Travels with Ernie: V7 850 USA coast-to-coast loop

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

Be warned this is a media heavy trip report thread and photos may be slow to load.

Last weekend was the first leg of a coast-to-coast loop ride I have planned to ride this year on my 2022 MG V7 850 E5 Stone Centenario.

It was off to a concerning start as I found that at the recent service the dealer way overfilled the final drive oil, which I posted about here:
https://wildguzzi.com/forum/index.php?topic=123836.0

My father is riding a 1925 Harley-Davidson JE in the 2025 Motorcycle Trans Am and I'm his support crew for the event, so I will be making the same stops and helping out with maintenance on his motorcycle. In recent years he competed in the 2022 Cross Country Chase which was an unsupported event but I tagged along to make a vacation of it and rode Route 66 on my V7 850 shortly after buying it, and then he also competed in the 2023 Motorcycle Cannonball Run where I was part of his support crew and followed along coast-to-coast on my 2021 Honda Trail 125. A trip report from that ride can be found on the Honda Trail 125 forum. The 1925 Harley JE is largely the same bike that he ran in the 2023 Motorcycle Cannonball, he just purchased a 1925 JE engine, had a specialist shop rebuild it, and then we swapped the engine. The JE engine required some electrical changes as well as a different exhaust setup.

The itinerary for my tour is as follows:
Home base in Colorado to the other home base, my parents' house in Illinois. In the books ✔️
Illinois to the start of the Trans Am in North Carolina this coming weekend.
North Carolina coast to the Oregon coast following the Trans Am event's stops.
From the end of the Trans Am event to Portland to visit with friends.
Finally, return to Colorado and get an answer to the question which has been nagging me - Did I leave the stove on?

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.08.23
It had rained early in the morning as I loaded my kit onto the V7, but the timing worked out well where by the time I got on the bike it was just a light mist. Could hardly see the Rockies through the fog. As I approached the I-25 on-ramp there were cars driving the wrong way down the shoulder of it where they had turned around and were getting off I-25 as traffic was at a standstill. I detoured around I-25 and jogged south down to I-70. First gas stop I pulled over for the card reader was down and I had some gas to go, next gas station I stopped at was new and hadn't opened yet. Made it to Limon for gas 23 miles after the low fuel light came on. Phew. Seeing cars going the wrong way down an on-ramp wasn't the end of the bad driving I saw for the day, as a semi-truck driver pulled forward with the diesel hose still in his tank at a TA station and the staff had to shut the pump down. Later while riding I smelled burning rubber and then caught up to a Jeep Grand Cherokee rolling at least 50 mph down the shoulder with a flat front tire. It's crazy out there!

A faint view of the Rocky Mountains in the distance












Kansas is quite tropical this time of year!




This was the first stop where I noticed oil on the rear wheel.




I made it to Salina, Kansas for the night and decided to call it a day so I could book a hotel room and spend some time researching the issue of oil seeping from the final drive.

While traveling I often send postcards along the way so I was excited to see stamp vending at one of the gas stops.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.08.24
The workshop manual for my bike said to warm the final drive oil before draining, so I started the day eastward and decided on Junction City, Kansas as my first stop. I found an O'Reilly Auto Parts within walking distance of an AutoZone and hardware store, so it seemed like a good place to work on the bike and have resources available to me. Sure enough I ended up needing something from each of them. With the final drive oil drained it was clear that it was just very overfilled as noted in the other thread. I was relieved as it would have really stunk to have a real problem this early into the trip. After losing time to that issue, I decided to call off work for Monday and take my time getting to my destination in Illinois instead of trying to make it there that night, which wasn't looking possible as I didn't leave the auto parts parking lot until afternoon. I sent a text to a friend (and fellow Honda Trail 125 long distance tourer) in Kansas City and decided to meet up with him and hang out a bit, grab lunch, and then plot out a more leisurely route to IL that included seeing some Muffler Men and similar roadside attractions.

Civilization! The Sap Bros truck stop in Junction City had washlet toilet seats. I think these may be the only ones I’ve seen in a public washroom in the USA.


My morning workshop setup


There’s a new fiberglass giant in Kansas City


This space man is the sign for Atlas 9, which wasn’t open yet but as I understand it, it will be a similar immersive art experience to Meow Wolf


Another giant on the other side of the Atlas 9 movie theater


The ideal adventure bike.


The roads in KC are rough, but surprisingly everywhere I encountered tram tracks was a smooth ride and not as sketchy as I expected on two wheels.


Following the yellow brick road...


To a great lunch at Pigwich


As it got dark a medium size dog, perhaps a fox, crossed the road in front of me and that was my cue to find a hotel and call it a night. I rode just a few more minutes to Macon, Missouri and got a motel room.


