I know you've all seen one before...

But this one is mine and it's now in the garage and won't see the light of day until around April which shall be the first time I ride it. :cry

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Nice "Bear"

Boy, having that in the garage and not getting on it is akin to a cocaine addict with a line on his coffee table and not sniffing it up ......
Good luck with that .....
She certainly looks great
Take care

Before someone else says it, You got the fast one, Nice!!

You may want to peek into the garage to see if it's still there.

If so, the one in these pix was having way more fun in north Georgia mountains today.

It also sounded grand with is tach turning (about seven grand) when it passed me (on my Stornello) and some other Guzzis on a stupendous back road north of Suches.


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Yours looks great, btw.

Cannot imagine waiting that long.  Cannot you not get it to Spain for a romp?

Only a retired Old Flatulent would ask such a question.  Sorry.  

Bill

P.S. The dog begged for food than looked down its nose at scraps of biscuits & gravy.

Welcome! I'll ask the dumb question - why NOT ride it? Only real reasons for not riding are ice on the road, mechanical problems or physical injury. Hopefully you have none of these.

Welcome to the forum!

EricS wrote:

Welcome! I'll ask the dumb question - why NOT ride it? Only real reasons for not riding are ice on the road, mechanical problems or physical injury. Hopefully you have none of these.

Basically I'm a fair weather biker these days.  I live in central London with nowhere to keep a bike. I have to keep them at my parents house as they have a garage but it's an hours drive away so if I go out I'm out all day and cover 200+ish miles.  That might not sound like much of an ordeal but the whole operation involved is quite a palaver. Also, (and this is the main reason) here are in the U.K. it gets cold and wet from Now until May. Although having said that it is unusually mild and dry for the time of year right now. I tax the bike for six months starting from April or May depending on how cold and wet April is and then it gets garaged in September/October accordingly. If I had a garage and could just take it out for an ad-hoc spin for a couple of hours 'my' biking season would be longer. But I don't. So it isn't. It's a bummer. I wish I could live in California.

Wow that sucks, can't you rent a garage box or a place in one of those shared indoor motorcycle/bicycle parking lots somewhere near you in London? Congrats on the beautiful bike though!

Put it in the lounge room, it is a piece of living mobile art after all

GHTE wrote:

Put it in the lounge room, it is a piece of living mobile art after all

Ha ha. If you can help me get it up the stairs to my apartment I'll gladly try

Bring it into the house, it will be happy. I even gave it the red carpet treatment.
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zebraranger wrote:

Bring it into the house, it will be happy. I even gave it the red carpet treatment.
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Nice. My mothers hairdresser did that with a Benelli 900sei in the 90's. Had it as art in his living room for years.

I had a friend who bought a Phil Smart Ducati, pre-ordered it months before the initial release in 2006. He had three other Ducs that he rode the shit out of, but this one he told the dealer not to even bother putting fluids in as he had no intention of ever riding it. He bought it as an investment and proudly displays it in his living room as a work of art. I wish I had a picture of it in his house.

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Street wrote:

I had a friend who bought a Phil Smart Ducati, pre-ordered it months before the initial release in 2006. He had three other Ducs that he rode the shit out of, but this one he told the dealer not to even bother putting fluids in as he had no intention of ever riding it. He bought it as an investment and proudly displays it in his living room as a work of art. I wish I had a picture of it in his house.

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That Duc is gorgeous, if I had the space and money, I'd do something like that too.

The reason I ended up parking the GRiSO in the house, was because of Hurricane Irma, something I've never had to do before. Since we were receiving a direct hit on the West Gulf Coast of Florida from Irma, I had to park the trailer and Shannon's new car in the garage, then I fill the garage up with 35 gallon water barrels, patio furniture, garbage cans and everything else we had out on the front porch, back patio and yard stuff, anything that could become a projectile went into the garage. I ended up running out of space in the garage. So I came up with this brilliant idea to park the GRiSO inside. It made a great interior décor piece to look at while being indoor bound for hours, and it gave the bike maximum protection.

That makes perfect sense, ZR. I agree, that Paul Smart is one of my all-time favorites too. We actually have another friend with one, but he rides his.

By the way, How'd you fare in the storm?

We did very well compared to some others. As far as damage, we had a couple of century old oak trees go down on the property, and that was about it. We decided to stay and ride it out because my business is 500 yards from the east shore of Tampa Bay. I spent a lot of time moving machinery up onto concrete blocks and up into warehouse racking, I was worried about flooding from tidal surge. I spent the last day boarding up the house. When I finished, we could have joined the other 6 million people jamming up our two interstates heading north out of the state, but the problem with that was a normal 4 hour trip to Georgia, turned into a two day event for many people because the gas stations all along the route was out of fuel because of the mass exodus, not to mention the accidents and the snails pace of traffic flow. We were definitely better off hunkering down at home.

Between living in hurricane ally, the Obama years and the great recession we went thru, we now try to be well prepared for hurricanes or any other disaster. Days before I had filled my truck and her cars tanks full, and an additional 85 gallons of fuel for the generator at the house for a total of around 125 to 130 gallons. We have seven (7) 35 gallon food grade poly barrels sealed with 245 gallons of fresh water, which I used to reinforce the garage door on the inside. Plus, we had an additional 10 cases of bottled water that we always have on hand for the business. I had purchased the 35 gallon poly barrels 10 years earlier for hurricane Charlie, I had them in storage all these years stacked and tarped in one corner of the garage. We always have a two month supply of food, including canned goods that we rotate thru, some MREs and 5 gallon sealed pails of freezed dried emergency foods with a 20 year shelf life that I hope we never have to use. An extra smaller freezer in the utility room with mostly seafood, chicken, pork and other stuff that we can keep going for a few weeks with the generator. Finally, plenty of guns and ammo for protection against looters and any other threats.

