Steve Cooper flexes his military muscle.
Moto Guzzi’s robust Nuovo Falcone single-cylinder perplexes our Scoop!
Okay we’d be the first to admit that the bike in camera for this month’s Classic Ride looks as if it doesn’t belong here. The looks of the big green single are certainly more in keeping with the 1950s than the more modern classics we feature here in CMM but get this – the Moto Guzzi Nuovo Falcone was made as late 1976. That singular, if worryingly wrong-footing, fact makes it a market place contemporary of machines such as Yamaha’s RD400 and Kawasaki’s Z900. And remarkably, the last Moto Guzzi Nuovo Falcone was coming off the production line just as Suzuki was about to sell its sublime GS750 for the first time. Even more mind-warping is the fact that just as the Guzzi factory finally gave up on the idea of ‘the big single’, Yamaha had just revitalised the concept with the sea change that was the XT500 trail bike. The Nuovo (new) Falcone is almost an enigma wrapped up in a riddle but the fact remains that the factory made almost 16,000 of these strange 500cc singles so it’d be historically inaccurate to ignore their existence. By anyone’s standards the Nuovo Falcone is a curious beast and our example even more so given that it’s ex-military and sports a lone canvas pannier on the left-hand side. Why just the one? Well the other side is already occupied by an unusual double barrelled silencer obviously! Next up for head scratching is the curiously large alloy blister that occupies almost the entire area of the left-hand engine case. Its purpose is to update and ‘streamline’ that side of the engine. The original Falcone ran an external flywheel but by the late 1960s even Moto Guzzi, purveyors of fine singles, couldn’t get away with it. Therefore, in the refresh of the design, 20lb of revolving mass was blithely hidden away. On the opposite side is a seriously large oval of pressed steel that houses the air-filter.
Beneath and ahead is a far greater expanse of sheet metal that takes a 90º bend then shoots up vertically to form one of a pair of all-encompassing leg shields which in turn are substantially protected by tubular chrome crash bars. There’s a certain permanence about the Falcone that says if you were to throw it up the road it would be likely to plough a substantial furrow into the Tarmac. A similar theme runs through the entire machine; it’s been built to last and longevity takes preference over weight saving. Check out the pillion footrest brackets, it’s doubtful they really needed to be made from steel strap quite so heavy or robust but on the positive side there’s little chance they will fail in use. Even for a bike designed in the last years of the 1960s there’s more than a smattering of anachronisms. The two separate seats are a prime example. The rider’s is a spring unit which hinges at the nose with the pillion’s perch a slab of foam, steel and vinyl bolted directly to the seat rails. It thoughtfully has a handle at the front for the pillion to grasp in moments of extreme terror but you’d better hope you didn’t slide forward in extremis! Even the recalcitrant British bike industry had been using alternators for a decade but, no, Moto Guzzi insisted in using a whacking damn great Bosch dynamo that added unnecessary mass. Everywhere you look the bike has been apparently hugely over engineered or has an unnecessarily complex look to it. The side panels look as though they’d happily double up as campfire pans, the centrestand might very well have been thieved from a Victorian pump engine and the instrument panel cum top yoke cover has a slightly disturbing faux Art Deco look about it. Attention to detail or massively robust? Make your own call but know this – the bike weighs in at some 450lb aka 214 kilos. This is seriously heavy for a bike with only 26 or so ponies within its grasp. Okay so much for the negatives, back handed compliments and apparent side swipes, let’s see if there was much new about the Nuovo or if it was a case of more of the same. This is, for want of stating the blindingly obvious, a large capacity single and each and every example of the genre comes with a certain reputation for bad starting which can, under the correct (wrong) circumstances easily exceed simple, mechanical, belligerence. When you fire a multi cylinder bike up your likelihood of getting at least one pot to fire increases dramatically. With a single cylinder you have only two chances; bang or phhhuttt. Flow dynamics play a big part in the likely success here getting the incoming charge across a relatively wide space from the mouth of the inlet valve to the spark plug which has to fire at precisely the correct moment. With more cylinders and a commensurate reduction twixt inlet valve and plug there’s a significantly greater possibility