Blaufeld
Cruisin' Guzzisti
Mind that even after acquisition by the Piaggio group, they are still a more or less a "local" Italian reality in regards to brand and customer support...
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V85 TT Info
- Thread starterGTM®
- Start date
Mind that even after acquisition by the Piaggio group, they are still a more or less a "local" Italian reality in regards to brand and customer support...
This is very true! Sad because there is a very loyal base here in the States, I being one. I reached out to them years ago to form a U.S. National "Club" but I never heard back.
Too bad they took the youtube off
that last 3 seconds of clip showed the sound of a guzzi...it does sound good!
that last 3 seconds of clip showed the sound of a guzzi...it does sound good!
Just saw these advertised for pre-order from a UK dealer.
Oh yeh. And here they come at last....
Dang. Wish I would have caught that!
Here is another video from facebook showing the exhaust note
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=665562763895896
Nice. That sounds pretty great for a stock exhaust. At least you can tolerate this one so much more than the v7 1&2 toaster exhausts. Buys you some time until you put on a proper exhaust or makes it livable if you are in a neighborhood that doesn't like exhausts.
roadscum
Cruisin' Guzzisti
I don't put any faith in recorded exhaust sounds, never heard a recording that was even close to the actual live sound. Poor mic's and poor playback along with echo's and other artifacts. Add to that the standards imposed by each country. Who knows what he thing will sound like when it finally arrives in the US. Spoke with a dealer last week and he was unable to tell me when he expected the early V85's, those with pre-delivery deposits. Someday maybe...….
Paul
Paul
I'm not really putting any faith on the recorded sound, but you can still get a somewhat general guess. If you listen to any v7 stock exhaust before the vIII you can hear the toaster sound - doesn't sound exactly like in person, no, but is still a little revealing. When you start to get into well crafted proper exhausts like my 2:1 from GT Moto then recordings really start to go out the window as the nuance and depth isn't captured, that I'll agree on.
Knuckle Dragger
Just got it firing!
Well I'm pleased that the st'd muffler sounds OK; because the rest of the exhaust looks like utter crap to me! I personally find the huge collector box/catalyser assembly situated behind the sump housing & below the gearbox to be frightfully exposed & vulnerable to damage. There's no protection whatsoever, a huge red flag for any cycle with even so much as the barest minimum pretentions of off (or even rough)-road ability.
Worse, those ridiculously flimsy, quite possibly useless twin header pipe guards are merely screwed to welded lugs on the headers. Ridiculous for any bike, let alone one with rough road uses in mind. The whole thing's gonna rattle, buzz, and eventually, sooner rather than later I'd be guessing, be torn off by underbrush! What a ludicrous, cheap, cheesy attempt to solve a problem that never should have arisen in the first place!
Look at the Stelvio in comparison. A simple, plain, robust pair of headers sensibly & protectively routed much higher to a simple 2 into 1 collector behind the sump. All nicely tucked in well out of harm's way. Simple, straightforward & effective. I just hope there's adequate room to eventually do something similar with the little'un before that ridiculous collector/cat box gets squashed flat on a stone.
Worse, those ridiculously flimsy, quite possibly useless twin header pipe guards are merely screwed to welded lugs on the headers. Ridiculous for any bike, let alone one with rough road uses in mind. The whole thing's gonna rattle, buzz, and eventually, sooner rather than later I'd be guessing, be torn off by underbrush! What a ludicrous, cheap, cheesy attempt to solve a problem that never should have arisen in the first place!
Look at the Stelvio in comparison. A simple, plain, robust pair of headers sensibly & protectively routed much higher to a simple 2 into 1 collector behind the sump. All nicely tucked in well out of harm's way. Simple, straightforward & effective. I just hope there's adequate room to eventually do something similar with the little'un before that ridiculous collector/cat box gets squashed flat on a stone.
Here is this video too.
roadscum
Cruisin' Guzzisti
It's a good looking bike and I'm thinking it will meet it's intended design objectives as an adventure tourer for use on paved and unpaved roadway. Nope, not intended to be a bike to ride off the road and through the bush.
Paul
Paul
I've got a YZ250 2 stroke for that. A huge heavy Guzzi is not a dirt bike for sure.
Thanks for the video links. Sounds just like a V7III/V9 to me.
Look forward to getting my hands on one soon. All of the gripes for the exhaust and crash-bars design issues will be resolved.
