The V85 TT Break in Run

Me on Lucretzia

With all the various motorcycles I have owned in my life to date, I had never run a Moto Guzzi in from new before I bought one brand new at the end of August this year.

The V50 Monza I once had, I had acquired from a guy advertising it in the local Johannesburg newspaper and it had 6800 Km on it by the time I picked it up from him a few days later.

It was pretty well run in at that stage of the game.

I had been riding a Yamaha YB100 as an interim emergency bike at the time, so it came across as plush royalty compared to that Yamaha.

The next Guzzi I had a few years later was a white 850 Le Mans III and that had 7000 Km on the clock when I bought it from the widow of a guy in Pretoria who had died while ejecting from his South African Air Force jet.

It was perfectly run in at that point of it’s existence and was in pristine condition.

The third one was also well run in by the time I got it for next to nothing at an auction in Kempton Park and it was an ex-CHP California T5 setup for a CHP workload.

It even still had the CHP logo and blue lights on it.

It had done 30,000 miles by the time I took possession of it but it felt like it had done well over 300,000 miles.

I think the single sprung by springs fat wide saddle that came from the 1930's had a thing or three to do with that perception for the uninitiated Guzzi rider.

Here was a 1980's Italian V-Twin trying to be a Harley Davidson USA Police Patrol bike!

So, when I snapped up a new 2025 V85 TT from a San Jose dealer at the end of August 2026, with just 9 miles on it, of which I had done 4 of those 9 miles myself on the short test drive, it was a first for me from a Moto Guzzi run in POV.

The only other bike I had owned from near 0 miles was my 2025 KLR 650 Adventure and a Moto Morini 500 Sport back in 1982.

Most of the Yamaha 750 triples I had owned from nearly new had 1350 Km on them and I did not really need to run any of them in per se.

I drove those carefully in any event and did not need to race them, they weren’t that sort of machine, they were highway cruisers designed to eat miles and miles of long straight roads for breakfast in a refined and competent way between 120-140 Km/h all day long.

I gave them the respect they deserved and used them for their designed cruiser purpose.

For South Africa, chain drive setups are for the birds, dirty and short lived, chains and sprockets are a shit way of driving the rear wheel IMHO.

Everybody else from that era was piloting Katana 750 or Kawasaki 900 Ninja chain drive fare and I cared for neither of those machines because of that fact.

The Kawasaki Z650 four was a popular middle ground machine in South African conditions but they were way too expensive for what the package was per my continually scheming synapses.

Kawasaki did make a 750 four-cylinder Shaft drive Machine called a GT750.

Red Kwakker GT750

I tried one for a few weeks, but I preferred my older Yamaha XS750 triples a whole lot more in every way to the GT.

The GT motor was too peaky for my liking; I wanted smooth low-end torque throughout the power band range and not something you had to stir with any sort of aggression.

The GT 750 wanted an aggressive edge from the pilot’s right hand to get the most out of it’s motor.

One of my pals bought one and spent the entire time he owned it pining for a Yamaha XJ-900.

Those GT750 Mikuni carbs needed constant rebalancing and that exhaust system was what South Africans referred to as "Lekker Kak".

There was too much GPZ550 thinking in that thing but with added weight neutralizing the ambition somewhat.

The XS750 triples did not have to deliver much past 170 Km/h either, I was not into suicide canyon carving living on the edge styled riding anymore by then either.

That shit did not make my boat float, and I had worked that out of my system with Yamaha RD350YPVS LC fare and finally a truly radically insane Honda NS400 when I was younger and more delusional about my riding capabilities.

What I sought now was ultra-low-cost reliability and shaft drive anything.

I ended up with a silver and blue Yamaha XJ-650 which was also a shaft drive machine and traded that in for an XJ-900 shaft drive machine before going to an FJ1100 chain drive machine, whose chain promptly snapped on me at 160 Km/h on the freeway around Johannesburg one fateful Monday morning.

