A Breva for my "bro" in the big O!

One of my Guzzi riding brethren in Nebraska appears to be on his way to Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 ownership! Congratulations homeslice! Check out the pics of this black beauty!

P.S. the votes are in and the mighty Breva has won as expected! I shall be taking the Italian steed to Carl and Teener's wedding in lieu of the Subaru.

Lunch with Guzzista

Today I met up with fellow Guzzi owners and exremely nice folks Jim and Lesley for lunch in Deland. They are truckers who live in Daytona sometimes and in Australia sometimes (Lesley is an Aussie).

We met at a place called Brian's BBQ. Very tasty grub!

Jim and Lesley have 7 Moto Guzzis. I cannot remember them all but they have agreat selection dating back to an old Ambassador and up to a 1999 Pearl White Bassa. Can't wait to see the collection!

We are gonna try to have a little central Florida Guzzi gathering in early November when Jim and Lesley get back from some time on the road. Should be a great time!

Blissful slumber on the horizon.....

My new mattress set from Fox Mattress Co. arrived today! Made in Florida and made with the Florida climate in mind.

I had to leave work for a bit this a.m. to take delivery at home. After work I put the bed together. Here are a few pics of the bed-assembly process.... zzzzzzzzz :=)

More Guzzi Breva stuff....

People are prolly getting bored with all these postings about my Guzzi. Today I took a little (110 mile) ride with some friends out to the german bakery in Yalaha. I found out during this ride that the servicing I performed yesterday on the Breva did not make it run to my satisfaction.

Today I wound up completely re-doing the throttle balancing procedure performed by the Guzzi dealer I had taken the bike to a few weeks ago. I followed the exact procedure documented in the Breva service manual to the letter. I used my Twinmax tool to assist in the throttle balancing process as well as my Technoresearch software.

I am happy to say the bike is now idling properly, throttle response is great and the deceleration popping I was experiencing has disappeared :=)

Rearranging for guests

This morning I spent some time rearranging a couple rooms to better serve friends/family when they come to visit. I moved the full-sized bed out of my dedicated guest room into my computer room/office. The office was messy so I cleaned it up somewhat and it will now make for a nice 2nd guest room.

Having moved the bed out of the guest room, I next moved the queen sized bed from my master bedroom into the guest room #1. This will make the guest room accomodations rather nice, as this room also has a tv and two windows with a nice view of the lake across the street.

My master bedroom now awaits the new bed arriving Tuesday.....

My brother Luke and my friend Mike from Papillion, Nebraska as well as my friend Paul from North Canton, Ohio, are coming to visit in a couple weeks. Since the rule of the house is guests get to choose their accommodations when they arrive, I am guessing Luke and Mike are gonna be choosing the guest rooms, since they arrive a day ahead of Paul.

So Paul, I guess that leaves you with the other bed....or couch. Hope you enjoy it my friend :=)

Getting high-tech with the Guzzi

At some point during my trip back to Omaha a few weeks ago, My Guzzi Breva started to run not quite as smoothly as usual. The low speed throttle transitions were choppier than usual, resulting in a herky jerky low speed condition. On the way back from Omaha I stopped off at a Guzzi dealer to have them give the bike a once-over. It really did not help with the low speed jerkiness and the idle speed actually increased quite a bit, about 300-400 rpm above factory specification.

After having read a lot on the web about the sophistication of the new fuel injection systems in these newer bikes, I decided to purchase a piece of software and a cable called Technoresearch. This software and the specialized cable allows one to hook directly to the ECU (computer) which controls many things on the bike. The Technoresearch software and cable arrived in a keen looking black case. Neat! I opened it to find a cd rom and the rather elaborate looking cable.

So I was pretty darned excited to try to hook it up and see what was going on with my bike this morning. Once I got the bike's computer talking to my laptop, I could run all sorts of diagnostic tests on various parts of the bike, like the fuel injectors, gauges, fuel pump, etc. It also allows me to check to make sure certain values are set to factory specification. Well, one value was outside of factory spec by a fairly significant margin. This value is called the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) voltage.

Now for a little lesson courtesy of Wikipedia.com:

A TPS is a sensor used to monitor the position of the throttle in an engine. The sensor signal is used by the ECU as an input to its control system. The ignition timing and fuel injection timing (and potentially other parameters) are altered depending upon the position of the throttle, and also depending on the rate of change of that position.

So, essentially, the TPS is pretty crucial to the proper running of a modern, fuel injected motor. Well, my TPS value was, as indicated earlier, out of spec. The new software allowed me to reset the TPS value back to factory spec with the click of a button! You can see from the screenshots how I hooked the cable to the bike and before and after screenshots showing the TPS value being changed from 3.70 to 4.60.....sweet!

The result? The low speed herky jerky behavior has nearly disappeared! So I am a happy camper right now! :=)

Miscellaneous ramblings....

I came home yesterday to find that I had no running water in the house. So I checked with my neighbor and she had running water. Hmmmm. So I looked for my city of Deland water bill and sure enough, I forgot to pay it. I must have overlooked it with my recent vacation and work travel.

