness, poor service, and how none of this would happen in Australia.  Jane couldn’t contain herself any longer and went for the throat, suggesting that if she was going to denigrate an entire people and their country that she do it out of their earshot.  A sharp to-and-fro ensued before the AFH spun off to her seat with a parting snap, “Well, they can’t speak English anyway!”.   A couple of minutes after peace descended on the carriage, the French woman behind us touched Jane on the shoulder and said, “Well done, Madám”.

Just before the border, Italian police came along checking passports.  As with all the Italian and French police and paramilitaries that we saw, they were young, trim and fit, unlike most Australian police.  They carefully examined Jane’s UK passport, ignored my proffered Australian passport, but the passport of the young lady adjacent us required closer attention.

At the border the train broke down and after 3 hours of chaos and rumours in the heat, we were bussed to Torino.  We saw our first south-bound Guzzis.  We caught a train to Milan but despite earlier assured rumours, our ticket wasn’t honoured and we had to buy new tickets from the conductor, carefully hand-written.  Like a spaghetti western the noisy train, lacking air-conditioning and filled with cut-throats, crazed drug addicts and prostitutes, lurched across Italy.  We arrived at Milan, hours late, to find that the last train to Vercurago was at midnight.  And we didn’t know where the hotel was, anyway.  A taxi “tout” approached us and after a quick call to our hotel, 70km away, said 130 Euros, and when our faces fell, but for you, 110.  We didn’t care anymore; we had been up since 5am, hadn’t eaten, run out of water, and it was about 28C, windless and very humid.  We grabbed it.

The old Fiat, without any Taxi signage, careered through the hot humid, peak hour traffic.  Andrea drove by problem solving as did everyone else from what I could see.  A swarm of scooters weaved between the cars and trucks.  The handbrake light glowed red on the dashboard.  Twenty kays from Vercurago, Andrea telephoned a mate with a GPS, so drove the rest of the trip steering and changing gears with one hand as he turned, backtracked, and sped through the urban night.  Finally, after a steep climb from the lake side along a medieval 6-feet wide cobbled street of old, shuttered buildings and alley-ways, we arrived outside the small Hotel San Geralamo.  Andrea insisted on carrying our bags in.

It was now near midnight.  The Senora brought us a beer, prosecco and olives to enjoy on the terrace in the warm night.  Up to our right was a monastery and castle.  We could see the lights ringing Lake Como and the mountains.  Then we were taken across the road and through a garden to our room in an old 3-storey building with exposed beams, timber flooring, and old, hand-rendered plaster in strong, autumn colours.  Beautiful.  We booked for another week.

The next morning was the day!  Moto Guzzi GMG 2011.  Half-a-dozen Guzzis were firing up outside the hotel, including two Cali outfits, Brevas and Sports, with riders and pillions from Sicily, Denmark, Austria and Holland.  How we envied them being able to ride.  We caught the train to Mandello which was packed.  The town’s parks had been turned into camping grounds, so every blade of grass had a tent and bike on it.  The early birds had grabbed sites on the shores of Lake Como – what a setting.  We watched the procession of bikes weave through the traffic and pedestrians and food stalls.  The factory/museum area was chokkas.  But I balked at paying 18 Euro to enter the Moto Guzzi shop for the privilege of buying something!  Eventually we found a prime location in the shade and spent an hour or two drinking English ale and eating lunch. Again it was hot and humid.  Californias seemed the most common bike, with colours that we’d never seen before.  The most decrepit grey Cali we’d ever seen drew a crowd, and we later saw it leaving with its equally decrepit rider but attractive pillion.  I also noted that the Breva Sport 1200 seemed to outnumber other CARC Guzzis.  Coppers patrolled through on Stelvios and Norges.  I was disappointed that there wasn’t much in the way of merchandise for sale.  With 20,000 Guzzi fans present, Moto Guzzi could have had an open-air stall.

Drops of rain fell on us as we waited for the train.  By the time we had returned to our hotel, the heavens had opened up.  No tent could withstand that tropical-like rain, we reckoned, with its accompanying thunder and lightning display over the mountains ringing the lake.  The evening concert would have been washed out.  Sunday was also very wet, but warm, as we watched the Guzzis load up and depart San Geralamo, the water pouring down the cobbles.  The local paper had a page about the event, with Tony Horn of the Moto Club Guzzi of Victoria (sic) featured.

We spent the week visiting Milan, Lecco, walking the hills and taking a ferry on the lake.  Unfortunately we never made it to Bellagio which is supposed to be very beautiful and historic.  Plenty of Guzzisti stayed touring the area so we encountered them most days.  Watching the scooters became a past-time; traffic lights were like the start of the Moto GP 125s.  We visited the Guzzi museum, too, and the Guzzi shop which was barely big enough to swing a cat.  Jane declined the use of their “footprint in the floor” conveniences (the only ones we saw in Italy and France).

