I spent some time on the phone with Jim Barron at Rose Farm Classics yesterday. I’m thinking about buying a bike from him right now (unless the right V7 Sport falls into my lap, which just doesn’t happen), and the subject turned around to the V7 Classic. I’ve yet to plant my butt on one and ride it, but I know that will be happening in the future.
As we talked about the V7, we also talked about how much we liked Maxi Scooters. The thing is, in Chicago, there are pot hole that will swallow you up. I barely missed one last Saturday on Wacker that was more than 2 feet wide and at least as deep. Had I hit that on the Eldorado I was riding, let alone a scooter, I do believe that would have made a spectacular mess. Maxi-Scoots also aren’t getting any lighter, either. Still love the scoots, and I’ve even looked at a couple recently for my jaunts around Oak Park.
So the question came up. Maxi-Scoot or V7 Classic? The Maxi-Scoot gives a lot of storage and weather protection, park-ability and style. They are reliable, get great mileage and allow you to zoom just about anywhere you want, including freeways, with ease. How does it compare with the lightweight Guzzi?
The V7 has style all over it, since Guzzi basically pulled every classic goodie out of their refrigerator and made a perfect Dagwood Sandwich of style with this bike. Even the white color just fits it. This bike is all style and all bike, without having a sinister bone in it’s body.
Is it reliable? Reliability is a Guzzi hallmark. I think there were a few years, pre-Piaggio, that might have been troubling, but I also believe that time is long past. Even the latest recall on the Stelvio/Grisos was more for caution and getting things absolutely right for the customer, instead of fixing a potential disaster in the field. A couple of the new V7 owners on the mailing lists that I subscribe to have had some niggling issues, but this bike is built on a well-evolved, solid platform.
I keep hearing that the V7 is “under-powered”. My Eldorado has about the same amount with at least an extra hundred pounds to haul around. I’m just buying that argument unless you’re comparing it to a 750cc hot-rod bike. This bike doesn’t fill that role. This bike is about enough of everything — a typical Guzzi with nothing to prove to anyone — the right-minded owner will bond with this bike completely. It’s a great first bike, a great retro-bike, and I predict that it’s a great “Eastern City” bike, where there’s lots of stop-and-go, potholes, and openings that must be quickly exploited.
I have no dog in the hunt. I haven’t ridden the V7 Classic yet. I’ve been on a bunch of scooters, thanks to Piaggio, and I believe them to be superior products that are a blast to ride. I think for me the V7 Classic would edge out the Maxi Scoot on three things:
- I ride mostly with motorcyclists at the moment since I haven’t had a scoot in Chicago.
- I take a lot of rides out in the wilderness.
- I ride at night, and the potholes in this city come out of nowhere in the pitch.
- Jim thinks the Guzzi is lighter than the biggest Maxis
- Jim sells only Guzzi, and I’m pretty much of a completely biased homer in that department.
- I would love a scooter, seriously love one, but I don’t have enough Motorcycles yet for the amount of money that I currently have to spend. The sad fact is that if I had a scooter, I would probably ride it more than the bikes. I’m just not ready to be so damned pragmatic in my life.
While I’m waiting for my V7 to test and ride around, I’ve been reading the reviews, and in doing so, I’ve decided to give out the links that I’ve found and share them. Please feel free to comment with your experiences on the V7, good or bad, if you have one and if you find more reviews feel free to add them to your comments:
- motorcycle.com 7/1/2008
- Motorcycle Classics Sept/Oct 2008
- TopSpeed.com 5/2/2008
- London Telegraph 7/11/2008
- Motorcycle news (UK) 2/2009
- MSN cars (UK) 10/17/2008
- VisorDown.com 12/19/2008
- BikePoint.com (Aus) 4/2009
- PowersportsNetwork.com 2008
- WebBikeWorld 2008
- CycleWorld 5/2009
- Autoblog.com 9/30/09
- Squadra Guzzista
- Wall Street Journal compares Harley Sportster, Triumph Bonneville and V7 Classic — Guess who wins?
(There’s a lot of UK in here, simply because the bike was available for almost a year in Europe before they were brought into the US).
Danilo,
Enjoy your site and have thoroughly enjoyed your writing on Moto Guzzis. Must admit that navigating your site has been a bit of a challenge. Still, looking forward to reading more of your posts about Guzzis.
Semper Fi
Let me know what you’d like to see as far as navigation and I’ll see what I can do about it. I’m not thrilled to death with it yet myself!
So Danilio, what’s it going to be? You wrote of your quest in May. I know you lost your prized 1200 Sport to a knob-job cage driver. So what are your plans friend?