The XJ-650's one weakness was it had no real power band and was a very boring and very under powered machine compared to the XS-750 series, but it was molto reliable.

I fitted Power-Flo exhausts to every XS750 series I owned as well and that made a dramatic improvement to low end torque.

The Katana series lived up to its name in the canyon carving regard and the 900 Ninja was far too brutal for most blessed with sanity and caution for the pickings we had from this era.

For me, my ideal bike at the time was the BMW R100RT.

I sadly did not have the beans to pay for one and secondhand ones eluded me like a thing possessed for more than 8 years.

Those BMW RT's were highly sought after gems that many people lusted after with a serious passion.

In truth, if I really wanted one I could have done it, but I could not reconcile the R1350 I paid for a hardly used Yamaha XS750E shaft drive vs the R24,000 the R100RT demanded.

It was a conundrum of epic proportions.

As the years passed and I got into flying gliders, power planes and rotor wings, I sort of convinced myself motorcycle riding as an art in California, where I ended up living, was a statistically pretty dangerous proposition.

However, one of my kids bought a Kawasaki 250 a few years ago to take to college down at UCSB and I rode it a few times and it re-planted a seed in my motorcycling soul.

I knew the second I rode it that I definitely wanted to bike again.

The opportunity finally arose in 2025 when I snapped up a KLX 300, added a much needed 4.1 Gallon gas tank upgrade and made many other mods to it which was perfect for my CSMP and re-introduction to motorcycling phase.

However, it was not ideal for levee road adventure biking I was now partaking in post M2 certification.

I had hoped the local dirt trails would meet the riding need I thought that I desired.

In hindsight, I was very wrong in that regard.

If I'd had a truck to get it to said trails and dedicate the entire day to riding dirt tracks on it and then drive home with it on the truck like most of the participants did, I could probably have stuck with the KLX.

Once I had the CSMP course done, which I finished on the KLX, as I was not in a good spot with the Lifan 200's the CSMP training school then operating out of Pleasant Hill offered as equipment, getting to ride the KLX as intended was proving to be a wee bit of a problem.

I started looking for a replacement and advertised the KLX, which was now seriously enhanced for what it was.

It went amazingly fast and I had to fight off eager buyers. I sold it to a 73 year old guy who was an interesting bloke.

I had found a 2006 Buell Odyssey in Half Moon Bay which had 47,000 miles on it for $3500 and proceeded to enhance that platform once I had established the owner was dyslexic and it was in fact a 2009 model.

This Ulysses was a truly astounding machine, but it had far too much power for an adventure bike for my particular needs.

The stated power was 103 hp, but I am certain that the Erik Buell racing pipe it was now adorned with and the Buell racing ECM it had been tuned for at Laguna Seca produced around 125 hp to the back wheel at the very least.

It also had the original exhaust with original ECM as a reserve for a fallback in case the CHP intervened, with a new set of Dunlop tires and a spare belt drive but it now needed some work and basic upgrades.

I had most of the parts I needed for the upgrades when my better half made me get rid of it, bar the three-bearing rear wheel rim and parts and a new stainless steel exhaust system that made it legal that is.

In hindsight, we should have just stuck with the Buell and spent the $7000 it needed to make it new again.

Instead, my other half had a problem with the cash it was sucking up that buying a new KLR 650 Adventure did not solve either due to my weight and the nature of the KLR 650 Gen 3 platform.

I had thought its price was a winner and it could have worked if I was 40 lbs lighter than I am now.

The engine on a KLR is underpowered but it had oodles of low end torque for serious levee road and b-road styled riding.

Where it became a death trap was dirt track stuff that had to traverse deepish sand of any kind.

With its massive weight and power disadvantage, the front and rear shocks with lack of a fork brace in these conditions showed me rather violently one day why this was not going to be my forever machine.

I could have upgraded the front and rear shock with stuff from a company in Utah called Cogent Dynamics that specializes in KLR shock upgrades, but this was not going to solve the weight and power problem, just make it vastly better.

