Hi LB’s
In 2002 I decided I wanted A more powerful sports bike. The requirements were simple, it should have a larger than 500cc engine, preferably Italian and somthing I would love to own as well as ride.
I decided to pop over and pay a visit to see a mate who owns a bike shop and see what he had to offer. Something immediately caught my eye, he happened to have this beautiful looking year 2000 MV on sale or return from one of his customers.
I didn’t know much about this marques only that I have seen a couple here and there and they always looked impressive in their design, especially the four organ pipes popping out from under the seat cowl and not forgetting the perfectly designed single swing arm. It looked absolutely stunning and came fitted with very loud race pipes that sounded like no other bike I have heard before. It had 6K on the clock and a service history which suited me fine.
I think I already knew at that point that I would own that bike. I was given the bike to test ride for a whole day…the next day the plastic popped out of my pocket and was offered in exchange…
The rest is history…no it isn’t…it is a special bike but how do I make it my special bike?
So all the cheap black plastic bits had to go and got changed to carbon fibre, installed a CF hugger, polished all the visible aging aluminium bits, covered the seat and hump with nice black suede, painted the front fender to the MV red and silver, got the non descript colour wheels painted silver with red inserts, concealed the indicators under the cowl and had the exhaust, down pipes polished, stand and rearsets polished.
Now I had one big problem, when I first got the bike I mentioned it had a set of race pipes that sounded great but the bike wasn’t running great, despite having a suitable chip the fuelling was all over the place, it was running rough anything under 5k which made daily riding very difficult and the engine would stall on the overrun occasionally too.
After consultation with other owners on the MV forum I decided to try and fix it so I installed a Power Commander and got it mapped on the Dyno. The fuelling improved a lot, the bike was a lot smoother and was putting out about 116 RWBHP as opposed to the stock 109 RWBHP and the torque also went up a few notches, cant be bad.
Later on after riding for a few months I noticed that in fact those race cans were far too noisy and since there was still an annoying glitch in the fuelling I decided to have my stock pipes re-worked by modifying the internal baffles and had them installed. That completely got rid of all fuelling issues and sounded more reasonable but still a great exhaust note.
Now it rides as sweet as pie at all revs with a smooth power delivery across the range and since there is nothing more to do apart from maintenance I just take pleasure in riding as much as time and weather in this country of ours allows.
I have only done one track day (Cadwell Park) on the MV so I am no expert but can say those bikes are designed for it and felt that my abilities would have expired long before the bikes talent vanished if you get my drift. I would enjoy track days more if I had the time, the money, a track bike and the inclination.
I like all types of rides whether be it a shorty to a bike meet or two or a nice long A/B road blast on a sunny Sunday morning (rare), I now feel very adopted and comfortable with/on my bike and it only becomes a real pain in the neck (literally) after two or three hours of continuous riding.
I enjoy the sense of freedom (conditions allowing) when riding and consider my self an over cautious rider most of the time, don’t trust the roads or any other road users especially the four wheeled variety (being one of them, I suppose I know the pitfalls).
Here are the before and after images of that magnificent machine…
. rsrsrsrs. Please, place some pics of your baby here for us to see!
Must have been running it in me thinks.