Put a deposit on a V7 Classic on Saturday. I’m going to blog the whole story soon.
The short version is —
I bought the 1200 with the expectation of making a few long tours over the next few years, and bopping around the city to and from work. The 1200 is not a bopping around bike with the challenged drivers that exist in Chicago. The roads are full of ruts and people pull out in front of me all day long. It’s too much bike for the city.
“It’s more fun to ride a slower bike fast than a fast bike slow”.
Took that as my mantra. My job is really fun but I’m not really going to be able to do more than about a 500 mi radius trip a few times a year, so 99% of my riding will be in an 80 mile radius of my house. I dig standard bikes a lot. With some re-evaluation, the V7 was a no-brainer.
More once it’s all over.
I have been a proud owner of a Moto Guzzi V7 Classic for just on 3 weeks and have done about 400km in total, mostly around Sydney and one 200km day trip to an Air Show at Albion Park.
I haven’t ridden for just over 20 years. The last bike I owned was a new Kawasaki GPZ550 back in the early 80’s. So I can only compare the V7 to what I remember of the Kawasaki. These are my thoughts thus far:
The Guzzi loves to pull at low revs, taking off from a standing start is a delight, no buzzing through gears and sits happy in 3rd gear most of the time around town.
As for power, it has more power than my first car. For what I want it has more than enough power (my hooning days are long gone), it will pull nicely from 110km to pass no problem.
At 120km on the highway the handling and feel is rock steady, it certainly inspires confidence.
Most of the 400kms I’ve done, I’ve done 2 up, and the V7 doesn’t seem to have a really noticable loss of power/pull as was obvious on the 4 cylinder Kawasaki. I was a bit concerned how the V7 would perform 2 up and I’m pleasantly surprised, around town it’s fine and that’s all I want, I never indended to go long distances 2 up.
The quality of build and finish is excellent, although I’m no expert. Compared to it’s competitor the Bonneville (which I also like) the V7 has thicker forks, better running gear and generally appears to be a bit more understated and classier than the Bonny.
The V7 is an absolute joy to look at, and lets face it you have to like how the bike looks. I’ve already had numerous positive comments at traffic lights etc.
The V7s exhaust note while riding is brilliant, as one reviewer said “intoxicating”, even with a full face helmet on.
At some stage I will definitely get Staintune exhausts for it, have a look on youtube, there is a couple of great videos of the V7 with Staintunes fitted.
I was surprised at the amount of engine brake the V7 has, which I’m still getting use to, especially around corners in town.
That’s about all for the moment.
One issue I forgot to mention:
I’m finding the V7 a little difficult to start cold. I understand I’m not alone by the sounds of it, one guy said not to use the choke/fast idle, but give the throttle just the slightest tweek (which is a no no with FI bikes) grateful for any advice.
Hi Graeme/Danilo, As a bike reviewer with a V7 Cafe Classic on long-term loan, I’ve found a cold-morning start routine that works for me. Choke full, and crank the starter until BOTH cylinders fire (do not touch the throttle at anytime). I then leave it to idle on full choke and warm up. Works every time here in New Zealand. Excellent site, Danilo – love the mellow tone in your writing.
Thanks for the compliments! I envy the rides you must take around the Island there! My cold start routine is to “full choke” it (it’s really only a throttle advance and doesn’t affect the mixture whatsoever), and fire it up. I have the latest injection mappings installed in mine, which makes a significant difference. It fires every time, and has actually gotten better over the last 9500 miles.
I’m off on a 1500 mile weekend after work today. I hope to write a blog post about it, as I’m riding through the Upper Peninsula and then down to the quite famous Wisconsin Moto Guzzi rally.
As always, I’ll look forward to your next post. Meanwhile, I’ve decided I can’t give the V7 Cafe Classic loanbike back. It’s a keeper along with the Multistrada 1000DS Ducati and Vespa 300GTS already in the garage. That’s quite a Latin bike trifecta… the V7 representing something of a connecting link between the other two. Given the high cost of motorcycle registration here, I did have an inner debate about which bike the V7 should replace. However it is not quite the horizon-hungry sports-tourer that the Ducati is, nor the duty-free liquor carrying, parking-free ride to and from the airport that the Vespa is. So the obvious solution was to keep all three. Colour me (and the tax-grabbing NZ government) lucky.
I too have had cold start problems.I am using the same way as Paul says and it starts O.K. but not brilliant. Would Iridium plugs help. Have only done 2000
miles. Consensus is they get better with more miles(Ks) on the clock ..Heres hoping.