I'll never forget that day, I was walking into Blackfoot motor sports in Calgary, Alberta. The first bike customers saw when they walked in was a  new Guzzi, the paint job was nasty, I was in total lust.

The Rosso is Guzzis 80th anniversary motorcycle. There was 300 built and each one had its production number displayed on the side covers. It was a week before my birthday, I was turning 44, the Rosso's number was 144. It was meant to be.

 

I own 2 other Guzzis, a 73 Eldo and a 81 lemans 2. It was time for some modern day iron, er, make that carbon fiber.

 

The Rosso is basically a V11 sport with loads of carbon fiber and a different clutch. It is very sporting to ride, has awesome brakes and sounds awesome.

The suspension is not as good as Japanese sport bikes for track use but it is acceptable for aggressive street riding. I've owned and raced several other sport bikes and for street use I'd rather ride the Rosso.

It has decent power and is fairly comfortable, when it's time for fuel (150 miles) your glad to get off.

Unlike my other Guzzis there is no drive shaft jacking because of their floating diff design, good job Guzzi!!

 

My major bitch with the Rosso is vibration through the handlebars, I changed the grips (hard like a rock) and changed the bar end weights , I found some weights off a 93 gsxr 1100 that are twice the size. This helped reduce the vibes to an acceptable level. Why couldn't Guzzi do it from the factory? How many sales they lost because of this problem I don't know, but avid motorcyclists are  always asking me about it so it's a known problem among potential buyers.

All in all though , it's a good motorcycle with an Italian flavor, thanks Guzzi.

 

Alan