Pexi's Moto Guzzi Weblog

Erratic idle cured

The idle speed of the Breva had become a bit unsteady lately - the engine kind of missed a spark from time to time, specially when the engine was not hot. It never really stalled though. Sometimes I could also feel some hesitation when the engine was cold and while riding at a steady slow speed, not accelerating and not engine breaking. I wasn't quite sure if I was just imagining these things, until yesterday evening I also heard some extra noise (yes noise, not sound) under heavy acceleration when leaving from the office. Back at home I started to investigate the source of that noise and found out that the exhaust crossover clamps were somewhat loose; right hand clamp had actually visibly relocated itself and I could twist the crossover by hand at will. The clamp bolts were nevertheless TIGHT, but after breaking them free and re-tightening to correct position, the crossover was steadily fixed to the pipes again. Before-and-after-tightening pictures on the left.

Today's morning and evening cold starts (not that cold though, it's 28 °C here) confirmed that the erratic idle and slow speed hesitation have been cured too! Obviously the small exhaust leak had caused false readings to the lambda sensor in the crossover and the mixture was fluctuating at idle due to that.

Not a big deal really, but something to have a look at regular interval.

Slow response times

Unfortunately it seems that the blog is still suffering from incredibly bad performance - I'm really sorry about it, but it's something that I can't control. The service provider replied already few days ago that

"This is affecting blogs.com domains and is due to network changes on the way these domains are served. We are sorry for the problem and are working on it currently."

Hope everything is solved sooooooooooon!!

Scraaaaaatch!

Well, well, well. It seems that it took me 8 months and 9000 km to get really familiar and confident with the Breva. Might be also due to the sticky tires due to hot tarmac but... considering that I'm NOT riding like a maniac or a suicide candidate (would have chosen another kind of bike, wouldn't I) but nevertheless I managed to scratch the right foot-peg four times within a quarter! All it takes is a slight bump in the middle of an enthusiastic curve and scraaaatch!! All my toes are still intact, so no problemos, LOL.

I used to wonder if it's the foot-pegs or the exhaust flange which limits the lean angle in the Breva - now I know for sure: it's the foot-pegs. Anyway, the available lean angle is decent enough to have some serious fun (at least for a no-racer, pleasure-rider like me!), and to be honest: it's a positive feeling to know that you can safely lean the bike to it's built-in limits.

Friday on the bike

What a surprise: Pexi has been riding again! Had a day off on Friday, mainly to manage some bureaucracy stuff, but managed to handle them already by noon. So I took the map and planned a tour over the mountains, down to the valley of the Var and back home via Castellane. As usual I had my camera with me - the resulting photos are not that great, but I blame the ruthless mid-day and afternoon sun for that. It was quite a hot day, Breva's thermometer displayed 31 °C down in the valley - while riding. I had my "100% blow-through" summer jacket on and still I didn't like to think about stopping down there. Yet I had to - the road to Castellane was blocked for 10 minutes due to roadwork. I had a chat with two German motorists from Bayern while waiting for the road to reopen - you can see these guys riding on some shots below. We had partly the same odd route planned for Friday and saw each others in couple of occasions.

Opening picture: mountain road close to Bouyon
Pictures from top-left to bottom-right:
Pic 1: Drinking pause after Conségudes (the Breva almost fell down here - the tarmac was so hot that while I was drinking coke in the shadow the sidestand had pushed itself 4 cm inside asphalt.)
Pic 2: Village of Sigale
Pics 3, 4 and 5: Clue du Riolan
Pic 6: Valley of the river Var in the background
Pic 7, 8, 9: Great open roads around Lac de Castillon
Pic 10: Mandatory trademark "Eagle flies again" picture
Pic 11: Lac de Castillon, close to Castellane

Pictures taken this week

More photos from the evening rides of this week.

St Auban

Couple of pictures from today's evening ride to St Auban via Route Napoleon. The roads were pretty deserted, the weather was mild and dry - ahhh what a pleasure.

Trip to Avignon, Vaucluse

550 km in 13 hours. That's today's trip to Avignon, Vaucluse and back. Not much of an average speed, but that 13 hours includes two visits to the Gendarmerie, two visits to the garage where my refound Alfa is staying, a nice lunch in the old town of Avignon and some coffee and fuelling stops. And one obligatory local wine shopping session. My ears are still ringing and my neck is stiff, so: almost a perfect day.

I started early, at 7 AM, when the temperature was quite chilly, only 16 degrees C. It warmed up though - in Avignon Guzzi's thermometer displayed 26 deg C. The Route National 7 from Le Muy to Avignon was surprisingly unoccupied, making fast riding a joy, but as usual, there was strong wind around Aix, a good workout for my neck muscles. Outch, it hurts now!

Encountered one deadly stupid person on the road: a guy in a Peugeot monospace went crazy when I catched him before Draguignan. I was about to pass him but for unknown reason he decided to "race" with me instead, so I settled behind him. That's what I usually do in these cases - it's better to have an untalented dork on front of you than behind. Anyway, he pushed his wagon in those tight curves until one corner he made serious misjudgement and had to make an exemplary emergency breaking with rubber smoke, shoulder lock and accompanying sound. Not surprisingly, he then slowed down so much that I decided it was safe to pass and enjoy the sweeping roads with Breva.

The two first pictures below are from Avignon area, the next ones feature the famous (by Cezanne ) St Victoire mountain, close to Aix-en-Provence.

The bug collection in the visor makes one wonder about the people who ride with an open face helmet:

My stolen GTA has been found

Just had a phone call from the Gendarmerie in Vaucluse, they have my GTA in their garage! The car had been used as an escape car in a robbery or something - police had followed and then found the GTA abandoned. According to the chef of the gendarmerie, the car is otherwise in a good condition, but there is a scratch on the front door and interior is now covered with finger print powder.

Will take my Guzzi and ride to Vaucluse tomorrow and check the car - I need to decide if I still want to keep it or take the money from the insurance. I sure will keep the car unless it has seen too much damage - which it obviously has not. Fingers crossed. It'll be an interesting ride, all day on the saddle and even the weather forecast looks promising.