The wheel thing
At first glance Massimo Rinchiuso’s Guzzi is impressive enough, then you find out he made the wheels himself…
The best custom builders often go to lengths that seem dotty to the rest of us, and so it is with Massimo Rinchiuso. When he couldn’t find wheels to suit his Guzzi 1000 SP build, he decided to make his own. Bike calls his workshop in Ravenna, Italy to double-check we’ve got that right…
» Bike: You actually made your own wheels?!
Massimo: ‘Yes, there were no light wheels which could be mounted without heavy and ugly modifications. So I built some. They are made of Anticorodal 6082 [an aluminium-magnesium-silicon alloy] and as you can see, they integrate perfectly with the rear hub and are fully compatible even for a production bike. The front weighs just 2.4kg and the rear 3.6kg.’
» How hard is it to make your own wheels?
‘The project was quite demanding. I spent many hours drawing them in 3D, then doing all the virtual FEM [Finite Element Method – an analysis that replicates stresses] to reach the minimum parameters of the TUV certification, and finally study how to make them using a 6-axis CNC milling machine.’
» Presumably that was the hardest part of the build?
‘Well, everything was really complex. Certainly the wheels were challenging, but so was the swingarm because it’s also a component that required a lot of attention for safety reasons. Making the tank, fairing and tail in hand-wrought aluminium was also really difficult because I wanted maximum possible perfection. Also, making the plexiglas front fairing was not easy because I had to build moulds for thermoforming. The build took over 1100 hours of work.
» Why a Guzzi?
I fell in love with Guzzi three years ago when I built a bike based on a T5 850. I had never worked on a Guzzi before, and was fascinated by the engine – so simple, and so tasty to ride. I fell in love with that bike and decided to build another Guzzi for myself. I chose the SP because I was only going to use the engine of the donor bike and I wanted one with the rarest round heads. My goal was to get a motorcycle as light as possible, with very sporty characteristics, but above all it had to be fucking beautiful.
» What state was the SP in?
It was an abandoned restoration in four boxes. Naturally, I reassembled the engine with high compression pistons, a new camshaft, lightened flywheel etc. I was helped by my friend Claudio Lanconelli from Lanko Tuning.
» The bike weighs just 155kg. How did you achieve that?
I designed each component using very light materials. And it could have been even lighter if I had used titanium, magnesium and carbon for more components, but the cost would have been too high. Still, I think I have achieved a good compromise – 155kg is a good weight for a Guzzi!
» You named the bike Enzo after your grandfather who got you into spannering. What would he make of it?
I think that grandfather Enzo would sit on the bench in front of the bike in the entrance to the workshop and contemplate the details. I hope he would be proud of what he saw, knowing that I thought of him while building this bike.
» What’s it like to ride? The bike has only done a few kilometres so far but it seems to behave really well. Its lightness makes it agile and
reactive, the engine pulls hard and invites you to give full throttle. If you remind yourself that you are riding a Guzzi SP, the result is much better than you would imagine!
What happens to the bike now?
I built it as a demonstrator, to show what I could do at Fuchs Workshop and I didn’t intend to sell it. However, the day I released some images on the internet, I received an excellent offer from a collector who fell madly in love with it. So, as of February 2023, Enzo will live in the United States of America. I don’t want to say how much the offer was, but to build a similar bike would cost €40-50,000 (£34-42,000).
‘It was an abandoned restoration in four boxes. Naturally, I reassembled the engine with high compression pistons etc’