Over the bank holiday weekend, we went on a nice ride to the Peak district. Just 3 days of riding, enjoying the scenery and crisp, fresh air. For this occasion, we decided to take out the Guzzi, which hasn’t seen extended action since Easter, when we took it for a ride around France. So it was the both of us, zipping up the M1 on the Saturday, reaching just in time for lunch. The next day we took it easy, but on the way back on Monday, we did the full 130mi on the motorway without any stops on the way.
So by the time we got back and parked up, we noticed the bike was dripping mustard coloured oil. It was coming from underneath the engine, where there is a breather pipe hanging straight down. Having seen this previously on Royal Enfields, where there is a dirty oil reservoir which needs emptying every so often, we were not overly alarmed. However, when this happens on a Royal Enfield, you do need to clean the air filter, because it gets all gunked up with the same nasty yellow oil that is dripping down. So we let the bike be, with a newspaper underneath. Over the course of an hour or so, it made quite a big puddle of dirty oil and then stopped…
Just to be sure, we phoned up our local Guzzi dealership to ask for advice. Apparently, this is not too uncommon for this type of bike. According to the dealer, if you use it for short rides a lot, condensation occurs inside, and then if you ride it for a longer duration, especially at higher speeds (he mentioned the word “thrashing” ) the bike expels a lot of dirty oil and clears the system out properly. So, although this is annoying when it happens, it is nothing to worry about and not like an Enfield where you need to clean the bike up (air filter especially) afterwards. All you can do is wait for it to stop, and it’ll be as good as new. Now I’m guessing, in order to prevent this in the future, we’re just going to have to “thrash” the bike regularly