Hey, I remembered another one!
(Also, after reading about so many of you finding your soul mates after offering the pillion seat to them I remembered that I, too, met a gal, had some drinks, took her for a ride on the mighty Jota and dated her for a couple years. But I don't think that's something that only happened because of the Laverda.)
(I did have a girlf that just wanted me to ride around in 3rd gear just below 4000 rpm... just a little further... almost there... It's always a threesome on a Laverda triple.)
In San Francisco in the 1990s it was a popular amusement for the crackheads to snap the tail light lens off your motorcycle and then try to sell it in what we called a 'crack mart', which was a crackhead sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by garbage asking for money. (Nowadays they just ask for money... they don't have crack heads anymore like they did in my day... not even trying to be good capitalists anymore. Fentanyl, jeez.)
So there went my tail light lens one night. Not a hope in the world of sourcing a Laverda tail light lens in the early days of the internet, in the U.S. I went in to the local former-slash-again Triumph dealership (Munroe Brothers) to see if they had a cross reference for it but no dice.
"Do you have a tail light lens for a 1983 Laverda RGA?"
Man flips through some books. Gets some other books and flips through them.
"No."
My cross reference was me walking around San Francisco looking at every motorcycle tail light lens I could peep to see if it matched my beloved.
There were a lot of motorcycles in San Francisco in the '90s, and I was a bike messenger. I looked at all of them; all day long. Every stupid one I could sniff its ass I did.
It took a while. In the meantime I put a Honda CB750 lens on there. I probably could sell that lens for a pretty penny today.
One day all my hard work paid off. My pal and I heard an unusual motorcycle engine, and the rider was backing in to a parking spot right next to us. I can only elucidate this in dialog, so hear goes:
"Hey, that's an unusual bike; what is that?"
"It's a Cagiva Alazzurra."
"Hey! That's my tail light lens!"
"No.. no that's my tail light lens."
"No, I mean I have a Laverda and a crackhead stole my tail light lens and I've spent the past three months looking at every tail light lens in San Francisco. The one on your Alazzurra matches my Laverda's; now I just need to source one of those." (I might have added, "I'm not a crackhead" but I'm sure I sounded like one.)
Back down to Munroe Motors a week later, maybe.
"Do you have a tail light lens for a Cagiva Alazzurra?"
Man looks to his left, extends an arm, produces a tail light lens.
"Do you mean this one?"
"Yes. That's the very one, thank you."
Happy as a kid leaving a candy store with a pocket full of gobstoppers I walk out and bump right into Mr. Cagiva Alazzurra walking in. I'm carrying the lens in front of me, marveling at it, seeing how it takes in the suns rays. Mr. Alazzurra and I nod at each other.
Took a few beats for the penny to drop. I was thinking, "Gee, isn't it funny that they keep the Alazzurra tail light lenses right there next to the parts counter? And how much of a coincidence was it that the Alazzurra guy was right there in the Triumph dealership at the same time as I was? Only a week after I told him how hard it was to find these tail light lenses, and the crackheads keep stealing them. Gee it's a small world. Oo, shiny new tail light lens!"
We all know that, that stunt requires the SF to be going down hill at 60mph and shifting into second.
