July '22 Va Guzzi Riders Lunch Report

[Ron]

 Guzzisti,
I was up & ready to roll in plenty of time Saturday morning. I decided to go a different route, up 151  to 56 then up the mountain passing Crabtree Falls & Montebello then on down the Western side to Vesuvius & Steels Tavern. I'd been of those roads often enough that I didn't even bother to look at the map. Welp...when I got to Steels Tavern I actually started out correctly,  turning North on Rt11, but then I realized I wasn't recognizing anything, and the signs were all for Stanton & Waynesboro, none for Stuarts Draft. Naturally (for me) I started doubting myself & turned around. After a couple more false starts & a visit to Raphine I humbled myself to ask directions. Riding up Rt 11 approaching the turn to 340 & Stuarts Draft, I dawned on me that the reason nothing looked familiar earlier was that every time I'd ridden that stretch of road before, I was coming FROM Stuarts Draft, in the opposite lane....DUH! Lesson, 76 year old memory banks are loosing details....put the magnetic tank bag on the bike w/a MAP in the plastic window on top.
So, I arrived at Sanzones at 12:35, parked in the line of bikes already there & headed right inside. We already had more than the 8 I'd reserved for so we moved another table over. After getting seated I started asking some of the guys for name reminders, faces familiar, but synapses just weren't firing rapidly (stress arriving late, heat etc. etc.).
I was sitting next to Stuart Ostroff (beautiful V85 GT), he asked the waiter if they had pizza by the slice. He was told that Sanzone's no longer has pizza...SAY WHAT??? an Italian restaurant w/out pizza?  I checked the new menu & saw no pizza , or anything related (Calzone, Stromboli etc.) Bummer, but, there was plenty of other good eats to choose from & the prices were surprisingly low . I had a Buffalo chicken panini sandwich made w/large slices of bread w/a nice tossed salad & a drink that came to a little over $12.00! Anyone eating in a restaurant recently knows the  inflation visible in the grocery store has definitely affected prices up & down the line.  Thinking about it on the ride home, I'll bet one of those big pizza ovens REALLY spins the gas meter, having to fire it up in the morning & run all day for a limited number of orders. I can see where not using it would make economic sense.
Last to arrive was Rob Prins, on an Ambassador w/Jackson riding pillion. We were able to shift around & add a chair so all 12 were seated at our extended table. We were: David Phillips, SP; Allyn Chappell, V7III; Joey Klingman, BMW GS650;  Mike Jones, Convert; Ron Fox, Harley Road King; MattGrannell, FGR 1300; Bill Hagan, Stornello; McKinley Gowan, Honda 450. With my V7III that made 7 Guzzis out of the 11 bikes.
Lannis Selz headed out to the lunch on his classic Norton, but it died on him in Roseland  Other guys heading to the lunch stopped to see if anything could be fixed quickly-no joy. I emailed him when I got home so see if all was well, he responded;
 

Thanks for checking in on me!   

Yes, the Norton was on a "shakedown run" after its top-end job, and it shook down sure enough.   Cruising along through Roseland, the bike suddenly cut off like I'd cut a switch off.   It has a new ignition switch and all the connectors were tight.  Could be that the kill switch is dodgy ... the battery negative (hot on this bike) connector was just a LITTLE loose, a quarter turn of the terminal screw tightened it up.   I hit the starter and it started, but was running rough on the right side.   In a few minutes it was running VERY rough on the right side.  

A fellow motorcyclist who saw us on the side of the road stopped, about the time I realized that I wasn't going to Stuarts Draft today, and offered for me to hang out at his place a mile or two down the road while I waited for a tow.   So the Guzzi guys, seeing I was in good hands, headed for lunch, and I followed Greg Hill on one cylinder to his house and shop.   I called Fay and asked her to hook up the trailer and come on; meanwhile, Greg and Claudette and their daughter home from college Cleo, and their dogs Pippin and Stella, sat with me on the front porch, fed me lunch, we swapped ride stories (Greg and Claudette both ride Honda NC-700s, and their daughter is learning to ride on a 250 Honda).

Fay showed up in record time (she's good at hooking up trailers), we took a "Hall of Shame" picture with the Norton on the trailer, I bought Fay an ice cream on the way home by way of appreciation, and we were home by 3:00 or so.

The Norton is going to the back of the queue, I can't keep working on it to the detriment of other bikes.   I'll check compression first to make sure that my home-made ring-and-valve-job hasn't goofed, and then see if a metering needle fell off the slide on the right side.

So overall, not a bad day even though it didn't go as planned .....

Lannis

 I had a great ride home...until my tail trunk abandoned ship on the parkway. My own fault, when I was swapping the trunk between my MP-3 and my EV I got out of the habit of locking the mounting bracket to the luggage rack. It came off , hitting the road popping open & scattering my  "stuff" bouncing down the road right at one of the overlooks. I got the bike turned around, into the overlook, on the side stand & was moving as fast as I could toward the roadway, hoping no one would drive over the mess & make it worse.  A car stopped & three young folks jumped out & ran up the road. By the time I'd struggled up the bank from the overlook to the road they had the trunk & its contents gathered on the roadside. I thanked them profusely & they headed on their way. I was still catching my breath when another car stopped, the driver. seeing the black trunk at my feet said "I thought you'd hit a bear cub"  I was able to mount the trunk back on the bike (locking the latch) & then found I had no bungees with me for back up. Another reminder lesson! Fortunately one of the two  latches was still on the trunk lid, & with a little persuasion from my Swiss Army Knife I got it to close & hold the top on for the ride home.

So, an "interesting" lunch this month...Oh,  Mike Jones said that Sanzonne's eggplant parmigiano sub was as good as he expected. Other comments around the table were positive, especially about the prices.
See ya next month,
Ron