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Doug is a regular contributor on the Squadra Guzzista Forum and is the owner of some of the most classic models produced by Mandello...namely a Le Mans MkI and a V1000 G5...Doug tells the story...

I’m 51 and I live in South Shields in the North East of England. I’m married and have 2 kids, I work as a HGV Driver, nothing out of the ordinary, just your average bloke on the street. I’ve had bikes since I was 17 and apart from about 1981 until 1983 I’ve always had some form of 2-wheeled transport. My interest in Guzzis was sparked in about 1980 when my mate got himself a V1000 Convert, I had a couple of rides on it and really thought no more until about 1997 ish when I bought myself a MK1 Le-Mans.

Previous to the rides on my mates Connie I’d only seen a Guzzi up close when I was at the Isle of Man in 1975, I reckon it must have been an S3, it was parked next to a MV Agusta America, talk about exclusive !! Anyway, onwards to 1997.

I had a 900 Ducati Monster which I’d bought new in 1994, still have it in fact. I’d just sold a GPz 750 and was looking for an interesting second bike when I saw a 1977 Le-Mans in one of the classic bike mags, one phone call, a trip to Carlisle and £2,000 lighter in the pocket saw me riding back on my own Guzzi.

It wasn’t all good news though, after about 20 miles the bugger started banging like a bag of hammers, the noise coming from the gearbox everytime I tried to go higher than 2nd gear. So I nursed it home, got the manuals out and tore into the box. 2 new selector forks later I was back on the road. I ran it for about 6 months but could never get it to run just right so I stripped the motor and rebuilt it.

The usual stuff, new big ends, small ends, timing chain, valves, K-Lined guides, new Gilardoni barrels and pistons. Cost me about £700 altogether with most of the parts coming from Agostinis in Mandello. Later I added a sump extension and a Dyna Ignition and coils and also a set of 38mm Marzocchi forks. That’s the way it is now, I’ve had a few minor problems, but nothing to stop me using it almost everyday. In fact it’s my winter commuter, I ride the 13 miles to and from work all year round, I’ve put on a pair of Oxford hotgrips and some of those ugly handlebar muffs, they might look shite but they don’t half keep the cold out.

Now onto the G5. I’m a great believer in keeping myself occupied with something or other, some blokes go to the footie, some to the bookies, some piss all their money up against the wall or smoke like chimneys. I’d rather have something to show for the money that I earn so I thought that I’d try to find a Guzzi that I could rebuild from scratch.

Anyway what should come up on eBay but the very thing that I was looking for? It was a 1982 V1000 G5 which had obviously been an unfinished project. It had all the right bits to be a café racer. Tarozzi rear-sets, spoked wheels, that lovely aluminium tank, braided hoses, air forks, a Sprint café racer type fairing and two bloody great big boxes of bits and pieces. So I bid for it and won.

The guy only lived about 50 miles away so he brought it up in his van. It hadn’t run for a couple of years, the clutch was stuck and the tyres had fossilised. So up on the centre stand, into gear and one tug on the rear wheel later the clutch was unstuck. Anyway I stripped the whole thing down to the last nut and bolt, rebuilt the engine, only this time I didn’t have to get new barrels as it already had Nikasils. I also renewed all the bearings in the gear-box.

The full spec of the café racer is:-
Spoked wheels with Borrani rims, FAC air dampers in the front forks, fork gaiters. a Tarozzi fork brace, Le-Mans 1 clip-on handlebars, Brembo 4 piston calipers mounted on Guzzi-Tech adapters, Brembo master cylinder with remote reservoir, Le-Mans 1 instruments and Japanese switch-gear.

The aluminium tank is from "The Tank Shop" and it's got aluminium side panels and an aluminium solo seat.

The engine has been overhauled with new big-ends, new rings, valves and K-Lined guides. It has a new timing chain and automatic tensioner. The points ignition has been replaced with a Dyna electronic ignition running with standard coils. The carbs are 36mm Dellortos on Le-Mans intake manifolds with pod type air filters. The inlet tracts have been widened to accomodate the bigger manifolds. It's also got a sump extension.

