VOL. 50 ISSUE 22 JUNE 4, 2013
good-looking slash-cut exhausts.
It doesn't sound like a Ducati, in
spite of the same cylinder angle,
and it's deeper and more sonorous (and frankly more muscularsounding) than the smaller Mandello motors it's now joined in
the Guzzi range.
But selecting that Veloce
throttle mapping on the go by
pressing the starter button
with the throttle closed,
it delivers notably crisper
throttle response and acceleration out of a third gear turn
than in Turismo default riding
mode. The 1400 motor's sixspeed transmission is faultless,
with a smooth and mostly silent
gear shift that's much better than
any other Moto Guzzi I've ever
ridden. Seriously, this is a breakthrough by shaft-drive standards,
and Guzzi engineers are to be
complimented on achieving it.
Clutchless upshifts between
the top five ratios are the order
of the day, and if the gearbox
seemed smoother than on the
Touring model I rode that's likely because these bikes had almost three times more mileage
on them. Their gearbox has exactly the same cleverly chosen
ratios as the Touring, so you
need only use the bottom four
P105
gears in normal riding.
This means that with all that
torque you stay in third or fourth
most of the time, with the top
two ratios long-legged overdrives
aimed at covering fast, straight
stretches in relaxed mode. Sixth
gear is a rangy 1:0.8 ratio, so
100 mph is reached at just 5000
rpm, a little over two-thirds of the
way to redline as shown on the
very legible digital speedo in the
center of the Cali's single round
instrument cluster. It's somewhat
reminiscent of the Fiat 500's,
wrapped as it is by an analog
tach around the outside, with
heaps of digital data accessible
by scrolling through the screen
settings via the switch on the left
handlebar.
The view ahead when seated
on the Guzzi is ultra-distinctive,
