Driving report Moto Guzzi V 10 Centauro

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Driving report, Moto Guzzi V 10 Centauro

Moto Guzzi V 10 Centauro

The Centauro – a fabulous hybrid creature that brings man and machine to one another? Much more mundane: a real Moto Guzzi.

M.oto Guzzi, a strong name, a name with sound. Something can be made of this today – in times when the image seems to be more important than the product itself. Now the newest variant of the four-valve series is in the starting blocks, the V 10 Centauro. A trumpet of a motorcycle, imposing in size – the bulbous fuel tank, the plump rear, the strong, almost straight bar of the handlebar, white dials. It is the time of the training week for the 89th Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man, where Guzzi last won the 350 Grand Prix in 1956 with Australian Ken Kavanagh. The big V-engine shakes and shakes like in the old days when the journey over the mountain course of the Emerald Isle begins. Although the stainless steel exhausts only let out an asthmatic rattle, the driver still feels something of the concentrated power that slumbers in the archaic vehicle. Thanks to the electronic injection of the four-valve 1000 cubic V2, the warm-up phase goes by almost unnoticed, apart from the fact that the two-cylinder behaves more like two forcibly clamped stews at low speeds, that’s how much the cylinders manage for themselves. when 3000 rpm are exceeded and the Vau switches to a gentler mode of operation. Almost nimble the heavy iron turns up to about 5000 revs, then indulging in a certain listlessness. Only after 6000 crankshaft turns does the power plant accelerate again. At 8500 revs, however, the revving comes to an end, with noticeable cracks the next gear begins its work. Driving a Guzzi means work, and work is fun, if it’s the right one. This also applies to the Centauro, which hardly differs in its characteristics from its sister named Daytona. The start of the journey is only worth mentioning as the test man can comfortably curl up from the Grandstand over Quarter Bridge, past the cemetery near Braddan to Union Mills. The flooring is astonishingly even, speed limits and the considerable traffic of TT motorcycle tourists that is already beginning set tight limits to the drive. The Centauro handlebars can only really accelerate when the Mountain Course at the former Ballacraine Hotel turns north and runs in tight bends around rocks to Glen Helen, before turning into a fast passage to Kirk Michael. Braking the sharp right-hand bend in front of Laurel Bank makes the driver sweat: when downshifting at 8,000 rpm, precise double-declutching is urgently required, but the heavy Guzzi wobbles over a few bumps as if to shake off the driver. Not because the chassis is unstable, by no means, but because the enormous moment of inertia of the longitudinal crankshaft gives the load a rough kick. It’s nice that the four-piston calipers on the neatly coordinated fork decelerate easily and that the wide handlebars give the feeling of being in control of the big ship. A little later you pass Sarah`s Cottage, where Hans Otto Butenuth was already lying in the flower beds. On the following fast uphill section, the Guzzi runs a full 190 km / h – outside of built-up areas there are no speed limits on the Isle of Man. The Centauro carries the hobby TT driver surprisingly comfortably over the undulating slope, once you have recognized that slight rocking movements are completely harmless. In the meantime, the Vau is humming comfortably and no longer coughing as if it were near idle speed, ready to remind the pilot of its lengthwise installation when the next bend approaches. The device, which weighs 220 kilograms, is by no means unsafe. The bike masters S-bends brilliantly if the rider stays on the gas. Let’s forget the famous jumping hill at Ballaugh Bridge – here the author was trained to drive moderately by the bobbies years ago – and let’s go behind Ramsey into the mountains, where the Guzzi reaches its limits. The up to ten percent incline makes the V-aggregate tormented increase in speed, the fifth gear seems almost unattainable. It just bothers the drop in performance at medium speeds. In addition, the five-speed gearbox works reasonably clean, of course not comparable with the easy shiftability of most Japanese gearboxes. When the trip ends in Douglas – the heavy yellow bomber had soared downhill after the Creg-ny-Baa Inn on speedometer 240 – the pilot is almost sad. You just have to get used to a Guzzi much longer. Then it can be like a harmonious, long marriage.

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Driving report Moto Guzzi V 10 Centauro

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