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Moto Guzzi Breva V750ie (2007)- Jim Walsh gets strangely excited by a 'girls bike' from the revitalised (and refinanced) Italians. Should we give him a sedative and send him for a good lie down? Or is he onto something? Read on and find out…

Who you calling a girl's bike? Guzzi 750 Breva makes with the butch stance I love long late Summer evenings, and I love to head off around the bays after work so I can perve, oops, experience the stunning sight of my home town bathed in liquid golden late summer sunlight.

People running, cycling, fishing, swimming, kayaking, having a beer on the beach with some mates, all of them putting the day's wage slavery, corporate responsibility, lectures, and travel behind them. Some on their own zoned out, but most enjoying the company of others.

But not me. I'm obnoxious I am. I smell after a day at work, I spend most of my day having secret fantasies about spear guns and managers, and winning lotto and actually going through with those contracts I have on hold until I get the cash.

So it makes sense that I'm rattling fillings, making little kids cry and a confused pedestrian come to a standstill in the middle of the street, and best of all setting off car alarms, on the most obnoxious middle-weight "standard" motorcycle in existence.

Take one really old engine and give it fuel injection, bolt it into a chassis that looks and feels like it has been milled from solid granite, give it decent suspension, and then for the piece de resistance bolt on some mufflers made by blokes wearing wife beaters and sporting mullets.

I'm done for. I've ridden a Moto Guzzi. And I liked it.

The Breva 750 is supposed to be a girl's bike. A girl's bike made by Italians who sip long black espresso from effete little cups, and wear linen suits with knife edge creases on their trousers, and who never sweat. They probably live with their Mum too.

The only girl I can see owning this particular Breva is a kick boxer with stumpy legs and an overbite.

Difficult to gauge at a single glance - and probably not that attractive from a distance - she becomes strangely elegant and shapely up close, only to break your lower legs in a flurry of necessarily short, sharp kicks to the ankle and shins, pausing only to wait while you sink slowly to the floor in agony so she can get the boot into the soft bits.

This particular thing is insanely loud, barking it's staccato roar through beautifully made aftermarket "loudeners" that actually enhance an Italian bike. Italian! Middle aged blokes in convertibles cringe away from the noise and refuse to meet your gaze, just in case that kick boxer with the overbite they hit on by mistake is riding that tiny, hewn from solid granite, roaring beast next to their perfectly turned out Mini Convertible. Wanker.

Practical as well, the Guzzi 750 Breva's display is as easy to read as a tabloid paper on an especially dumb day The switch gear works. It leans to go around corners, though it does feel a little like a swinging pendulum. The upgraded triple piston Brembo caliper on the single disk up front makes spittle fly out of your mouth when you really nail it, and the suspension irons out the roughest city streets but still manages to tell you just what the heck is going on. It's stable as a very stable thing once you've selected your line, but the pegs touch down far too soon.

I want to buy this bike dammit. It may just hit 120mph lying on the tank, rider farting last night's curry for all they're worth for a bit of extra boost, but it will murder all sorts of unsuspecting sportbike riders as it drives out of the exit of a corner from barely 3000rpm up.

Outright speed is missing the point on a Guzzi anyway. wheelying away from the lights (even a novice like me - 4000rpm pop the clutch, lean back, all by mistake of course!), gobbing into the passenger seat of that convertible Minis (I get the open face helmet thing now!) while scratching your arse and reciting the desiderata in Pig Latin are what Guzzi ownership is all about.

(A spokesman for Motobke.co.uk's legal team said "We would like to make it clear we do not as a company condone gobbing into passenger seats of convertible mini's… well not unless they really deserved it")

Verdict Oi! You! Guiseppe Guzzi! This thing needs more ground clearance! And stop drinking that bloody espresso and get a good mug of Nescafe down ya! Woofter!

(Editors note: I think this means that Jim liked it. We'll be keeping him off the coffee for a while though…)

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