V7 versus BMW R nine T ? |
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Wildhenry
Senior Member Joined: 12 Apr 2016 Location: Brighton UK Status: Offline Points: 89 |
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Posted: 24 Aug 2017 at 19:44 |
Hi All,
Just come back from a great all day ride on my V7 Stone. On my way home coming the other way were no less than three BMW R Nine T Scramblers, two R Nine T original and one R Nine T Pure all separately and all in the course of about half an hour! Now I know the Beemer is much more powerful and really trendy BUT I reckon at less than half the price of a BMW (my V7 cost me £4k) is just as much fun and not every Tom Dick and Harry has one! Viva Guzzi! Wildhenry. |
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Bright moments
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cugsy
Senior Member Joined: 30 Nov 2016 Location: norfolk Status: Offline Points: 958 |
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Henry, I get the feeling that the proliferation of beemers is more to do with fashion that owt else. I used to have an F650 and it was crap. Crap and expensive. I had a K100 with a zillion miles on it and that was great fun. Cheap but willing and comfy. But the R850gs I have now reminds me of my old CX500 - and I had 3 when despatching. Crap bikes that do the job but are cheap. The 850 is an utterly boring bike. I told myself to keep it until next year (when the kitchen loan has paid off! and I get another Stelvio...possibly). I can't go too long without a bike..
The top knot wearing, tattooed and bearded tofu munchers in the big city who make a dog turd CB400 into an urban work of art are off their ##cking rockers. They seem to think it's art. But then you only have to look in the used bike sections and a lot of the things have no mileage and 5 owners in 3 years. The kind of biker they represent are thankfully a small per cent. The days of riding a bike 9/10 days of the year seem to be over. Now we get bikes that have that urban style and do only that - and at a price. Take the Ducati scrambler - how much? If I want a scrambler that will do a lot of other things then I'll buy an XTZ660. It's money mate. Money and peer pressure or a mates suggestion while down at the wine bar.. Bikes are in your blood and soul and not connected to your facebook page. I'm babbling.
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Due to italian electrickery I am saying nowt. Despite nearly giving the Vstrom away the honda has gone...
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Wildhenry
Senior Member Joined: 12 Apr 2016 Location: Brighton UK Status: Offline Points: 89 |
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Hey Cugsy.....Dig your ramblings!
For B road curves the V7 is my fave bike by far! Some past bikes include ...Triumph T509 Speed Triple,Yamaha V-Max,Triumph 1050 Speed Triple, Buell 1200s Lightning...'all hooligan.. all or nothing.. horns out' machines! But now I just love riding my V7 and enjoying the journey bumbling along at 60/70 mph. Deep joy! Wildhenry. |
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Bright moments
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V7Chris
Senior Member Joined: 13 May 2017 Location: Powys Status: Offline Points: 1882 |
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I agree. Every other bike on the road seems to be a GS. Still, like the concept of the R9T although I have never ridden one. And by the way, the CX500 was/is a great bike. Transverse Vtwin, shaft drive what is not to like! One of the japs with Some character. If the were crap, they wouldn't have sold so Many. Had mine 7 years.
Edited by V7Chris - 25 Aug 2017 at 07:06 |
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Adam
Senior Member Joined: 19 Jul 2017 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 127 |
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Well said Cugsy. We have different bikes for different reasons, the bottom of my list would be so that I could belong to the latest fad. The best bikes to get are the ones you fancy and to hell with the consequences
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Oldrat
Senior Member Joined: 31 May 2014 Location: Harrow Status: Offline Points: 1659 |
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I agree with whats been said about lifestyle, but however superficial motorcycle ownership may have become, let us not forget that in many ways motorcycling is on decline.
- Fewer youngsters are getting into biking nowadays. - The average age of riders seems to be getting older and older. - Bikes are no longer the cheap transport option. - The space race trend for ballistic speed means that many bikes are actually priced out of reach of most, either by purchase price or insurance costs. - The original shed built brat / bobber / cafer racer "lifestyle" movement has encouraged manufacturers, Yamaha, Triumph, BMW, Ducati and of course Moto Guzzi, to move away from tired (and in many cases) boring old models and diversify and create significant number of new models lines. - It has also spawned a whole bunch plethora of motorcycle TV programmes which was unthought of ten years ago. Long term I am not very optimistic about the future of motorcycling. As machines become more technical, complex and expensive, we'll never get back to the heady era of the 50s -80s. So however people are into biking, lets celebrate it. Unless of course they are a Harley rider... (insert tongue in cheek smiley!) |
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1976 "Zagato" Gootsi cafe racer
BMW GSA |
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BobV7
Senior Member Joined: 20 Nov 2014 Location: W. Sussex Status: Offline Points: 2740 |
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The whole concept of buying a motorcycle for practical reasons seems to have gone out of the window. When was the last time you saw an advert extolling the benefits of riding a bike to work? Every ad featuring a bike only seems to include one as exotic addition for the glamarous hero/heroine to arrive/depart on regardless of the product. The Italian market for scooters was created by the post war need for cheap transport, just as it was in Britain. Then the Fiat 500 was born. And then the Mini. The use of motorcycles has been changing ever since, and with increasing traffic and tighter speed controls at least in the south, places where you can enjoy riding have become fewer and fewer.
The trend for motorcyclists to gather at a few local car parks just to show off their bike or the latest "customising" features appears to be on the increase. Down here in the south it's places like Box Hill, Newlands Corner or here at Bury. None involve a particularly taxing ride as they are all on main roads, and the sole object of the exercise seems to be to wander round looking at each others bikes, have a cup of tea and then back home for lunch and the bike racing on the tele. None of this is riding for any other purpose than to burn up a bit more fossil fuel. Apart from the few die hards off to zip up and down an Alp or haul a long suffering wife off for a romantic night under canvas, for many this is all there is to owning a bike now. Perhaps having a long term project in the shed may now be the best was to enjoy motorcycles? It's OK, I'm quite thick skinned!
