October 2025 Central Virginia Moto Guzzi Lunch Report

[Michael S. Jones]

Greetings, Moto Guzzi friends. Today God blessed us with the very best riding weather: cool but not cold in the morning, warm but not hot in the afternoon, with a beautiful blue sky and autumn colors beginning to show on the trees. On the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains there was plenty of autumn color to enjoy. I met Nate at the BP north of Amherst and we rode route 151 to 664 across the mountains and down to Stuarts Draft, arriving quite early but finding two other Guzzis already in the parking lot. Eventually we were joined by two more and one minivan. The weather was so nice that we spent almost half an hour in the parking lot talking.

Eight of us made it to today’s lunch: Nate Jones on his aged but trusty 250 Ninja (his Breva has some kind of problem that he hasn’t figured out yet), me on my even older but also trusty Convert, Al Chappell on his V7iii Stone, Bill Hagan on his V85tt Guardia d’Onore, Larry Echols on his V100 Mandello S, Alec Selz and his daughter Emma on their bright red Norge, and Dave Phillips in the work van. That’s five Guzzis: one Tonti, two small blocks, one CARC, and one compact block. No loops and no spine frames, but great variety nonetheless.

There was lots of talking about all kinds of things at the table. I think there was perhaps a little less motorcycle talk than usual and more talk about other things. If you include the 25 minutes or so talking in the parking lot, we were jabbering for more than two hours. Everyone seemed to enjoy conversation today.

Everyone enjoyed the food, too. I specifically asked, and all the feedback was positive. My eggplant parmigiana sub was part of a “lunch special” that included fries and a beverage for $10 and change. That’s not bad. The sub itself was pretty much perfect. Actually, it reminded me a lot of last month’s sub in Rocky Mount except that the eggplant was sliced thicker. You may remember that my main complaint last month was that there wasn’t enough eggplant. I wonder if Sanzone is reading these emails…?

I had noticed upon entering the restaurant that the daily specials included pumpkin spice cheesecake. I almost never order dessert, but that sounded interesting. When I finished my meal, I didn’t intend to order dessert, but…. When the waitress asked if anyone wanted desert, almost everyone indicated that they didn’t, but Dave Phillips surprised us by asking the waitress if they have cheesecake. When she said yes, he said he’d like a piece. That was all it took: I piped up and told her I’d like to try a slice of the pumpkin cheesecake, and the floodgates were opened. I think at least four of us tried the pumpkin cheesecake, and someone ordered some other desert option, too. The cheesecake was quite good – perhaps not excellent, but it was a nice little splurge.

I wanted to take a different route home, heading south on route 11 to Buena Vista and then taking 60 (a really great motorcycle road) across the mountains. Nate and Dave figured out a route that enabled us to do that without getting in route 81 at all. Nate, Al, and I rode it together, and it was a great ride. I got home almost exactly six hours after my morning departure. That’s a pretty long lunch break!

I’m already looking forward to next month’s lunch. When I retire, I may increase the frequency of these lunches to two a month. ;-)

Wishing you a wonderful autumn,

Mike


M. Jones, executive editor, Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies (www.jsri.ro)
"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