Guzzi 1100 custom build

I have never seen it a wrecking a bike…  The thing is every custom build I have ever done has been based on a bike that has come to the end of its economic life...  Take this Guzzi… multiple electrical issues, needs new loom, needed a new ECU, scruffy…   Many of these old ECU’s are failing now, and second hand stuff is old and expensive, and prone to failure…  So what do you do with the bike?  It’s not worth restoring as they are not worth much money, and the effort is not worth it.

The Multistrada bikes are even worse, the ECU’s fail, the LCD clocks fail, and the big one, the tank/seat unit swell with the ethanol in the fuel.  The last Multi I bought, I had to cut the frame to get the tank off it had swelled that badly.

So I see myself as a saviour, rather than a wrecker.  All too often these bikes languish at the back of someone’s shed, with the notion that “I will restore it one day” but all too often they just sit there.  The parts I don’t use go to keeping someone else’s pride and joy on the road

So I tend to build bikes for me...  I build what I like, how I want it to look, and if people don't like it, that's fine, as we all have opinions.

I have restored bikes, but only when it’s been economically viable to do so. My recent Ducati Monster and Laverda Jota were kept more or less standard, but they are iconic and valuable bikes.

I don’t have the rosy idealism that bikes need to be kept standard though.  I have a mate that has a shed full of bikes, some of them have sat in there for 40 years, and every time we talk about if, he says he is going to restore them… one day...  The fact is In the 50 years I have known him; he has NEVER restored a bike… he has a couple I would love to restore, one of them a MK1 Le Mans  its such a sham...

We call him the “rivet counter” he takes delight in going to shows and pointing out to owners the errors in their restorations.  You have probably met the type…  "that transfer was 1 inch lower on that model year"