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V7 Classic Black and gold was the best. But green & black was nice too. Now blue is in!
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Brian UK
Moderator Group Joined: 13 May 2014 Location: Surrey Status: Offline Points: 17641 |
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I remember a new member on the other forum some years back, posting that he did about 100 miles a year as he only rode from his home in Worthing to Brighton on Sunday mornings.
But certainly these days bike are a leisure activity for the vast majority.
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Brian.
Better 5 minutes late in this world than years early in the next. |
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BobV7
Senior Member Joined: 20 Nov 2014 Location: W. Sussex Status: Offline Points: 2740 |
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Just occured to me; back in the day we used to call them "Cafe Racers" but perhaps now" Car Park Cruisers" would be a more appropriate term?
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V7 Classic Black and gold was the best. But green & black was nice too. Now blue is in!
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jmee54
Senior Member Joined: 28 Nov 2014 Location: Cornwall Status: Offline Points: 1469 |
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The trouble is life IS different now. Technology moves us on at such a rapid pace that nothing is stable anymore. We are dinosaurs nearing the end of our time, we are irrelevant to todays world. Everything is for the now, there is no value in anything now, it is all throw away. Motorised vehicles will die too. We will probably see them out then follow them, leaving a world either doomed, or if a miracle happens, one that will recognise the error of its ways in just about every direction and do something drastic to put things right. Fossil fueled vehicles make no sense in the greater scheme of things and we have to accept this fact and move on. We (us older folk) have had the best of everything and our time cannot last, time has moved on.
Hydrogen if they can sort it, is the only way to keep motors of some sort alive! |
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BobV7
Senior Member Joined: 20 Nov 2014 Location: W. Sussex Status: Offline Points: 2740 |
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Hurrah! Another hydrogen advocate!
Came across this and it may throw some light on why there will never be any contact with aliens. Also sort of has a connection with what Jmee54 just posted. |
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V7 Classic Black and gold was the best. But green & black was nice too. Now blue is in!
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Barry
Senior Member Joined: 02 Mar 2015 Location: Oxford Status: Offline Points: 2811 |
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Fads or not, fashion or not, different life-style or not, it does seem that BMW have settled into a 'selling like hot potatoes' niche with the new R-Nine T range, and bloody good luck to them. And Ducati, too, with that Street Scrambler - which, it appears, is also a bike that your average sized folk can clamber on and off without the need to carry a milk crate, or park near a wall. Both are readily 'customisable' - I read that as 'personalisation' - and it is abundantly clearly that this is what a big chunk of the market likes and wants, right now. Despite the fact that I currently see more V7's around than I've ever seen of any other Guzzi model, Guzzi don't quite seem to have hit that target quite as sweetly as BMW, Triumph, Ducati have.
There are plenty of "bearded, plaid jacket", new Belstaff wearing types on the V7's, too. And bollocks to that - if they're bike riders, they get a wave, and if they are Guzzi riders, doubly so. I see a good few lady riders attracted to the V7's, the R-Nineties, and the Ducati Scramblers, too. Which is healthy. There's *always* been a class of rider who has been prepared to pay over the odds for a tweaked bike, or a fully restored bike - doesn't bother me. I buy what I like and leave them to use their wallet as they see fit. A buoyant market the bikes out and about, keeps the spares and accessories guys interested in producing stuff - for them, and for me - and very often, it means that some very, very nice machines come back on to the market, at a greatly reduced price, when the owner moves on to something else. There's clearly a golden market for a certain type of motorcycle right now, to suit a certain type of rider-owner, and I sincerely hope that Guzzi can home in on it with a little more surety, so that we continue to see the Flying Eagle out there on the roads, in growing numbers. Meantime, there is no 'versus' - as has always been the case, you like what you like, and you buy what you like. And use it, how you like. |
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Thorn
Senior Member Joined: 03 Jul 2016 Location: Leeds Status: Offline Points: 209 |
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I test rode a Pure a couple of weeks ago. I liked the way it behaved in stop/start traffic. Far nicer than the V7ll in that respect. But I didn't like the riding position. Too much weight on the wrists till I got up to 50 or so. It was a relief to get back on the Guzzi, and made me appreciate her more.
Both bikes are attractive to the hipster market, as are Belstaff and beards, and none of them are any the worse for that. I've had the beard since the 60s, I had a Belstaff then and may get one again in the future. |
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Barry
Senior Member Joined: 02 Mar 2015 Location: Oxford Status: Offline Points: 2811 |
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I got a beard back, after a few years absence, but I'm not sure I can afford a Belstaff now! (o; |
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Dave P.
Senior Member Joined: 12 Jan 2015 Location: Northants Status: Offline Points: 5573 |
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I have the beard too,have had for some years.I no longer have a Belstaff or a Barbour though, because they don't work very well.Modern fabric jackets remain waterproof for years, unlike my experience with the filthy waxed cotton variety.As for the current trends in motorcycling,I've given up worrying about it.I use my Guzzis daily.They are very much "old school" and hurrah for that.They may even be more reliable than the current crop, but that's another story.
I for one am a very contented dinasour. |
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TO LIVE OUTSIDE THE LAW YOU MUST BE HONEST.
1971 V7 Special. 1972 850GT. 1970 T120 Bonnie. 2009 500 Bullet. |
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