LAST FRIDAY’S CLOSE CALL

Treatise on the potential hazards wrought by 

wearing riding gear to the lumber yard 

while driving a Subaru…

 

 

I was not on the Yamaha.  I was in the Subaru.  I’d just left the Home Depot in a town twenty miles distant and, given that I was in the area, decided to swing by the European motorcycle dealer who, among other things, marketed Moto Guzzi, to ask howcum he didn’t have any Guzzis on the floor.

The gent in sales was someone I’d run across before.  Not here, however.  Richard, his name is, owns a renowned motorcycle soft gear manufacturing company that happened to recently relocate to in my very (little) city.  A couple of months back, I was eye-balling a state-of-the-art BMW parked in front of his shop.  

 

“Wow!” I said, “That thing looks like it just came out of the showroom!  How many miles on it?”

         

His wife who’d come outside responded: “37.”

 

 

Fast forward to last Friday and Richard, who claims his wife actually runs the business – advertising, sales, manufacturing – Richard, when he bought the Beemer noticed that the staff at the Euro-shop was a bit thin.  

         

“Need help?” Richard had asked.

         

“Nope,” was the reply…

         

… until he returned to buy a smaller BMW for “the boss.”

         

Bottom line? For the past couple of weeks, he’s been part-time in sales at the bike shop.

         

“So,” I say, clad in sneakers and shorts and a t-shirt and with a 16’ Stanley Powerlock tape clipped to my belt, “are you all still carrying Guzzis?  I see other dealers in your group have ‘em but you don’t.”

         

“We carry ‘em when we can get ‘em,” Richard replied.  “We just can’t get ‘em what with the pandemic and all.”  Then he added, “We only have one right now.”

         

None were listed on the website, so I was a bit surprised.

Promotional Image from Las Vegas Euro-Sports

“It’s a V7 Classic.”

         

“2021?”  I’d been drooling over the 2021 online for quite some time.

         

“I think so.”

 

 

Moto Guzzi is the essence of motorcycling.  Lots of character.  Timeless design.  Italian mojo. Not a lot of power or grunt or speed, but as the motorcycling press says, “If you’re buying a Moto Guzzi, that’s not what you’re looking for.”

 

Promotional Image from Moto Guzzi

Guzzi is currently producing three or four models each with a few iterations of design, color, or bling.  Of all the Guzzi models, the V7 is the essence of Guzzi’s “essence of motorcycling.”  Simple.  Sound.  Beautiful.

Not me.  Yet.

I sat on this spanking new silver-gray V7 (it also comes in a drop-dead gorgeous blue) with its luxurious brown leather seat and chatted with Richard about the roads he’d ridden in his 74 years tooling around northern California and the west, and the same ones I’d ridden in my nearly 70 years.  I thought about doing ‘em all over again on this piece of rolling artistry.  The seat of the Italian beauty cradled my posterior, and I was flooded with memories of the time and the miles spent on my ’07 Guzzi Breva – a roadster I never shoulda let get away.  All the while I’m thinking, “This is why I don’t bring my riding gear to the Home Depot.” 

         

That said, had the “only one we have right now” been in that drop-dead gorgeous blue, I probably woulda had to figure something out.  And it’d probably be sitting in my garage right now.

         

Close call, indeed.

 

© 2021

Church of the Open Road Press