I don't consider myself a hardcore prepper, but over the last ten years I decided that I'd rather invest a little in being prepared, and a lot in being a survivor. Two days after, I spoke to a guy a who lives in Key West. The ones that evacuated had to wait a couple of weeks before being let back in. He came here to the Tampa Bay area to buy more guns and ammo, LED lamps, fuel and fuel cans and other supplies for himself and his two neighbors who are standing together to protect what they have left. He said looting was rampant and many people don't even have the basics in food, water or fuel, most were relying on what was being air dropped. The military brought supplies into them by sea and air drops, along with some private pilots. Here in the Tampa Bay area it was nowhere near anything like that. We did have shortages of fuel and foods, and most businesses and homes with no power. The grocery stores still had no meats or dairy products for a few weeks due to no power, fuel stations with no fuel. The one real problem with evacuating is that if you evacuate, you stand a very good chance of losing everything you own, if you are prepared to stay, you stand a very good chance of keeping it.

I'm glad to hear you got through it with minimal damage. Your disaster preparedness is impressive to say the least. We keep similar supplies at the ready, though nowhere near what you have. Ghetto cred to you! Ours are stored in my shipping container storage shed which is practically bomb-proof. Our concern is the risk of a massive earthquake that could potentially level buildings. I figure the container is the most likely structure to survive that level of a tremor. I've actually been upgrading my "kit" recently adding a propane cook stove and a few pots and utensils. Besides a generator, we also keep a large tent for shelter and I built a rainwater collection system that consists of seventeen 55 gallon barrels that collect runoff from the roof. We use this for irrigating Esther's garden, but in case of a disaster, the stove will allow us to boil water to keep us and our neighbors going for quite a while. It's a work in progress, there's always more I can do, and we'll likely never have to use it, but it does give peace of mind to be prepared.

Street wrote:

I had a friend who bought a Phil Smart Ducati, pre-ordered it months before the initial release in 2006. He had three other Ducs that he rode the shit out of, but this one he told the dealer not to even bother putting fluids in as he had no intention of ever riding it. He bought it as an investment and proudly displays it in his living room as a work of art. I wish I had a picture of it in his house.

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One of my friends in Australia has/had a Paul Smart when they first came out, it was one of the most uncomfortable bikes I have ever sat on and on close inspection the engine cover on the RHS is actually chromed plastic. I have never really liked the Sport Classic range they are a pastiche of the original Bevel and the original Green Frame 750 is one of my all time favourite bikes, but the same could be said of the new triumphs etc...

Or it could be I am just a grumpy old git :-)

Welcome to the forum.

Bill Hagan wrote:

You may want to peek into the garage to see if it's still there.

If so, the one in these pix was having way more fun in north Georgia mountains today.

It also sounded grand with is tach turning (about seven grand) when it passed me (on my Stornello) and some other Guzzis on a stupendous back road north of Suches.

Bill,

Would that be highway 60 out of Suches, GA? One of my favorite roads from my days going to the Georgia Mountain Rally in Hiawassee.

FrontRangeRider wrote:

Bill Hagan wrote:

You may want to peek into the garage to see if it's still there.

If so, the one in these pix was having way more fun in north Georgia mountains today.

It also sounded grand with is tach turning (about seven grand) when it passed me (on my Stornello) and some other Guzzis on a stupendous back road north of Suches.

Bill,

Would that be highway 60 out of Suches, GA?  One of my favorite roads from my days going to the Georgia Mountain Rally in Hiawassee.

Indeed.

There are so many fine roads all over this planet, but that stretch of Ga. SR 60 from Dahlonega to Morganton offers just about everything except 180º switchbacks -- and that's fine by me; never understood the charm of the Stelvio, etc.  

But, as you know, that section of Ga. 60 presents all sorts of rock 'n roll turns of the tight and not type, short-but-exhilarating triple-digit straights, grand sweepers (also triple-digit capable if you peg your testiculosity meter!    ), and more after more of all sorts of moto-grin makers.
 
Most any motorcyclist, and especially on a GRiSO, would be hard put to find a more fun road.

Deals Gap (when not overcrowded), the Cherohala, and more are mighty fine, and you know what nifty stuff is out your way.  And, yes, I love the great romps that start at my driveway here at the top of Virginia.  

But, for smiles per mile, I tell folks all the time, if I could only ride one road the rest of my life, I'd vote for that 40-mile stretch of Georgia pavement.  Back & forth, I'd never get bored.  


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Bill

I also like the Cherohala a lot but you are correct, nothing is like Highway 60.  Many years ago, I got to ride the Cherohala less than a week after it opened.  There were no lines painted and no speed limit signs.  So we "obeyed" the speed limit.       One of my best motorcycle days ever...

Bill Hagan wrote:

But, for smiles per mile, I tell folks all the time, if I could only ride one road the rest of my life, I'd vote for that 40-mile stretch of Georgia pavement.  Back & forth, I'd never get bored.  
Bill

I agree, I ride that stretch 5-6 times a years. In September I host a Concours Owners Group rally called Run with the Wolf. This will be our 24th annual outing at Two Wheels of Suches. Turn left out of their parking lot and hold on.