Sunday, April 26th, I went with my buddy Dave and Dave's buddy Richard on a day trip to the Talimena Scenic Drive. We started out in Sherman Texas and according to my careful record keeping it looks like we rode around 385 miles give or take a few miles. It was a nice little day trip that covered parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. No masks were worn and at no time did we ever get within six feet of each other.
It started out a little chilly when we left Sherman around 8:00 AM. Then it warmed up nicely and turned out to be perfect weather. There were plenty of bikes out but I guess the numbers were down due to pandemic. There was only one issue to mar the day. The shift linkage parted company from the shift lever leaving it to flop around and possibly fall off. As luck would have it we had just turned into a scenic vista when the failure happened and no parts were lost. I refitted the offending linkage as best I could. I didn't have a tool roll which is something that will never happen again. I secured the shift arm with a small bungee begged off some Harley riders that happened by. I guess it's not a real adventure until your Guzzi gets cantankerous. I rode the final 150 miles being very careful to budget my shifts and to check the shifter condition often.
Another problem surfaced as well. The Quota is miss-firing under certain conditions and I don't know where to start looking. It runs fine until it's really warmed up. It behave well during the first two thirds of the trip running sustained 80 mph and chugging up hills without a complaint. Then I started to notice a bit of a stumble and miss-fire at certain time. It would just cough a couple of time after I had passed a car or truck and it was kind of disconcerting. When I was closer to the house I experimented a little. I noticed that screwing on the gas hard will set it to miss-firing when you back off the throttle or try to slow to maintain normal or low throttle settings. It will eventually clear itself up and it has never died. I am wondering if it is fouling the plugs. The injection runs a little rich In the best of times. I am going to pull and check the condition of the plugs and I guess i can start was a good old fashioned tune up.
Other that that it was a great ride.