However, this was still going to be a make the best of it situation to deal with.

Whatever I bought next had to be a good highway cruiser, be balanced and also be able to handle moderate gravel and more importantly be easily serviced by the owner.

In that respect, the KLR was quite disappointing as the single cylinder 652cc engine was water cooled and getting at the valves was a 4-hour job of nightmare complexity for the owner without a motorcycle work bench and all the tools that this sort of work required.

The Buell had self-adjusting valves and was itself a big operating cost saver for the fairly capable average owner to deal with.

Paying the various power sports stores $1200 just to set valves every 15K on the KLR was not my idea of mechanical nirvana.

I should have understood the Power Sports store's insane labor charges more deeply to understand this aspect better.

An air-cooled Moto Guzzi V-Twin had a shaft drive, was easy to work on to set the valves every 6000 miles and do oil changes for the engine, gearbox and final drive with basic tools.

I was initially a bit perturbed when the Spirit San Jose financial guy tried to con me out of $4K for four services on the thing, but I have since changed all the oils myself and setting the valves is not a problem for me.

He went on to insult me further with a staff discount of down to $2500 for the same 4 services he had tried to con me out of for $4000.

In two sentences he went down 37.5% for services and he was still ripping me off!

I let Elk Grove Power Sports do the first service at 900 miles for MG warranty purposes, have them set the TPS and valves as well as check the head bearings for me and after that it’s all going to be on me.

In terms of Motorcycles that have engines like the Buell, it's Harley Davidson, Indian and some offerings from Honda (Goldwing), Kawasaki Vulcan big iron (3 models), and Yamaha with four models.

The problem with all these machines is that they are all big expensive machines with larger than usual price tags, though there are some bargains to be had used.

Nothing that is a serious dual purpose adventure bike though.

But I digress, back to the V85 whose running in is proving to be a rather interesting endeavor.

I was given strict instructions by both the dealer and my Mandello Del Lario connections to cycle it through a limited rev range to 4500 RPM and not keep it at a constant speed and rev range during the break in period.

This break in period comes to 932 miles in total by the way wit the Mandello gurus telling me to make it 2000 miles and limit revs to 6500 until it got to 2000 miles.

The initial break in period is 1500 km which is 932 miles. At this point they replace all just the engine oil.

After that there is more cyclic breaking in until it gets to 2000 miles.

After the 932-mile service I can take it to 6500 rpm, still cycling it through the range constantly and not holding it at a constant highway speed for any constant period.

However, you don’t need another service at 2000 miles, it’s just a marker for taking it easyish until it gets to that mileage.

I will of course change all the oils again at that point in any event, just to check it’s all going rather swimmingly.

The issue with this long break in cycle is the synthetic oils it uses are too advanced for normal break in purposes a la your usual Japanese motorcycle.

If anybody made a mineral oil with the Mandello Del Lario specifications, this would be ideal before switching to synthetic oils.

On the KLR, I had switched from mineral oils to full synthetic Motul 7100 10w40 at 1253 miles on the clock.

It was still like new when I traded it in on a 2025 Fuji Rosso specimen Spirit seem to have a lot of inventory of in their warehouse, as every time they sell one a new one of the previous flavor they just sold appears on the lot.

My concerns with a bike on the showroom floor since 2024 is tires, oils and everything being tight nut and bolt wise, as well as firmware and other updates to the motorcycle control unit.

Contrary to popular belief motorcycles on a showroom floor for 2 years can develop rubber cracking if stationary, but Spirit move them from lockup to outside every day so I guess they rotate a fair bit just doing that.

The distance and highways between where I lived and this dealer are also a big issue to contend with.

I had wanted to buy from Elk Grove Power Sports and had test driven a good few Moto Guzzi specimen there over the prior 6 months but at the point of purchase I was informed they were no longer a Moto Guzzi reseller.

Typical!

I had already decided the V85 platform was for me, the only choice being between the TT and the Adventure model and I mulled a V7 but that instrument display on the v7 is Molto fottutamente brutto, as they say in some parts around Lake Como these days...