Look forward to getting my hands on one soon. All of the gripes for the exhaust and crash-bars design issues will be resolved.
Knuckle Dragger
Just got it firing!
As it is with girlfriend/wives/lovers, so it is with bikes. Good looks are a poor substitute for inadequate design & behaviour. It doesn't really cost any more to design things properly in the first place. The Italians were traditionally world leaders in industrial design. There's so many aspects of the V85 that are fantastic. Simple, uncomplicated, lightweight Euro4 compliant air/oil cooling. Simple, uncomplicated linear-rate linkage-free suspension. Ultra-simple, ultra-cheap non-adjustable front fork. Low budget old-school wheels. Plastic rather than aluminium panelling, etc. etc. They can build these quickly, simply & cheaply & sell 'em for thousands less than more "sophisticated" competitors such as KTM's 790 line, the F850 etc.
Yet those glaringly silly, unnecessary mistakes rather spoil the overall package. Why mount accessory auxiliary lighting outside rather than inside protective framing? Why are additional mounting frames/bracketry necessary at all? What's wrong with (as almost everybody else does) mounting aux lights inside rather than outside better designed engine guards? Why allow the big exhaust collector box to be so exposed to damage? Why not route the headers more sensibly as you've done in the past? These changes would've actually SAVED production costs, with exhaust guarding, light mounting frames & header pipe lugs becoming unnecessary!
About 35 years ago I ended up spending some 3 months travelling through some Eastern Bloc countries (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, DDR, Poland, USSR, Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) on a BMW with a broken exhaust guard lug. The constant metallic buzzing & rattling was extraordinarily irritating, eventually becoming so badly detatched that it began to catch my ankle in passing. I couldn't do anything as BMW was then only represented in Western Europe, & the Teutons get really anal & shirty about "illegal modifications/repairs" invalidating warranties. That, and the oil that constantly & consistently leaked through the valve guides into the combustion chamber/s when parked turned me off the Teutonic tractors for life! Will the same thing happen to me in Turkey or Iran, Morocco or Algeria on a modern MG V85? One really needs to be able to trust one's ride to faithfully perform the actual task of "adventure touring".
Apart from its corpulent mass, the Stelvio was an object lesson in clever, efficient "tutto terrano" design. With such a fine precedent to follow or imitate, I'm rather surprised that MG (or rather Aprilia I suspect) incorporated these silly, unnecessary design flaws in the V85.
Yet those glaringly silly, unnecessary mistakes rather spoil the overall package. Why mount accessory auxiliary lighting outside rather than inside protective framing? Why are additional mounting frames/bracketry necessary at all? What's wrong with (as almost everybody else does) mounting aux lights inside rather than outside better designed engine guards? Why allow the big exhaust collector box to be so exposed to damage? Why not route the headers more sensibly as you've done in the past? These changes would've actually SAVED production costs, with exhaust guarding, light mounting frames & header pipe lugs becoming unnecessary!
About 35 years ago I ended up spending some 3 months travelling through some Eastern Bloc countries (Hungary, Czechoslovakia, DDR, Poland, USSR, Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) on a BMW with a broken exhaust guard lug. The constant metallic buzzing & rattling was extraordinarily irritating, eventually becoming so badly detatched that it began to catch my ankle in passing. I couldn't do anything as BMW was then only represented in Western Europe, & the Teutons get really anal & shirty about "illegal modifications/repairs" invalidating warranties. That, and the oil that constantly & consistently leaked through the valve guides into the combustion chamber/s when parked turned me off the Teutonic tractors for life! Will the same thing happen to me in Turkey or Iran, Morocco or Algeria on a modern MG V85? One really needs to be able to trust one's ride to faithfully perform the actual task of "adventure touring".
Apart from its corpulent mass, the Stelvio was an object lesson in clever, efficient "tutto terrano" design. With such a fine precedent to follow or imitate, I'm rather surprised that MG (or rather Aprilia I suspect) incorporated these silly, unnecessary design flaws in the V85.
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Jayell
Just got it firing!
roadscum
Cruisin' Guzzisti
With due respect Knuckle Dragger, it sounds like this is not the bike for you.
With modern LED head lights I find aux lights are not needed. Same goes for modern, well designed halogen lighting. Aux lights simply add unnecessary weight.
Paul
With modern LED head lights I find aux lights are not needed. Same goes for modern, well designed halogen lighting. Aux lights simply add unnecessary weight.
Paul