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By Gabe Ets-Hokin, May, 2005 "What, your motorcycle only has one neutral?" Moto Guzzi? Moto who? If you've been riding motorcycles for any length of time, you've probably seen one or two of these unique machines, usually owned by the kind of guy who likes 1970s Saabs. They are known mostly for being quirky to the point of distraction, oddly engineered motorcycles that only appeal to those who like Moto Guzzis. I've always been a fan of the big pushrod twins, so I was very excited when we here at MO were offered an opportunity to get a first-hand glimpse at the State of the Guzzi in the US market. The two bikes we tested are from opposite ends of the product lineup, allowing us to closely examine both an entry-level, smaller-displacement cruiser as well as a top-of-the line "trophy bike". |
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So is it the same old thing you've already read in every Moto Guzzi review since 1922? We found some of the same-old same-old with these bikes, but we also found some interesting surprises about these quirky, yet loveable machines that never sell in large quantities but somehow keep getting produced, year after year.
Nevada 750 In the early 1990s, the small-block Moto Guzzis -- V-twins with smaller engines displacing 500 or 650 cc -- were highly prized among Guzzi owners. The smaller motor revved faster and felt much lighter than the heavy, slow-revving 750-1000cc air-cooled, push-rod transverse V-twins that are a Guzzi hallmark. The Nevada 750 and its brother, the Breva 750, revive the tradition of small, sporty Moto Guzzi V-twins. Introduced late last year, the Nevada uses smaller engine cases than the larger V-11 series motorcycles to achieve a surprisingly light claimed dry weight of just 388 pounds. It still uses a traditional air-cooled, two-valve-per-cylinder engine with an bore of 80mm and a stroke of just 74mm, producing an oversquare 744cc engine that loves to rev quickly up to its 8,000 rpm redline. The engine is hung in a double-tube steel cradle and sends its power through a five-speed gearbox to a two-plate dry clutch and finally to a standard driveshaft turning a 16" rear wheel with a 260mm rear disc brake. The 18" front wheel sits out front in a non-adjustable, 40mm Marzocchi fork, braked by a single 320mm disc and four-piston Brembo caliper. Steel braided brake lines? Hey, it's Italian, right? Naturalmente!
The rear is suspended by a pair of Sachs dampers, infinitely adjustable for preload. The motorcycle is finished with a nice instrument cluster, compact teardrop tank, and a low, nicely padded saddle with room for a passenger. The rider footpegs are placed in a standard position, with plenty of ground clearance. The first impression the Nevada gives the rider is that it is small. With a 29-inch seat height and buckhorn cruiser bars, the bike feels small and cramped for a rider over 5'6". With a wheelbase of just 58.3" (.3 inches shorter than the V11!), the Breva is one of the most compact mid-sized cruiser on the market. It basically feels like a 250 Rebel or 250 Virago, thanks to the wonderfully low center of gravity afforded by the heavy crankshaft and small top-end of the 744cc pushrod engine -- look Ma, no overhead cams! The little V-twin coughs to life willingly with a touch of throttle, helped along by the smooth and responsive Weber-Marelli electronic fuel injection. Blipping the throttle rocks the bike to the right as the heavy flywheel and crank teach you the meaning of "torque". Vibration is noticeable, but not irritating at normal speeds.
The instruments are clear and easy to read, although the digital clock and tripmeter are hard to reset. At night, the red illuminated instruments make the red-numbered redline impossible to see on the tachometer, but this is not a motorcycle that really needs a tachometer -- you'll know when you're close to redline! Other instruments and controls work nicely: The switchgear is standard Japanese, and a hazard flasher switch is thoughtfully included. Another feature, which is a necessity for a motorcycle intended for riders with small hands and feet, is the dogleg clutch and brake levers. Adjustable would have been nicer, but as usual, you have to cut costs somewhere, and this bike has plenty of features for the price. The cable-actuated clutch is smooth and progressive and allows for easy engagement. The five-speed gearbox is primitive, with a long throw between gears and clunky transitions from gear to gear. But it shifts fairly smoothly, especially at an unhurried pace. With 39.77 bhp at the back wheel, the Nevada 750 has brisk, if not overwhelming acceleration. It has enough power to keep ahead of traffic, go too fast on a twisty mountain road, or even pop a clutch-assisted two-gear wheelie. At speeds over 70 mph, the overhead valve motor starts to feel short of breath, and it's tapped out at an indicated 100 mph, which seems to be a relaxed speed on the 405 freeway when the traffic is light. High speed freeway cruising is not what this motor is for!
