30 days meandering through Europe on a Moto Guzzi V100 Stelvio sounds like bliss , Carolyn and Kel Rood take us through the bike and the adventure .

It is well known among my riding friends that where I go on a bike , my wife goes too and I wouldn ’ t have it any other way . After decades of riding many brands of motorcycles , I became a “ Guzzista ” after buying a V85TT in November 2020 . Of the 30,000km I have covered on it , 90 % of them have been with my wife and motorcycle companion Carolyn , who is as equally endeared to that machine as I am . We regard this bike as the quintessential dual purpose meanderer ; in that it is superbly efficient on both tarmac and back country gravel roads . We rate the V85TT so highly that in 2023 we hired one in France and spent five weeks riding over 6500km around seven European countries ( France , Austria , Germany , Belgium , Luxembourg , Italy and Switzerland ) enjoying the dramatic and spectacular scenery through the French , Swiss and Italian Alps . Of course this experience included a ride over the infamous Stelvio Pass , a mountain pass in northern Italy bordering Switzerland and known to be the highest paved mountain pass in the Eastern Alps and second highest overall . During that tour we also had an opportunity to visit Mandello del Lario ; the home of the Moto Guzzi factory and museum where we heard about some new bike models that Moto Guzzi was releasing in the future . Forward to October 2023 , we attended the NZ launch of the Mandello V100 . We were certainly