Scuderia West in San Francisco was the only other dealer option, but their mechanics and sales setup struck me as a tad basic and too light.

On the drive home from Spirit, I had a lot of bits fall off the TT and they just sent me the parts that fell off almost 2 months later.

I spent my own money buying these from AF1 in Texas and will keep what they send me as spares when they do eventually arrive.

So, I drove it over to Elk Grove a few weeks ago to investigate them working on it going forward for the first service warranty POV as I found out they still sold Vespa and Aprilia and wondered if they could still service the Moto Guzzi fare.

They can but they charged me $752 for the first service, So I ain't doing that again!

This V85 is a very good bike and is getting smoother by the day, I am marveling at what a competent machine it is turning out to be.

The test drive was no help in this regard, and I had concerns driving it home that have since been put to bed.

Elk Grove are still an Aprilia dealer, it’s just the Guzzi part of the relationship with Piaggio that came to an end.

They will service Guzzi fare for the next 5 years though, so any major work I need doing can be undertaken by them.

They are also much closer than San Jose and I don’t need to traverse the suicide highway melange for motorcycles to get there either.

The ride back to Antioch from Spirit on it was a very scary experience indeed.

The 280, then the 680, up the 84 to the 580 and on to Vasco road that took me to Highway 4 and then the 160 freeway was a reborn Christian type affair and I definitely never want to ride that ever again on any motorcycle.

Getting there on the KLR was also an experience I don’t care to ever have to suffer again either.

The only machine this highway combo is feasible on is the BMW GSA 1300 Adventure bike and as usual, I will never part with $34K to buy one unless I somehow win the lottery one day.

And I will make it look like a CHP version if that ever happens, with a Sandton City Star logo that looks like the CHP logo painted on by my air brush guru pals.

This is just to negate the idiots who traverse these highways on a daily basis.

The standard of drivers on California highways is truly shocking and shameful, but they do pay attention if they think you may be a Chippie in disguise....

Most of the California car drivers are inconsiderate pigs with near zero driving IQ and the truck drivers are something else to witness.

How these folks get drivers licenses underlines a very serious problem in Sacramento.

Don’t forget I spent the first 15 years of my motorcycling life in South Africa and drove in Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Mozambique and good ol Zimbabwe.

I also drove bikes in the UK and the EU a whole lot as well over the years.

Africa has much better driver standards than California based on what I have seen on Bay Area roads since 1995.

The quality of the roads themselves is on an equal footing to South Africa, making you wonder what the hell they are doing with all the tax money they rape and pillage from Californians on a daily basis.

I have my own ideas about the deep corruption going on in that regard that is responsible for that situation, but we won’t delve into that here…..

That epic saga is for another day…

I have some 1120 miles on her now and with new oils she seems to be purring like a well fed and happy big savannah cat.

So, I rode her into Elk Grove power sports servicing on 10/2 with 896 miles on her clock and was shocked the quote for the first service went from $450 to $752 odd clams.

All they did was set the valves, change the oil, set the TPS and clear the error messages with the Piaggio PADS tool.

Now the first service has been done it's all on me and my garage going forward.

I was surprised they did not touch gearbox or final drive oil either and they replaced the cylinder head gaskets and the rubber grommets when they did the valves.

I had estimated some 911 miles when I rolled in to Elk Grove, but oh well, close enough, I think.

I will post updates here as I go...

They communicated that the service light might come on when it gets to 932 miles and it actually did at 920, and it seems there is no easy way to clear it either.

I see a suitable OBD2 Machine in my future...This seems to be an issue though as the only one that can do it seems to be the OBDSTAR iScan for Guzzi which goes for $399.

Elk Grove did RIP me $752 for this 900-mile service BS....

That is a lot of money to change oil and check the valves....

Oi Vey as my Rabbi would say!

Se non ti vedo attraverso la mia visiera, ti vedrò attraverso la Finestra!