The ride is smooth and supple, if a bit too soft. It has the traditional cruiser too much front fork travel/too little rear-wheel travel, resulting in a choppy ride if it's not ridden smoothly. That means plenty of shock to the lower back, causing Contributing Editor Pete "Million-Mile Man" Brissette to place himself on the kidney-donor recipient waiting list after traversing 30 of bumpy freeways one evening. Needing a kidney replacement was a small price to pay to enjoy a lightweight, torquey bike to go play with on the Angeles Crest Highway. Pete preferred the Nevada's light weight and moderate power to the V11's bulk and torquey big-twin power on the cold, dirty pavement of Highway 2. The terrific ground clearance (this is one of the few cruisers we've sent back to the manufacturer with unscuffed footpegs), short wheelbase and wide bars make the Nevada fun to hustle in and out of turns, get on the gas early and generally behave like a jackass, since the repercussions for bad behavior are milder on a little bike than a big one. The Metzler ME-33/ME-55 bias-plies provide sufficient grip, or at least slide predictably when they don't.
"It's a great bike for entry-level and shorter riders," said Pete, "but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else." It's fun to ride and works very well, but it's not a bike that will interest an experienced rider for any length of time. It's too cramped and bouncy on the freeway, but should be compared against much smaller cruisers like the 250 Rebel or 500 Vulcan. It's a lightweight cruiser with a definite European flair, and would make a terrific first ride or bike for a smaller rider.
V-11 Coppa Italia
Now this is more like it! The cliché is that Moto Guzzi is known for building "long legged" bikes for the open road, bikes at their most comfortable in high-speed sweepers in the Italian Alps. As the descendant of the first Moto Guzzi V-twin sportbikes from the 60's and 70's, the V11 is a worthy spiritual successor. The V11 was originally introduced in 1997, and is built around a pushrod-actuated V-Twin with oversquare dimensions of a 92 mm bore and an 80 mm stroke. Two valves per cylinder suck fuel and air through a Weber-Marelli electronic fuel injection system. 9.8:1 compression pistons are said by Guzzi to give "impressive torque at low engine speeds." Our MO Dyno Jet dynamometer revealed 80.46 hp and 63.26 foot-pounds of torque at 5500 rpm, which would be impressive for a pushrod V-twin if the Buell XB12R didn't make about 90 RWHP from just an extra 100cc. Fuel injection is just one of the nice technical innovations that transform the Guzzi from the cranky, hard-to-ride relics of yesterday to a practical, reliable modern machine. The rear swingarm and driveshaft unit uses a unique parallelogram that eliminates the rise-and-fall associated with fixed driveshafts. It's suspended with a directly connected Ohlins monoshock, adjustable for rebound and compression damping as well as spring preload.
Up front, a 43 MM inverted Ohlins fork, adjustable for damping and preload, is mounted to a 17" front wheel. Braking is handled by a pair of four-piston Brembo calipers connected to the master cylinder with steel-braided lines and gripping 320 mm full-floating rotors. The rear brake is a 282 mm fixed rotor with a two-piston Brembo caliper. The rear wheel uses a fashionably fat and very grippy Michelin Pilot Sport 17", 180-section tire. The bike is really nice to look at, the kind of motorcycle you want to stare at for hours. The long, plastic gas tank is finished in the beautiful "Coppa Italia" (named after the "Italian Cup" naked-bike race series) paint scheme, supplemented with a carbon-fiber front fender and the aforementioned Ohlins suspension components. The nice people at Moto Guzzi even included a pair of "off-road", free-flowing mufflers. The big, round gauges are easy to read: even the odometer numbers are good old mechanical analog. The dials flank all the usual warning lights, including a low fuel warning light. Both the clutch and brake levers are adjustable, a nice touch that I always appreciate. The hydraulic clutch has a smooth and light feel, especially considering it's modulating a very big, heavy automotive-type dry clutch. The transmission isn't the best. Sure, it's better than the old tractor-like Guzzi gearboxes, but this six-speed Îbox has at least two extra neutrals in it and has a very long throw. Clutchless speed shifts will require some practice to perform smoothly. However, it definitely gets the job done, and the deliberate action it requires from the rider fits in with the nature of the bike.