So I made a payment on the web to get current, hoping the water would magically turn itself on. No luck :=( So, after assisting my friend Carl with some minor woodworking (in preparation for his upcoming nuptials to the lovely Teener), he and I searched the property for the warter shut-off valve...which he found...which he turned back on...voila...INSTANT WATER! So I am all paid up now and back in business :)

Here is Carl and Teener's wedding website. Leave them a message if you feel like it. They are having the wedding here....but I started looking for a room too late so I am staying at this lovely little spot.

I got a new cubicle here at work. One of the cherished window cubicles. Oh how I love it so! Here are a few tremendously crappy pics using my cell phone camera.

I bought a new mattress set the other day. The one I had (queen) was nice enough but just too gd soft for my liking. So that mattress set will go to guest room #1. The bed in guest room 1 will move to guest room 2(aka computer room) and my new mattress from Fox Mattress Factory will take its place in the master bedroom. I got what is called a Fox-O-Pedic, which is a firm mattress, but with a pillow top as well. Staying on the road at Marriott hotels and sleeping on these pillow top mattresses had me wanting one.

Home from Alabama

I arrived home from Alabama Friday late morning only to find my a/c was kaput. That was no fun. So I spent a fairly sweltering night at home last night. I got my inflatable guest bed out of the closet and tried to sleep in the living room under the ceiling fan...but the airbed was kinda wobbly. So I moved to the couch and that was better...still hot but at least it did not move when I laid on it!

I checked everything I could re:the a/c but it still was not working. Had an a/c guy come out and it turned out to be the thermostat unit had been fried by a lightning storm we had here while I was in Bama. Now the house is cool as a cucumber once again!! Yahoo!!

I worked on the bike for a couple hours today. It has been running a little strangely since I returned from the Omaha trip. I also mowed and put down some fertilizer/weedkiller. Man oh man the excitement just never ends at Casa Galardi.

Now I sit here Saturday night watching the Cornhuskers give Southern Cal a pretty good game (so far). Tomorrow I might go on a charity motorcycle ride for the families involved in the horrific plane crash that happened in Sanford, FL a little while back (a small plane crashed into a house).

UPDATE....Today (Sunday) I spent a goodly amount of time cleaning/re-arranging my garage. Whilst there I just had to take a few pics of my Moto Guzzi Breva 1100....
(click pics to make larger)

Heading home from B-ham

I spent most of this week in Alabama...Alexander City to be more exact. This town is located about 70 miles south/southeast of Birmingham, Alabama. Nice enough town. Fairly scenic drive down hwy 280 from B-Ham. My rental car was a pretty cool Chevrolet HHR. I liked it.

I was working at a client called Aliant Bank. They are going live with our Desktop Sales and Desktop Teller software. This is software used by bank customer service reps, personal bankers and tellers.

This was my second trip to a client site...my first solo trip. Lots of challenging moments, lots of phone calls back to my co-workers in Lake Mary, Fl to solicit advice and counsel :=) But overall it seemed to go okay.

Now I sit here in the Birmingham airport typing this blog entry and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, going for a long walk tomorrow and watching some college football. Go Big Red?

She's a baby biker...honestly!!

Amy and Bruce Krause's daughter Honest Leigh posed for some snapshots wearing her new duds and do-wrap on neighbor Carlo's Moto Guzzi Bassa!

Camera mount

Before I left on my trip I installed a camera mount on the Breva. My hope was to take some pics of scenery while riding along. Well, I got some pics, but due to my really crappy, cheap digital camera, the vagaries of road irregularities and motorcycle vibrations, they are pretty pathetic pics.

But, keeping with my trend of putting any kind of crap on this blog, I now present to you my crappy camera mount pics...TADA!!!!

p.s. That motorcyclist in one of the pics is none other than Mike Caniglia on the Blue Goose!

Home at last....

I made it home to Deland, FL today. The total trip mileage was 3340 miles. My Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 performed flawlessly, racking up the miles with aplomb. Fuel mileage ranged from a low tank of 40 mpg average to a high tank of 50 mpg average. Most tanks ranged in between, from 42 - 48 mpg. Very pleased with those numbers!!

Before I left I had a good dinner at Doc and Eddie's BBQ in west Omaha with my pals Mike and Mark....delicious!

I took 3 days for the return trip instead of two. I left on Thursday to start heading back. I stopped Thursday morning at Jackson Cycles in St Joseph, MO Thursday a.m. to have Guzzi expert Ace Mallott give check a couple scheduled maintenance items on the Breva and check it to make sure it was in a good state of tune.

I forged ahead to Cape Girardeau, MO and stayed there at a very nice Holiday Inn Express Thursday night. Friday I stopped for breakfast at Waffle House....man they make some good waffles! I then motored on to Birmingham and rode around looking for Barber Motorsports park...to no avail. I could not find it and just gave up and kept going until I reached Alexander City, Alabama. There I stayed at yet another Holiday Inn Express (not so nice as the first one but OKAY).

This morning I finished off the trip after riding for about 8 hours. I got rained on every day to some degree....some days light rain, others heavy rains, lightning and wind. The Breva was quite filthy so I gave her a good warshing today.

All in all a great trip...seeing my family and friends was great. Seeing more of this beautiful country by motorbike was awesome....there's no better way to travel in my opinion. So many sounds and smells and sights are noticed on a motorcycle that are missed while in the relatively sterile and isolated environs of a car or airplane. Thanks for showing me around my Breva...until the next trip!!!