A neat trick I learned from a friend years ago is to give your helmet visor a spa treatment. Just drape a damp towel or paper towel (though paper is more likely to scratch) on your visor and leave it for a few minutes. Most bugs come right off with it so you hardly need to wipe the guts off the visor.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.08.25
My first stop of the morning was the Mark Twain Cave in Hannibal, Missouri. I've done the cave tour a few times over the years and decided to walk through it again. It is a "dry" cave, so not as much beautiful stalactites, stalagmites, and flowstone as you'll find in wet caves, but it has an interesting history and of course it's the same cave that appears in Mark Twain's writings. My route incorporated a lot of Muffler Man-ish roadside attractions that I mapped out on the Roadside America website, though there were still quite a few I skipped just to save time. Route 66, especially in Illinois, is loaded with roadside attractions.


Hannibal, Missouri has some great murals



Entrances to the Mark Twain Cave


It’s difficult to see, but this crack is the “lifeline” of the cave along its ceiling, and there is a small bat pouched up on the right side of the crack. There used to be thousands of bats in this cave but white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that came over from Europe, has largely wiped them out and they’re down to thirty-something bats in the cave this year.




My Goose with the Mighty Mississippi behind it


To celebrate my return to Illinois, I grabbed a dog dragged tru da garden.



The first real Muffler Man of the trip in Illinois.



A pink elephant and a goose walk into a bar…


This one was a Big John grocery display


A carpet viking turned spartan as a school mascot


And a Uniroyal Gal who moved on from tires and is now a pie lady


In Normal Illinois it’s normal to see a 15ft Carl serving ice cream and a burger







I had missed the bulk of the fiberglass giants along the route, which are in Atlanta, Illinois, but I did get to see the Gemini Giant, recently moved and freshly restored by American Giants.

[GuzziNZ]

👍 Excellent, thanks for sharing.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

Have been busy on the trip so probably won't get around to updating this thread much until it's over, but it's going well. Here are some US129 Photos I bought of my dad riding Tail of the Dragon on the J yesterday.










For anyone interested to see more 100+ year old motorcycles in those slow twisties, you can go through the Sept 7 photos on these sites.


https://xtremesportsphotography.photoreflect.com/store/store.aspx


https://www.killboy.com

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

I had mentioned that there were some changes to the Harley-Davidson J after swapping the JD engine for the JE, one of the more significant ones is the electrical system. The difference between a J and a JD is that the J engine is 61ci (1000cc) while the JD is 74ci (1200cc), but the E stands for Electric meaning it's a 61ci engine with a 3 brush generator instead of a magneto and would have had factory electric lighting. A concern with the 3 brush generator is that it is supposed to adjust output based on demand, and if that doesn't work correctly it can kill batteries. With the previous JD engine running a magneto we ran a small rechargeable battery as a total loss electrical system for just the lights and brought the battery into the hotel room to plug in and recharge at night. Now that the bike has a generator, my dad found two AGM batteries that fit nicely in the battery box. One for ignition and brake light, the other for headlight and running lights. With SAE plugs on them they could easily have their connections swapped or be removed from the bike and brought into the hotel at night for charging. If one battery were to die, the other one is ready to go as a back up. Another electrical change was the wiring and switches. The bike had the ignition switch on the handlebar dash area, but a problem with that is the cable routing. One side of the gas tank halves has clips for running wires under the tank and along the frame. On a Cannonball bike you want as simple and accessible of an ignition system as possible for troubleshooting and repair, and you don't want the ignition wires to be damaged when removing the fuel/oil tank if it needs to be removed. In 2023 the tanks on the bike did get a leak and need to be pulled, which is a two person job with the wires in place. To avoid the hassle of burrying the ignition wires, the ignition switch was moved to right next to the battery box, with the headlight and running light switch on the dash where if those wires got in the way or chewed up from tank removal they aren't as essential as ignition and brake light. The bike also got a new set of gas/oil tanks for this event. They're reproductions same as the set run in 2023, but higher quality. My brother patina'd and clear coated them to match the tool box on the rear carrier.









After a week in Illinois and helping with final preparations on the 1925 Harley, I got back on the road. I would ride to the North Carolina coast in three days, while my parents would leave a day later and trailer the Harley there in two days.

