The title of this column is “Nick Adams Rides,” but just for this month it should be renamed “Nick mucks about with bikes and can’t make his darned mind up about which one to ride out west.”

Each year I like to do at least one long ride. There are few enough advantages to being retired, but one of the best is that I am free to be away from home for as long as I like. Taking off for a month or so is never a problem. But my aching, niggling First World Problem is “which bike.” Three choices: the Guzzi Breva with hard bags and topbox, the Colossus of Roads – my 1985 Suzuki Cavalcade with its lockable luggage, oh-so-smooth comfort and massive windscreen, or my old and well worn travelling companion – the 1972 Moto Guzzi Eldorado, my mostly-reliable road warrior of many long distance tours. Decisions decisions.

I discount the Cavalcade. Although it is completely trustworthy, I know I’ll probably end up on some unpaved roads and it can be a bit of a handful on loose surfaces and tight quarters. After sitting for most of the winter, the Eldorado has developed an as-yet undiagnosed rattle some where deep in the clutch or gearbox. It’s probably something that can easily be fixed with time, effort and a little cash but I’m eager to be off. The Breva then. It doesn’t have an effective windscreen, but hey, I’m tough. I can manage without. I pack my camping gear, clothes and cameras, order a new rear tire and wait.

The Cavalcade is too big for much off-road shenanigan activity. So it’s down to the Guzzis. Photo: Nick Adams

But I keep looking at the Eldorado. We’ve travelled many miles together: across Labrador twice, Newfoundland, northern Quebec multiple times, the Yukon, Vancouver Island. Sometimes when we’re riding it feels as though the distinction between man and machine starts to blur. We become Pholus – a centaur, but with two wheels instead of four legs. She’s been my best-beloved for more than a hundred thousand miles. My Italian sweetheart. Her youthful beauty still shows through even though years of toil have left their mark. Is it heartless of me to abandon her so readily, just because she’s beginning to show her age? The new tire for the Breva won’t arrive for another two days. I have the time.

Until about 1976 the exhaust pipes of Moto Guzzi’s V-twins were held on to the cylinder heads with large threaded rings. Over time, the threads inside the aluminum heads would wear, allowing the pipes to leak and come loose. It is a problem I’ve been coping with for years and it was time for a permanent fix. Over the winter I replaced the cylinder heads with some spares I had from a later model with more normal ‘stud and ring’ attachments. The heads were torqued, the valves clearances were set to specs. I’d even bought a new lawn-tractor battery to replace her worn out, second-hand KLR battery I’d scabbed from a friend. I turned the key. She started instantly. And there was that mystery clacking. It wasn’t there when I’d ridden her last. How do these things happen?

A new set of cylinder heads last year for the vintage Guzzi. Photo: Nick Adams

On these shaft-drive Guzzis, getting at the clutch and gearbox means starting at the rear wheel and removing just about everything that’s in the way as you work your way forwards. I’ve done it many times before. It just takes time. Off with the seat, side covers and battery. Disconnect the rear brake and remove the wheel, then the tool boxes, the brake cross-lever and the gear linkages. The foot pegs lie at either end of a through-bolt that passes through the gearbox mount. Throw them all in a box on the floor. Get the carbs out of the way, disconnect a few wires, remove the starter motor and unbolt the gearbox from the engine. Jiggle the gearbox off its studs and wiggle it sideways out of the frame. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? And it is. It’s just time consuming, especially as whichever tool you need is always out of reach on the other side of the bike where you last used it.

The clutch looked fine. Heck, I’d only replaced it the previous year so it ought to be – although I’m always conscious that I am quite capable of doing silly stuff that eventually comes back to bite me, so it took it apart just to check. Nope. All good.

Well, at least that looks OK… Photo: Nick Adams

With the gearbox on the floor I played around selecting and deselecting gears to see if I could identify the problem. There was a slight ticking when rotating the output shaft in neutral. Could that be it? I was just pondering this mystery when I noticed that an adjustment bolt on the rear of the gearbox case was loose. This thing allows for some very minor adjustments to the gear selector mechanism. And it was loose! Did I forget to tighten the locking nut last time? Had it vibrated free? Could this be the source of my woes?

To cut the long and tedious description of re-assembling the bike short, let us jump forward to that first turn of the starter key. Hallelujah. It started. And, as far as I could tell, no nasty clacking from down-under. Helmet, boots and jacket on – let’s go for a test ride.

I would dearly love to be able to tell you that everything is back to normal and I am already packed for the next adventure, but it is not to be. The Eldorado runs perfectly well. The gears and clutch work as they should. I can select neutral with ease and the little neutral light on the dash isn’t even telling its usual fibs. But something has changed. I can’t quite put my finger on it. She just doesn’t feel “right.” That mystical connection between man and machine has been severed.

In the past I’ve happily set off on cross-continent trips knowing that the bike wasn’t flawless but being prepared to make adjustments on the road, never giving a thought to the notion that the Eldorado might not get me wherever I was going. Now, all of a sudden I find I’ve lost that confidence. Is it my age? Am I turning into a security-conscious, everything-must-be-perfect, worrier? Or am I responding, at some subliminal level, to mechanical problem that will rear its ugly head when I’m out of cell-range and fifty miles from the nearest help?

After completing the long disassembly and reassembly, the bike ran just fine, but Nick’s still taking the Breva. Photo: Nick Adams

It is possibly that those replacement cylinder heads are imparting a slightly different feel to the old Eldorado. For all I know, she might be objecting to such radical surgery and expressing her discontent in subtle ways. No doubt, with time, I’ll get used to riding her again and we’ll once again hit the road as a harmoniously balanced mechanical man-beast thing.

But for now, she’ll stay in the garage. I’m taking the Breva.