August 1 Central Virginia Moto Guzzi Lunch Report
Michael S. Jones
Greetings, Moto Guzzi friends. Today was a cloudy day in Central Virginia, but the forecast wasn’t calling for any rain until late afternoon. My brother Bryan is visiting for a few days, so we were planning to use my ’69 Ambassador with sidecar to ride to the lunch – he enjoys riding in the sidecar. Unfortunately, it started to rain just as we were walking out the door, and within minutes it was raining hard. It was time to leave, so we couldn’t try to wait it out. Thus we ended up riding to the lunch in my old pickup truck.
Happily, it turned out to be a very local squall, and everyone else made it to the lunch on bikes. Larry Echols and John Howard arrived on V100 Mandellos, Mark Barthello and Mike Irace rode their V85tts, Al Chappell rode his Mille GT/Velorex sidecar rig, and Dave Phillips came on his KTM 390 Adventure, for a total of eight attendees at our first monthly “First Saturday Central Virginia Moto Guzzi Lunch.” Interestingly, all bikes were European again. (Although I once had a VW pickup, my current truck was made in Minnesota.)
Due to logistical issues, we ended up moving the lunch one block up the street to Lola’s Mexican Cuisine and Cantina, but the service and food were good, the prices were reasonable, and everyone seemed to have a great time eating and talking. I found the décor of the restaurant interesting and attractive. I don’t eat at Mexican restaurants very often, so the aesthetics were something new for me.
Afterward the conversations continued in the parking lot for a fair while. Bryan and I hung out until the last bike had left: we wanted to listen to the Italian music. The V85s and the Mandellos sound quite nice, but I think we were in agreement that Al’s Mille sounded the best. It sings a beautiful song. I noticed that the Mandellos have much less valvetrain noise than the other Guzzis. I imagine that’s a result of the high-cam design.
It’s only two weeks until the 3rd Saturday Moto Guzzi lunch. Please stay tuned for the information on that.
Wishing you a great August,
-Mike
"The heart has its reasons which reason does not know." -Blaise Pascal
"With man, instinct and reason avoid each other with adversity, yet, by repudiating each other they lure each other to reach mutual correction." -Lucian Blaga
"Human reason has this peculiar fate that in one species of its knowledge it is burdened by questions which, as prescribed by the very nature of reason itself, it is not able to ignore, but which, as transcending all its powers, it is also not able to answer." -Immanuel Kant
"For there are some who have such a presumptuous opinion of their own ability that they deem themselves able to measure the nature of everything…. So that the human mind therefore might be freed from such presumption and come to a humble inquiry after truth it was necessary that some things should be proposed to man by God that would completely surpass his intellect.” Thomas Aquinas