August 2025 Central Virginia Guzzi Lunch Report
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Michael S. Jones
Aug 16, 2025, 10:18:31 PMAug 16
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Greetings, Moto Guzzi friends. Today was a good day for riding: humid and warm, but not terribly hot and with partial cloud cover to help keep riders cool. Concordantly, nine Mandello warriors upon seven Mandello steeds (plus one each from Hinkley and Berlin) gathered at Nick’s Italian Kitchen in Buena Vista, Virginia. The riders were Rick Nathan on a brand new V100 Stelvio (the first one I’ve seen in real life), Lannis Selz on his “old-fashioned” air-cooled Stelvio NTX, Bruce Jensen on a V85tt, Al Chappell on his v7 Stone, John Howard on his V100 Mandello Aviazione Navale (which is no longer the newest Guzzi at the lunch – sorry, John!), Rick Scott on his v7-850 Special, Mark Barthello on an ’08 Triumph Bonneville, Lemuel Stephens on his BMW 310 GS (that’s a new model to me), and me on my old Moto Guzzi Convert. That’s a great line-up of European motorcycles, isn’t it?!
I have a few thoughts about these bikes.
1. It struck me that our lunches used to be populated by loopframes, Tonti-frames, and spine frames, but not anymore: there wasn’t a single loopframe or spine-frame present, and my Convert was the only Tonti-frame there. Mark’s Triumph was the only other carborated bike, and apparently his was one of the last carbed Bonnevilles made.
2. To me, Rick’s new Stelvio looked bigger in person than in the pictures that I’ve seen: it’s only a little more compact than Lannis’ air-cooled Stelvio.
3. I liked the tubeless spoked wheels that the Stelvio’s wearing: the spokes attach through flanges on the rims rather than through the rim itself, like the spokes on the early California EVs, so they don’t need to be sealed by little o-rings that sometimes fail.
It was great to have Lemuel, the West Virginia MGNOC rep, join us. It’s been a few years since he last came to one of our lunches, but we used to see him fairly often. Welcome back, Lemuel!
The service and the food at Nick’s was very good, and the prices were reasonable. That mirrors the notes that I have from the last time we ate there. Truth be told, a few of us that had hot subs thought that there was too little marinara sauce in them, but the toasted rolls and the rest of the contents were great. Other than the marinara situation, my eggplant parmigiana sub was great. I’d say that it was medium-sized, so I should have ordered a side of fries, but you never know until it’s too late. John gave me some of his fries, claiming that they were more than he could eat, and they were much better than fast food fries: they were clearly cut from real potatoes, with skins still on them in places, and with sufficient thickness. I don’t care for toothpick-sized fries. Looking around the table, portions seemed large and people seemed to gobble them down, so they must have been good.
Talk around the table was fairly loud and covered all kinds of topics. Quite a few of us, it turns out, have spent time in various parts of Europe, so the lunch was European-flavored in more ways than just the European bikes and Italian food. Once we went outside to kick tires and finishing talking, the rapidly warming temperatures encouraged us to get “into the wind,” so we didn’t talk long. However, one of the workers followed us out to the parking lot, where all of our bikes (but the Triumph) were lined up in a row. He took our picture to add to their collection of patron photos on the wall inside. Nice!
Next month the Central Virginia Guzzi Lunch will occur a week late in order to coincide with the annul Virginia Moto Guzzi Campout. So the date of the September Central Virginia Moto Guzzi Lunch will be Saturday, 9/27/2025, which is the 4th Saturday of the month rather than the third. I hope to hold it at Hema’s Italian Restaurant in Rocky Mount, VA, but I haven’t called to ask about reservations yet.
Wishing all of you a happy end to the summer and hoping to see you next month,
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
I have a few thoughts about these bikes.
1. It struck me that our lunches used to be populated by loopframes, Tonti-frames, and spine frames, but not anymore: there wasn’t a single loopframe or spine-frame present, and my Convert was the only Tonti-frame there. Mark’s Triumph was the only other carborated bike, and apparently his was one of the last carbed Bonnevilles made.
2. To me, Rick’s new Stelvio looked bigger in person than in the pictures that I’ve seen: it’s only a little more compact than Lannis’ air-cooled Stelvio.
3. I liked the tubeless spoked wheels that the Stelvio’s wearing: the spokes attach through flanges on the rims rather than through the rim itself, like the spokes on the early California EVs, so they don’t need to be sealed by little o-rings that sometimes fail.
It was great to have Lemuel, the West Virginia MGNOC rep, join us. It’s been a few years since he last came to one of our lunches, but we used to see him fairly often. Welcome back, Lemuel!
The service and the food at Nick’s was very good, and the prices were reasonable. That mirrors the notes that I have from the last time we ate there. Truth be told, a few of us that had hot subs thought that there was too little marinara sauce in them, but the toasted rolls and the rest of the contents were great. Other than the marinara situation, my eggplant parmigiana sub was great. I’d say that it was medium-sized, so I should have ordered a side of fries, but you never know until it’s too late. John gave me some of his fries, claiming that they were more than he could eat, and they were much better than fast food fries: they were clearly cut from real potatoes, with skins still on them in places, and with sufficient thickness. I don’t care for toothpick-sized fries. Looking around the table, portions seemed large and people seemed to gobble them down, so they must have been good.
Talk around the table was fairly loud and covered all kinds of topics. Quite a few of us, it turns out, have spent time in various parts of Europe, so the lunch was European-flavored in more ways than just the European bikes and Italian food. Once we went outside to kick tires and finishing talking, the rapidly warming temperatures encouraged us to get “into the wind,” so we didn’t talk long. However, one of the workers followed us out to the parking lot, where all of our bikes (but the Triumph) were lined up in a row. He took our picture to add to their collection of patron photos on the wall inside. Nice!
Next month the Central Virginia Guzzi Lunch will occur a week late in order to coincide with the annul Virginia Moto Guzzi Campout. So the date of the September Central Virginia Moto Guzzi Lunch will be Saturday, 9/27/2025, which is the 4th Saturday of the month rather than the third. I hope to hold it at Hema’s Italian Restaurant in Rocky Mount, VA, but I haven’t called to ask about reservations yet.
Wishing all of you a happy end to the summer and hoping to see you next month,
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
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