2025.08.30
Chicago suburbs to Gallipolis, Ohio
In the morning I was quick to hit traffic as it's pretty unavoidable wrapping around Lake Michigan the first half of the day. Right over the Indiana border a mini van nearly clipped me merging into my lane and it was clear the driver didn't look before changing lanes. The Indiana welcome sign was a neat photo op that many others were getting their pictures with, and they had information in the welcome center on how Indiana make use of a lot of wind power with a Don Quixote silhouette sculpture. The interstate in Indiana was awful. There were warning signs for windy areas and they weren't kidding. I don't think there was more than a mile of road that wasn't rough grooved or patchwork. I had to be careful around semi trucks as catching the dirty air buffeting behind them slammed my bike side to side and made it speed wobble pretty bad on the rough grooves. Ohio was a a welcome change as the roads were in excellent condition, smooth and a lot less truck traffic. Riding over a ridge after Chillicothe the scenery suddenly changed and I was riding into the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. There was a scent of burning leaves or bonfire that sparked mixed emotions for me as someone who loves midwest bonfires but has also evacuated from fires in Colorado. I got gas right before the West Virginia border and a guy at the gas station asked if my bike was a Triumph. I told him it was a Moto Guzzi and did the pinched fingers hand gesture as one does. 🤌 He'd never heard of Moto Guzzi. I got a room at the hotel next to the gas station as I saw a few bikers leaving there for dinner. I stepped on a Lego brick in the parking lot, luckily while wearing motorcycle boots, and decided to add it to the collection of charms and trinkets I carry while traveling. I don't think I'd ever been to a Bob Evan's before, so I gave it a shot for dinner and of course ordered a breakfast. The hot chocolate was great, food was mediocre.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.08.31
Gallipolis, Ohio to Waynesboro, Virginia
Being on the Ohio and West Virginia border, I've been craving Tudor's Biscuit World. I decided against it this morning because the hotel included a breakfast voucher (Guzzi content) where you make a selection of three items in the dining area, the wait staff put in your order, and bring it out to you. It wasn't a half bad breakfast. My first stop for the day was right across the Ohio River, the Mothman status in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. My Iron Butt unfortunately doesn't hold a candle to Mothman's stainless steel posterior, and that's why I'm riding on an Airhawk pad.









A rail-to-trail in Oak Hill, West Virginia




New River Gorge Bridge. I made the mistake of not changing out of my riding boots when I parked at the visitor center, so I only went part way down the stairs to the lower overlook.








Thurmond Road had been repaved since the last time I rode into Thurmond, West Virginia, which was a pleasant surprise as it's a narrow road and dodging deep potholes put you into the oncoming half before. Thurmond is possibly my favorite "ghost town" that I've been to and it was also a filming location for the movie Matewan (1987) which is a favorite of mine. When I parked at the Amtrak station in Thurmond a guy standing next to his pickup truck in the parking lot said "What kind of bike is that? I've never seen anything like that." It's a fun change from "I used to have a motorcycle. People don't pay attention on the road these days though!" yada yada.














The chin mount for my action camera has unfortunately given up again. Usually it is heat that causes the 3M tape to sag, but this time I think it was just interstate speed and wind.




It rained on and off and while planning a next stop to warm up I realized I'd better find a Tudor's Intergalactic Biscuit World before I leave West Virginia and there aren't any more of them. I found myself at the last Biscuit World in the state heading east, in Lewisburg, West Virginia, and when I approached the counter I heard the staff tell the lady in front of me in line that they were all out of biscuits. Jesus wept. John 11:35








Beautiful mural at the Waynesboro YMCA. There is a campground between the YMCA and the river that I stayed at several years ago while backpacking on the Appalachian Trail. At the time anyone could camp for free after checking in at the YMCA, but the signs indicated it was now for AT hikers only.




I got a motel in town and walked to dinner.

[Dr. Enzo Toma]

2025.09.01
Waynesboro, Virginia to Nags Head, North Carolina

After breakfast I walked to an Ace hardware next to the hotel and picked up some replacement double sided tape for my chin mount action camera. It's failed a few times on me now, so I'm not holding my breath for it to hold up this time.




For a future trip I would like to ride the 105 miles of The Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park. This trip I just got a taste of the southern end of the park, riding in far enough to get to a nice overlook to get off the bike and take in the sights and sounds, and then head on out again.








While I was on I-64 leaves rained down on me as wind gusts knocked them from the trees. For lunch I stopped in Colonial Williamsburg and had a sandwich at a cafe there. It was my first time visiting there and I was in awe of how large the living history museum is. I was expecting it to be a few blocks like a typical historic district, not 301 acres. There were horses to pet and I stumbled into a carpentry shop where a gentleman was working on wagon wheels and barrels for customers all up the east coast. Most of the walking surfaces were gravel or brick, but some of the old cobblestone was especially slick even on a dry day.





On the way to the outer banks I saw signs for a tunnel and had the stomach dropping realization that there were no mountains to go through... I took the Monitor Merrimac Memorial Bridge Tunnel under the James River. I have no problem with Lower Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago, but there's something off to me about riding a motorcycle through a tunnel over 100 ft under water. Riding through the outer banks was beautiful though. I enjoyed riding down the road with ocean water on one side, fields of corn or even sheep on the other. I beat my folks to the hotel and then once they arrived we walked along the beach and grabbed dinner. It was exciting to have made it to the Atlantic Ocean. Now just need to ride across the continent and part way back again.