By Joe Gresh
I’m not against Moto Guzzis. I have nothing bad to say about the motorcycles. I just don’t have that burning desire to own one. Nevertheless, the Moto-gods seem to be intent on me owning a Moto Guzzi.
I had a close call this weekend at the GRIN (Guzzi Riders In New Mexico, I think). The GRIN rally is held annually in Datil, New Mexico. There’s not a whole lot in Datil: a gas station, small-but-clean motel, and a campground behind the store and motel.
The campground is rally headquarters and this year’s attendance was sparse because the rally split into two factions. The original rally was behind the gas station/motel and an offshoot was held about a mile away at the Datil Wells campground.
With only 30-35 bikes in the best of times splitting the rally seemed like a dumb idea to me. I’m guessing some sort of rift caused a second rally to be held on the same exact days within walking distance of the original rally. Whatever happened its sort of chickenshit. I hope the two groups can stop the nonsense and get together.
Regardless of the low turnout, the original rally site had a solid core of Guzzi riders to chat with and the day flew by. I re-met Dan, one of the original Zongshen/CSC riders from Joe Berk’s CSC tour days. It took a while but he finally remembered me.
That memory thing isn’t a fluke: the youngest rider award went to a 62- year-old. The oldest was 83! If motorcycling doesn’t get some new blood we’ll be holding annual rallies at graveyards.
On that Guzzi ownership near miss: GRIN held a raffle with three Guzzis as prizes. There was a Jackal 1100, an Ambassador and (I think) an 850 Lemans.
With only 15 people in the raffle the odds were good, but I missed the Jackal by one number. Instead, the Mudchucker now owns two Moto Guzzis. That was close. Too close.
Moto Guzzi riders are always fun bunch to hang out with and now that they are old they no longer beat up Buell riders for sport. Several attendees clocked around 1000 miles to camp in Datil. I don’t know the situation or attendance at the rival rally but we saw two or three rogue Guzzis putting around Datil that were not at our camp.
My ride was only 400 miles round trip but the Buell still found time to rattle the key switch out of its bracket. Being loose and beating on the bracket, the fine threads on the switch were fairly well smooshed. A quick stop at tractor supply for some vise grips and I managed to force the nut back onto the boogered key switch. I don’t think it will fall off again as the threads are self-locking now.
There’s going to be another bike raffle at the 2027 GRIN rally. Same time, same place. I guess I’ll have to keep going back until I’m a Guzzi owner.