After you push the gearshift lever down a few times to find the elusive first gear, the bike rumbles off, after the clutch shakes and judders and the bike lurches a bit to the right. The wide, pro-taper styled handlebar puts the rider in a nice, comfortable, upright position and helps make the bike feel a lot lighter than its 487 pound dry weight would suggest. The motor pulls nicely from first or second gear, and rockets you into traffic, the illicit mufflers booming out a nice, healthy V-twin exhaust note in your wake. The controls work nicely, with the exception of the turn signal and horn buttons. Someone in Italy thought it would be funny to reverse their positions so that riders would honk instead of signal. Really funny, until some yutz in a Pinto cuts you off while you angrily cancel your turn signal at the guy. That'll teach him! But you're on the freeway onramp by now anyway, and you happily work your way through the crude but useable gearbox and feel a wash of gen-u-ine Italian V-twin sportbike oomph send you flying up the ramp. The upright position puts you in charge of your position in traffic as you work your way from gap to gap with just a twist of your right wrist. The seat is comfortable enough for hour-long freeway stints, which is a good thing, as we observed almost 40 mpg. With a 5 gallon tank and a 1.3 gallon reserve, that's almost 200 miles before the big throttle bodies suck that pretty tank empty. The springs are a bit firm for a 150-pound rider but the freeway ride isn't too choppy, even over big expansion joints and other rough bits.
But once you are at your favorite two-lane road, the V11 really comes into its own. With a low center of gravity and wide bars to counteract the long wheelbase and conservative steering geometry, the big machine can be hustled easily up a twisty, bumpy canyon road, as long as you aren't in too big a hurry. Big sweepers are even better, with that famous stability a perfect handmaiden to the long-legged gearing and torquey motor. The engine does feel a little buzzy and intrusive at most engine speeds, although there seems to be a sweet spot at about an indicated 85 mph in sixth gear. The 90-degree twin may give perfect primary balance, but the secondary vibrations will constantly remind you that a large air-cooled engine is being worked with pushrods, huge valves, and a big, heavy flywheel. Those of you used to smooth, counterbalanced modern powerplants will require an adjustment period. Me, I just settle back and remember my 1977 BMW was worse, and that at the end of a long ride there is always my favorite Scotsman, Mr. Glenfiddich, to help counterbalance my jangled nerve endings. The four-piston Brembo brakes are surprisingly mediocre, probably due to a conservative pad compound and the bike's higher weight. Downhill turns require a hefty three or four finger squeeze before the wooden feel is overcome and the bike bounces a bit on the oversprung, underdamped front end. Ohlins makes low-end components, built to a price point, just like KYB or Sachs.
I'm at a loss to understand why Moto Guzzi would charge an extra $3,500 for what appear to be damper-rod forks with no separate rebound or compression damping. I'm at a bigger loss to understand why anybody would shell out the extra money for the Ohlins if they provide no benefit over the less expensive Marzocchis on the $11,490 V11 Billabio. They don't detract too much from the overall experience and are easily fixable, I'm sure. So it should be clear to you that this motorcycle has plenty of flaws. So you should be surprised to find out that this is absolutely my favorite motorcycle I've tested at MO so far. I really love it. Bombing down Normandie Street, chasing the Maven at midnight as I get the South Bay tour, with the sound of the exhaust booming in the empty night, the V11
So which one of these is a better motorcycle? The Nevada works better as a motorcycle and exceeds the build quality, handling and performance of many of it's Asian competitors, although at a premium price of $7995. It's a bike I could recommend for a shorter or beginning rider without dooming them to a cheap rattletrap with limited ground clearance, soggy suspension and crummy brakes. The V11 is not as good a motorcycle. In almost every objective category, it falls short of the competition, at a much higher price. Compared to a Yamaha FZ-1, Kawasaki Z1000, Honda 919 or a Triumph Speed Triple it's buzzy, heavy, under-braked, and has mediocre suspension. At $14,990, the Coppa Italia won't win the Coppa for Best Value. However, I understand that Moto Guzzis, like
The sound of the exhaust, the satisfying heft and commanding presence of this beautiful misfit from Mandelo Del Lario make it an object of my desire. I like quirky, interesting bikes like this one that don't sacrifice too much comfort, performance or reliability, and I'm glad there are enough of us out there to keep a very charismatic and interesting brand in business.
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