Photo: Oberdan Bezzi
You all know the deal with the adventure bikes in the 1200cc class: they are too big and they are too heavy for when the going gets tough. Drop one in the mud and your swearing will sound all around the mountain. Or plain, for what’s worth. And maybe things would not be THAT nasty if you only fell once, but anything else than light off-roading often involves picking the bike up from the ground… and this makes a lighter one a most welcome idea.
Oberdan Bezzi has taken things in his own hands and went on to create a smaller Moto Guzzi Stelvio, dubbed Stelvio 940. And in case you’re asking yourselves why 940… it’s because Bezzi figured out a way to use a smaller engine he mentally sourced from the Bellagio model. So things could indeed work out if Moto Guzzi ever thinks about the idea.
Bezzi doesn’t seem to be too shy to experiment in a direction which other Guzzi fans might see as too radical. He appears to know that many of the Guzzisti out there ARE waiting for Mandello del Lario to come forth with new bikes showing off updated aesthetics, to-date functionality and why not, a new direction.
Guzzi could indeed use the frame of the Stelvio to build a new one, with slightly smaller dimensions and revised architecture to match the Bellagio engine as the start of what could easily turn into a whole new platform. More than off-road-worthy bikes could be built on this platform, as the recipe seems to be highly lucrative.
If Mandello peeked over the fence of the Schiranna manufacturer, they’d find out how many different machines can be built from a single starting point. MV Agusta Rivale, Stradale, Dragster, “RR-ed” versions for them and so on seem like decent proof for considering such a direction…
Smaller adventure bikes are really missed
The market is facing a decreasing number of under-liter real adventure bikes, as manufacturers seem to favor only going up in engine size, power, and weight. Even Honda went for a liter-class parallel twin incarnation of their old Africa Twin, dashing the hopes of countless riders who hoped to see a new middleweight machine with the old Africana vibe.Bezzi doesn’t seem to be too shy to experiment in a direction which other Guzzi fans might see as too radical. He appears to know that many of the Guzzisti out there ARE waiting for Mandello del Lario to come forth with new bikes showing off updated aesthetics, to-date functionality and why not, a new direction.
Guzzi could indeed use the frame of the Stelvio to build a new one, with slightly smaller dimensions and revised architecture to match the Bellagio engine as the start of what could easily turn into a whole new platform. More than off-road-worthy bikes could be built on this platform, as the recipe seems to be highly lucrative.
If Mandello peeked over the fence of the Schiranna manufacturer, they’d find out how many different machines can be built from a single starting point. MV Agusta Rivale, Stradale, Dragster, “RR-ed” versions for them and so on seem like decent proof for considering such a direction…
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