Moto Guzzi isn't Honda

[Rox]

Sorta like the joke about the Californians moving out of California to get away from all the BS, moving to Colorado, then immediately working to change Colorado "for the better".  Which is actually for the worse, just like the place they came from...

This thread is not about any other brand.  This thread is about Moto Guzzi being like Colorado.

Well I have California and Colorado parked in my garage and it's all fries and gravy  . There's a Yamaha too so I guess that can be Oregon...

   I just love motorcycles.. Why all the bitching? I don't want a pickle. Just to ride my motorcicle... 

[HardAspie]

Ya kno. . .

Back in '71 when I took up motorcycling Honda was very different from today's company wearing that name. Soichiro San was still alive and setting the tone for the company. Back then motorcycles were still generally close to their roots of being cheap practical transportation for those lacking the funds to buy a car. Honda was still a company levering its way into the US market. The CB 750 had not been out for long. I recall reading of Honda's "Horsepower Book", armed with which the engineers at the firm could calculate a cylinder's torque and horsepower curves from that cylinder's specifications. Multiply that cylinder as needed to attain desired power. I also recall reading that for the first win at Isle of Mann, the riders wanted an extra gear in the box as they practiced. Engineers at the TT called Japan, the team at the factory got to work, new cassettes were shipped and the bike raced with the new transmission. Honda was a company unlike any other company of any kind anywhere on Earth.

Everything has changed. Motorcycles are now covered under the word, "powersports" and aimed at people with cars and RVs and personal watercraft. . . Human inspiration in engineering has been replaced with computer based design and endless refinement. Amid data mining and CNC machining and powder metallurgy, and a hundred other things everything has changed. Honda no longer stands head and shoulders above other makers of motorcycles. Honda is no longer a company set apart from the establishment; they are the establishment.

I guess this must be okay. The most recent Honda I owned was not as inspired nor as thorough a piece of engineering as were my CB 100, CB 350G, and S2 CB 750F. I miss Honda.

[canuguzzi]

No doubt 30 years from now, people will say they missed the Honda of the early to mid 2000s. In all likelihood, there will be a Honda making motorcycles then.

If others besides HD will exist is more of a question than a certainly.

We tend to judge the present by the memories of the past, often forgetting that the past wasn't as great as we remember. Points and condensers might have provided some satisfaction of accomplishment when that Kawasaki triple ran just right, the wail of one screaming down the street made blood run hot. That same experienced seemed a long ways away when the thing would lope along on two cylinders firing and the dealer could even figure it out because it was designed in, fixed later by the factory.

All things change, embracing the present and looking forward to the future can reap as many rewards as any nostalgia we remember. Suspensions that were little more than springs and oil in a tube pale to what we have today. The buckboard ride is remembered fondly but few want to have it today except for the memory rides.

True, the past of motorcycling was great, anyone riding more than 30 years ago has memories of what they consider to be real motorcycles.

30 years ago there were those who said the same thing, that the BMW of the late 40s running on sihponed fuel from depots at the air fields was great. No helmet, gal on the back, yeah it was great and anything Honda had, including 6 cylinder bikes with pencil small pistons was worthless no matter how fast they were.

When Honda was making those bikes we now recall with breathless nostalgia we forget that in the then present who was there saying motorcycling had lost its way and that the new generation was clueless? History repeats itself.

Motorcycling is evolving rapidly, it needs to and every year something better than last year is made. We can refuse to see it or appreciate it but it matters not, change happens and we can experience it or deny it and long for what was.

We can stop ourselves from looking forward but can't stop it from coming. There are more people buying motorcycles now than long ago. As the analogy goes, 3 million coyotes can't be wrong. (or similar)

[HardAspie]

That is exactly correct. Nothing stays in place.

The one thing that can stay in place, and often does judging by the continual interest in classic vehicles and retro styling and antique stores is the subjective feeling one may have for stuff from an era.

I find that I have that subjective wanting for simpler times of simpler machines. I am hugely impressed by things such as Yamaha's R1, and its abilities just as I am impressed by Airbus aircraft. Still, there may be something to analog tuning of a radio - especially when cruising a band to see what is there. And there just might be something to a bike lacking rider aids.

i am glad that there is a choice.

[canuguzzi]

Outstanding    The appreciation of choice. They are all motorcycles, just different.

  :1: on dial analogue radios BTW.

[HardAspie]

Hot dang! Even analog radio appreciation. I knew I belonged here. I may never have the "Guzzi" part, but probably that "Wild" is open to me.

[pikipiki]

Damn,

This thread has made me really regret not taking that Honda Deauville for a test ride....


Now I'll never know what I'm not missing?

[cruzziguzzi]

Damn,

This thread has made me really regret not taking that Honda Deauville for a test ride....


Now I'll never know what I'm not missing?

A fella came by the shop one day and all but forced me to ride his Rune. I hoisted a leg to shut his pie-hole only - I thought he was anglin' for a deal on a rifle.

No, he was one of those "kool-aide drinkers", you know the type; try my MAC, ya gotta get a Keurig... George Foremans are the only way to get kielbasas right!...

OK, full disclosure, I'm 2/3 of those ^^^ goofs.

Anyhow, man alive was I surprised. Since then, no matter how ridiculous any given Honda offering looks, I give it the benefit of the doubt.

Todd.

[BRIO]

Or HD , or Toyota , or McDonalds , and thank goodness for that .

  Dusty

So you enjoy what you you perceive as an eccentric, inferior on paper but philosophically superior motorcycles and its community?

Good on you.

[Zoom Zoom]

It's all good as long as you have a wife permit.

ZZ

[Rox]

No, Guzzi isnt Honda and Honda isnt Guzzi.  Its why I own both..