Happy New Year all!
Here’s to many Moto Guzzi adventures - on the road and in the workshops!
As @Uki said in 2023: “take care on the roads and keep it shiny side up”. And I’ll add to that: and in the workshop, keep the skin on your knuckles!
Finally got over 500 miles on it. Only 432 to go. Whoop whoop! I shall be very glad to have the full ability of the engine to use. As it is I love to ride this bike; the brakes are pretty good too. Today I made it up to a very quiet Piston Club.
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Ordered a puig touring screen to hopefully eliminate the buffeting that sometimes makes my vision vibrate (yes that bad) and i might look into the rabbit ears for the front of the tank. I dont ride overly fast just want less buffeting as im 6’2" and up there in the air flow. Ride with an AGV K5 Jet but i dont think thats the problem. Have fitted the givi hand guard extenders and i think they helped a bit.
what Guzzi @Sparkieb ? some bikes, some screens people have discovered that spacing them -forward- can eliminate “buffeting” - certainly the case with the T3Cali screen.
Sorry forgot to say, its a v85tt 
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Managed to lose the right hand pannier somewhere between Pangbourne and Wallingford. No idea how other than I didn’t manage to secure the pillion seat properly and the road was very bumpy. Really annoying and furious with myself. Almost lost the pillion seat too but when I realised the pannier was gone immediately checked the seat and found it was gravity holding it on. Went down the road I’d lost it on in both directions but saw nothing, not even debris. Can only assume someone either picked it up and kept it or more likely chucked it in the ditch.
On a positive note there’s a gentleman in the USA who happens to have a spare right hand pannier so negotiations are in progress.
Not happy with yself at all.
Took the Stornello scrambler out for a couple of laps around the town. Carburation needs a fair bit of adjustment as it was running a bit rough, at least it kept going and I didn’t have to push it home!
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Puig screen fitted, please can i have some dry days now, so that i can try it out
And if anybodys fitted the rabbit ears around the tank and it was a success please let me know.
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Rode it from Gloucestershire to Northumberland albeit mostly on boring motorways. With nigh on 300 miles to cover at this time of year I just want to get the journey done. The bike behaved brilliantly. Slick gear changes and no issues. Thirsty though at revs over 5500.
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Rode to “Squires” for a cuppa, cold wasnt as much of an issue as the low sun. Only 7 bikes parked up (least ive ever seen) and of those 3 had L plates on. Coffee was good tho 
and had a nice chat with a chap on an AJS. New screen has altered the buffeting, think i will wait until rabbit ears arrive before i adjust the screen.
Know it won’t ease the pain but you’re not the first to do this. Couple of people here have already pioneered this pannier loss mode.
When the pillion seat is properly latched, it’s a good, secure system, but when it ain’t…
Almost enough to make you wonder about spring loaded or ball locking pins as a backup…
ETA: This is not an entirely unknown problem in the Yamaha community where I nicked the idea from…the FJR panniers, when worn, are apparently a bit prone to jumping off, so some people drill the lower bracket (very similar to ours) and fit one of the aforementioned pins to retain them…
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There’s a chap on an American Guzzi forum who had lost his left hand pannier, bought a full set and fortuitously had a right hand one in its original packaging. For a suitable amount it is now on its way to me and at a cost of less than half what a replacement pair would cost. So a small consolation!
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Good find!
To say I am envious is an understatement I hope MG do a California Cruiser. Here is my California EV with added LED lights and mini screen for air deflection. Just added the panniers and top box post another photo of this later.
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Brand new still requiring assembly pannier delivered yesterday. Only issue is I need to carry an additional key but I can live with that. Quite why MG provide 6 lock barrels I’m not sure. Only needed 1 obviously.
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I’m sure they don’t produce locks but buy they them in.
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Can you fit one of the spare lock barrels to the other pannier so they match?
I could do although I’d have to dis-assemble it to do so. I may do that in fact. Still dont understand why you get 6 locks for what would normally be 2 cases. Still im.not complaining.
I’ve hesitated to pile in, but here’re my thoughts for what they’re worth.
The Guzzi dealer orders the panniers and top box in as parts, totally separately from the 'bike. When you collect the machine all the locks match. On my old BMW I found the instructions for rekeying the locks so that they all match. I did this in order to try to adapt a Givi lock barrel to accept the BMW key.
I’d say that the dealer knows how to remove the lock barrels and juggle the tumblers to key them for whichever machine the luggage ends up fitted to.
Try YouTube or just take it to a dealer and give them the 15 quid or whatever to remove the barrel, juggle the tumblers to match your key and refit.
It’s possible Guzzi don’t do it the way BMW do, so I might be completely wrong. But this is how I’d start finding out.
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On the subject of the original problem; self-ejecting luggage, these were my experiences and thoughts when I first heard of the US incident.
Firstly, that the problem was the pillion seat coming unlatched, not that the panniers needed to be safety-pinned to the mounts.
Secondly, that the pillion seat coming unlocked can only be because the seat was marginally latched.
Thirdly, that this can only be because the pannier/s is not fully pushed forward in its slot.
The standard complaint with this ( frankly brilliant ) set-up is you end up having to muscle them on and off and drop the boxes in the process. I found that applying a bit of WD40 every time they go on, just for the first few mount/dismounts, helps to get them fully slid into place. After the first few, the glass-reinforced nylon beds in very slightly, and you can see the pannier mount hook is slightly shinier where it rubs up against the mounting socket. While still a ‘good’ fit, it’s now ( after almost 5k miles and a few tours ) much easier to slide the pannier fully into position and hence get the pillion seat properly locked down.
The key to avoiding this is to make sure the seat is properly, securely locked in place, not messing around drilling for locking pins etc.
Barry, should we move part of this thread to the Technical section ?