Keeping the 490-pound Guzzi under control on both street and track is the slick Ohlins’ suspension. Featuring massive 43mm USD forks up front and a single shock out back, it makes for an extremely supple ride. I have spent a fair amount of time on Ohlins’-kitted bikes lately, and it really is incredible stuff. It’s not cheap to buy, but when it comes as original equipment, it costs you a fair amount less. The Café Sport retails for $23,700, not much more than the more basic Marzocchi/Sachs equipped variant of the V-11.

With the suspension being multi-adjustable at both ends for spring pre-load, rebound, and compression damping, the Café Sport is a fiddlers dream, with literally thousands of permutations available. I basically left things alone, as the stock settings worked fine for my 180 pounds. Prior testing and talking with Ohlins, the stock spring rates are aimed at street riding, with track springs readily available for more aggressive riders.

The controls on the Café Sport are Aprilia sourced items and perform just fine. It takes a little while to figure out the horn and turn signal with the buttons being reversed. The attractive levers are four-way adjustable and easy to set for your personal preference.

Gauges are round, the speedometer having white numbers on a black background. Ditto the tachometer, which has an 8000 rpm redline and an advisory yellow area from 7000 to 8000 rpm. Stretching the throttle cables, the bike makes useable power until it hits the rev limiter at 8250 rpm. This sort of behavior sees triple digits coming up fast, but it is not the Café Sport’s forte.

Looking around the bike, there are a lot of nice details to be found like the Ohlins steering damper, attached below the headstock and lower triple clamp. The use of braided steel lines for the small oil cooler, and the whole tidy view of the engine area is also first class. These days, I find myself put off by bikes that have ugly, cheap-looking clamps and wires sticking out everywhere. Not so on the Guzzi.

Back up on the handlebars, the hydraulic reservoirs for the brakes and clutch are attached with some nicely machined hardware. The brake lines also come in braided steel. The mirrors look good, but do little to inform you of what’s going on behind, as they need to have longer stalks and some way of damping the big twins vibes through the bars.