Moto Guzzi 850T Café – First ride report and some pictures.

[Rusnak_322]

It is just completed. Or as completed as allowed with my current budget. Looks like I finally figured out the charging system on the bike and have the rear sets working well. I took a few rides this weekend and was able to pay attention to how it rode and not trying to compensate for a dying battery and not being able to shift or use the rear brake.

I got maybe 65 miles, these were city miles, as I went on a slow ride downtown with my wife and neighbors. My other ride is a 2007 Ducati Monster S4Rs, so it took a while to adjust to riding a vintage bike. The flywheel effect was hard to get used to, both when reving at a light, and when trying to shift. I needed to remember slow down my shifting as when I would pull the clutch in, the revs didn’t drop right away and it made shifting smoothly difficult.

Twin disks up front and a drum in the rear, the braking is good, but the lever pull is far on the front master cylinder. I don’t recall seeing any adjustment.

The bike is surprisingly quick. I had a 1975 CB360 café that was a dog. This bike pulls hard and never feels like it is lugging in higher gears. I don’t have a tach, so I have no clue where redline is. I have been taking it easy as I wanted this to be the first ride that didn’t end on the trailer.

The bike is tiny, the rear sets are painfully high and the seat is lower than stock. Looks great, so no changing there, just need to take rests. Which shouldn’t be a problem as I fueled up at a gas station for the first time and went from almost completely empty to full in 1.2 gallons.

Plans for the winter include a new headlight and brackets, shocks and rebuild the forks to stiffen them up and hopefully lower them about 1.5” in travel (for looks). I also want to polish the rims better.

Here are some pics – I stopped and took some at dusk on Saturday and I was playing with a new photo retouching app on the first few.






















BTW: I wanted to say thank you for members of this board. I learned a lot from you while building this bike. Both directly, when you answered my questions and reading archives.

[azguzzirep]

Looks great and I like those handlebars! 👍

[Rick4003]

Looks really good! 

I like it very much, looks like you have done some nice workmanship on it!

I do agree with the handle bars, the next bike I build is going to have proper handlebars instead of the clip-ons.
If you have pictures from the build I for one would love to see them. I try to get as many in progress shots as possible in my thread as that is some of the stuff I enjoy reading about in others build threads.

-Ulrik 

[fotoguzzi]

NICE! the rear drive shined up well.. glad you use a front fender.. the front brake lines look a little wonky, can't they be routed closer to the fork?

[Rusnak_322]

Yeah, I didn't want clip-ons. Getting too old for that. they are superbike bend bars.

the brake lines - I want to try to route them from behind the fork to see it that helps. When I got the bike, the brake calipers were mounted behind the fork legs and the brake hoses were hidden. I also dropped the forks in the triple clamps to get the frame level when viewed at the side, that made the brake lines worse.


I have a detailed build thread here - Ugly Goose - Moto Guzzi 850T cafe  with lots of pictures from start to now.

http://www.dotheton.com/forum/index.php?topic=70225.200

[canuck750]

Very nice! Lots of fine workmanship on display, a big pat on the back is due

Tank looks just right, what did you start with for a tank?

Thanks for posting

Jim

[Rusnak_322]

the tank is from a 1964-ishBenelli Mojave 360. It was ubiquitous in the café world for a while, but it was everywhere for a reason. I got a great deal on mine - $120 shipped with a gas cap. Only drawback is the petcocks are right at the heads so I burn my hands turning them off and they are a weird thread pitch, so it is hard to find them.

Here is the original bike -



here are some bikes transformed by that tank -

[arveno]

good job .

I have a question : why cutting the rear portion of the frame ?
Did not Lino Tonti do a wonderful job already ?

Best
Marco

[Guzzistajohn]

Nice work! Could use some polishing  

[Rusnak_322]

good job .

I have a question : why cutting the rear portion of the frame ?
Did not Lino Tonti do a wonderful job already ?

Best
Marco

Lino Tonti did a wonderful job placing the upper shock mount in the right place so that when the rear of the frame was trimmed off, you still had a room for the rear seat mount.

but seriously, it had to go. if someone rear-ended me, they would have been impaled.

but oddly, I never cut the rear off my monster, even though I did on the two previous ones I owned.

[Tom]

  on the work and the "artsy fartsy" photos.  The tank has a nice shape to it too.

[Groover]

Good job, and great photo-shoot! Tastefully done all around, and I love the tobacco accents.

[ritratto]

Sweet bike and some very nice details.   

[Zoom Zoom]

Very Nice!

John Henry

[radguzzi]

Geez Rusnak,
What a great job...  Wow.  Nice work there.

Is the Yamaha a 920...?  By coincidence, we have a riding bud here that just finished a similar project on one, I'll show him yours.

Best,
Rob

[Rusnak_322]

Thanks,
I believe that the Yamaha I linked to was a Virago 920.