that at least one cylinder will immediately fire. The initial release of energy will spin the crank round with more impetus than the kick starter alone and the remaining cylinder(s) will all chime in. This moment of opportunity is literally within the blink of an eye. So far so good (or bad) but back at our single cylinder engine there’s yet another potential impediment which is the reciprocating mass and internal resistance of the engine and its flywheel(s). Although a 500/4 Honda crank and associated parts may have a similar overall mass to that of the Guzzi they take less physical effort to get moving. This is why big single owners develop ‘the knack’ or swap to bikes with electric starts. The starting regime is simple if arcane. With fuel and ignition on turn the engine over until the piston hits maximum compression. This is felt through your leg when the kick start lever essentially feels as if it won’t go any further; both valves are closed and the piston is at or very near top dead centre. Now pull in the decompressor lever which lifts the exhaust valve off its seat a tad. Apply gentle, not enthusiastic, pressure to the kick start and ‘feel’ the piston ease over TDC. At this point release the decompressor and apply maximum force to the kick starter
and (hopefully) the engine will start. Of course this assumes that you have also applied the correct level of choke (or not), accurately set the strangler (if fitted) and not touched the throttle. Mercifully the Guzzi fires up without too much hassle yet it’s a strange experience having to feel the whereabouts of the piston and, frankly, an anathema for most of us. Unlike its more highly tuned brethren the Nuovo Falcone isn’t inclined to kick back and twat your shin/ankle/leg if it doesn’t immediately fire but it does have its own starting foible for the unwary. Once you’ve overcome the inertia of the flywheel, swung the lever through the horizontal and towards the 5 o’clock position the relatively massive strain you’ve placed on your knee suddenly dissipates. This rapid relinquishing of load then plays havoc with the cruciate ligaments of the older (my) knee but worry not for this is, once again, covered by the descriptor ‘character’! So with the bike placidly plonk, plonk, plonking away it’s time to get under way. The admirably light clutch facilitates selection of first gear which is engaged by pushing down with one’s heel on the back of the heel-and-toe lever. Clutch out and throttle open the bike pulls away as only large capacity singles can. Once the inertia of that flywheel has been swapped for momentum the presence of lashings of syrupy torque is indisputable. The exhaust note rises, then it’s time for second which now requires the rider’s toe to push the front of the lever down. This is initially accompanied by sounds not unlike an old fashioned mechanical cash register being hit by half a dozen club hammers all at once! Selection of gears on a Falcone is a skill only acquired after numerous miles yet once the technique is mastered there’s a certain perverse satisfaction to be had from what is a simple process on most other bikes. For almost any circumstance other than pulling away third and fourth gears can be relied upon to do most of the work and this is one of the big draws about large capacity singles; their flexible nature means gear changes are the exception not the rule. Roundabout ahead? Just plonk up to it third then open the throttle when a gap appears in the traffic: long drawn out hill? Stay in fourth and leave that lazy torque and huge flywheel to do their job. The more you ride it the more you grasp its virtues. Handling is rather good once you’ve got to grips with the low-speed side of things. The front end’s geometry is obviously set up to facilitate ease of use for jobs such as convoy duty, police work, traffic policing and the like. At speeds of up to 15mph the bike can make lightning changes of direction yet above this its remarkably stable: strange but not at all unsettling. The brakes are amazing, powerful yet predictable and that twin-leading shoe front-end is as good as any similar Japanese unit. Why would you entertain buying a Moto Guzzi Nuovo Falcone? It’s the complete and total antithesis of most modern classics. Yes it’s unquestionably quirky and requires both practice and patience before its charms are truly revealed. Would I have one? Not yet but I can see why older riders go for them. There’s an old world charm about the Falcone but packaged in relatively new threads. Perhaps the only caveats I’d personally make would be the fitment of the optional electric starter to one of the non-military examples. There’s a rather cute one on ebay right now in white with a red frame right now but, perhaps fortuitously, I really cannot afford or justify another bike. cmm