We caught the train back to Paris and stayed at a B&B for a few days.  Once again, crossing the border, my Australian passport was ignored but the UK one was scrutinised.  Paris is a pleasant city, with wide, tree-lined streets and an efficient underground.  Buy a ticket and you can use it on trains and busses.  (The ease of public transport ticketing in London, Paris and Milan makes one embarrassed to be a Melburnian).  Then back to London for a few days and home.

My most overwhelming impression of motorcycling in Europe was the sheer penetration of BMW.  In France and Italy, they outnumbered ALL other motorcycles brands combined.  Even in sports bike-mad UK, they were the most numerous individual brand.  For a bike that’s been whacked with the ugly stick, they’re doing something right.  Moto Guzzi, on the other hand, located in a small regional town, has a small-town mentality.  Hopefully recent changes will work to its advantage.

Went for a run through central Victoria.  Lake Eppalock was overflowing at the spillway…a big change froma year ago.

Lovely afternoon fang through central Vic in clear, cold weather. Breva dash said it was 12C.  But the sun shone and it was nearly cloudless.  Silk long-johns and heated grips made it easy.

Redesdale lattic-girder bridge.

"Big rock" country north of Lancefield.

The old Uniting Church at Emu Flat.

Fox bounty keeps the foxes down.

Met up with the Moto Guzzi Club for their annual winter brekky run to Badger’s Creek, near Healesville.  The 59 Club also showed up.

Jane's ex-Breva 750 showed up.

Had a few days off crook, so I removed the Breva’s wheels and had new tyres put on.  I covered 16,800km on the Micheling Pilot Road 2s, the best I’ve ever done on a bike tyre.  I’ve replaced them with the new Michelin Pilot Road 3s which allegedly have better wet weather grip.  Though I was very happy with the Road 2s in the wet.

The Breva now has 27,000km on it.

A guide to removing the Breva’s wheels is here:

http://motoguzzimaintenance.wikifoundry.com/page/Moto+Guzzi+Breva+1100+Wheel+Removal

Went for a run and visited some war memorials.  Many towns planted an “Avenue of Honour” after the Great War to commorate the local fallen soldiers.  New Zealand, then Australia, had the highest casualty rate of the war, other than the two main protaganists, Francc and Germany.

The "Avenue of Honour" leading into Woodend.

The Woodend avenue is about 2km long.

Mt Macedon "Avenue of Honour".

Spent six days touring south-eastern Australia.  Tracked out via Poweltown to overnight at Maffra – got drenched a few kays out.  The following morning it rained all the way through Bairnsdale to Lakes Entrance.

Fined up for the run to Orbost and Cann River.  Black clouds over the ranges towards Bombala threatened.

But we managed to run through the passing thunderies and stayed dry.  Lovely road up through the ranges then a flat-out blast on the NSW side where it opened up with big, looping curves.

Stayed at the Heritage, a pleasant converted bank in Bombala, and parked our bikes at the adjacent owners house under cover.

Set off for Nimmitabel but 5 kays out of Bombala the Duke came to a halt.  Would start but not run, and the engine management light was on.  After some futile phone calls to Ducati, ended up freighting the bike to Canberra.  You can achieve so much with a Visa card and a mobile phone!

Doubled up on the Breva for the run to Nimmitabel and Cooma, lovely roads again, now in sunshine, Ducati owner cursing her lack of a bike at every bend.  Overnighted at the bike-friendly Alpine Hotel in Cooma, which has undercover, lockable bike storage.

Doubled again for the run to Canberra, a surprisingly interesting ride, not the boring highway we’d expected.  Visited daughter and lunched at the Gypsy Caravan, famous for the Brodburger.

Jane flew home, so I continued up through Yass and Gundagai for the south-bound run.  Turned down to Tumut then Batlow, through winding, hilly terrain.  The memorial is for all the boys from the Union Jack school who died during the Great War

On to Tumbarumba then Corryong, the Snowy Mountains always visible to the south east.  The “Southern Cloud” crashed there in 1931 and wasn’t discovered until 1958, our first airline disaster.

Excellent ride from Tumbarumba to Corryong where I stayed the night.  Then onto Bright with plenty of road works due to recent heavy rain, including one section that had collapsed into the adjacent creek:

…and past the now-full Lake Hume which was empty only a few months ago, when the drought broke.  It looked like an inland sea:

Tracked via the Tawonga Gap with its views over the Kiewas Valley and Mount Beauty:

..then to Mansfield via Whitfield (very difficult to find a spot for a photo):

Finally, home via a coffee stop at Yea.

The Breva 1100 easily covered Gundagai – Bright, and Bright – Lancefield on one tank each.  A geat tourer.

Update:  the Ducati problem turned out to be a spark plug.  The plugs had been replaced a few weeks earlier at the 24,000km service and the bike had not been it’s normal sparkling self since, despite being returned for another check.  Ducati City in Melbourne had declined to resolve the issue and blamed the non-standard Staintune mufflers, despite there being no problem previously.

When the plug was removed it had a gap half of what it should be and was cracked.  The Canberra tech reckoned that it had been dropped but screwed into the engine anyway.  We told Ducati City but they couldn’t have cared less.  We haven’t been back to Ducati City since.