The rear suspension is taken care of by Koni shock absorbers, tyres are Bridgestone BT 45s. and it's got stainless silencers from Armours of Bournemouth.

Now although my bikes are clean, I’m not too keen on polishing so I only use the café racer on dry, sunny days as there is just too much polishing to be done when it gets dirty. In fact I’m going to sell it soon as I don’t use it enough to justify keeping it.

Thing is though, it goes like the bleeding clappers, well, for a 25 year old bike it does, and it always brings a smile to my face when I give it some stick.

Now for the MK2. I bought this one out of boredom, I got it just for something to do. It’s a 1982 and it was advertised on the Real Classic website. The bloke selling it lived in Gateshead, about 10 miles away, so I nipped up in the car one Saturday afternoon last December. He’d spent a small fortune trying to get It to run right, he’d also recently sold a Triton and bought a new Triumph so he just wanted rid of the Guzzi.

Anyway we got it running, rough as a badgers wossname mind you, but it was all there. He wanted a grand for it so I agreed and picked it up the following week. I knew the engine was cattled but didn’t realize quite how badly. So it got a crank regrind, mains as well as big ends. Now the interesting part was that the heads and barrels had been skimmed to up the compression ratio, the heads had also been machined to take 47mm inlet and 40mm exhaust valves, they’d also been ported and flowed and the combustion chambers had been widened to 88mm.

Now that’s great news if you’re after building a big bore roundfin racer but no bloody good at all for a standard bore street bike. So I managed to get a decent set of Nikasil barrels and a pair of heads off fleabay.

The heads are supposedly off a T3 but they’ve had the inlet ports machined out to 36mm to take PHF carbs. I got some new valves and had the guides K-lined, bunged new rings in, gave it a new coat of paint, put it all together and off I went to get it tested.

On the way to the testing station I couldn’t help noticing how loud the gearbox was, so the following weekend I pulled the frame off to get at the box, I’d already seen the lightened clutch and flywheel of course but the straight cut box was a complete surprise. I shimmed it up, put everything back together again and now I’m learning to live with a noisy-ish gearbox.

The engine is still a bit tight, after all it’s had all the bearings and moving parts renewed, so I haven’t been flogging it, but it “feels” pretty good. As for living with Guzzis, well, I use mine frequently, probably 8 – 9,000 miles a year. Maintenance is a breeze, I can get parts from MotoMecca delivered next day, or even parts from Italy delivered same week. They’re reliable and economical, but most of all distinctive.

Handling really is good and performance is more than adequate, especially when you consider that my MK1 is 30 years old, I mean they’d never set your trousers alight but it’s more fun making a slow bike go fast through the twisties than making a fast bike go slow!

The gearboxes are a bit agricultural but I’ve got my Duke for when I’m feeling like making an arse of myself. Now it may seem like I have pots of money, owning 4 bikes, buying this and upgrading that, but I’m a wagon driver !!

I’ve managed to get many of the bits off eBay, with some fantastic bargains, I’ve also sold a lot of the stuff I don’t need, to finance the bits that I do.

It can be time taking waiting for the right thing at the right price but with a bit of luck it can be done. For example, I’ve just sold a pair of 40mm inlet manifolds that I didn’t need for £23, that money bought a pair of 36mm manifolds for £18. Seems like a good result to me. The one outstanding thing about Guzzi ownership is the amount of help and support through the various internet forums, I visit them all and can’t help noticing that no matter what your level of mechanical knowledge, if you have a genuine question, you’ll get genuine answers from people all over the world.

I’d recommend Guzzis to anyone, especially to someone wanting a winter project to turn say, a non-runner into something reliable and easy to maintain. As for the new one’s, I’d love a Norge but could never justify a big tourer so maybe I’d go for a Bellagio or Griso. Well, that’s about it, I could rattle on for days but I’m sure I’d be preaching to the converted. Regards Doug.

Thank you to Doug for taking the time to write about his fantastic bikes...if you would like your Guzzi celebrated in this way, contact us at joe@guzzista.com.

Further Reading

More featured bikes / Andre's awesome cafe racer / Lars' terrific 850T conversion / A visit to the Ace Cafe / An album of cafe racers