Just back from a very busy few days. had a lizard ride around the East Cape and down to Napier and back, then a two day trip to Wellington for a small medical procedure which was not very nice and back home yesterday. So packed a few miles that's for sure. The ride was bloody good, had a KTM melt down and turn it's internals into fudge, then had a brand new Aprilia Tuono stop with a naffed TPS unit. The new owner was not a happy camper, but they gave him a 700 Tracer and he rode brilliantly all weekend on that. The weather was on it's best behavior and the roads, well the roads were pretty bloody good. They've obviously done a lot of work to them in the last couple of years. Since I wrote the Diavel off through potholes anyway. We came down the coastal way while some went the back way. I was blown away by the amount of people out free camping, tenting surf casting, swimming, just went on and on along the coast. I thought "shit these people are all out enjoying our wonderful country, isn't it fantastic". Had a great night in Havelock North, good accommodation and fantastic food. We are blessed here in NZ that's for sure. All the bikes at this point had gone well. Our visitor from America had a great time on his new to him Honda. Funny because only a few days before this bike was getting bigger pistons, cams and a lot of engine work. It was later seen wheel standing down the road at some pace. Great to watch. Quite a mix of bikes CF Moto 450's all the way up to a number of Dessert X's and 1260S Ducatis, quite a few Honda, a Suzuki, a couple of Harley Panavision's and a few KTM's. But an interesting smattering of bikes that's for sure. 19 in total. I dont always like riding in those numbers, but the roads and the weather made it pretty bloody good. Despite the caliber of some of the riders it was a very orderly and shall I say constrained ride. Everyone pretty much on their best behavior. Although having said that I did chase the Tracer from Ohope to Hicks Bay in a fairly spirited fashion and found myself grunting in my helmet a couple of times. That was really good fun. The 1260S is a weapon, but it's not light that's for sure. And while I'm on that, who the fuck in Ducati design their seats. For their premium 'grant touring' motorcycle, I've not had one that has had a comfortable seat. 250K's and my arse is crying out. I found I kept sliding forward, crushing my nuts and constantly having to shift back to get a better riding position. Take note Ducati ( I know they read my blog haha), but do a better job on the bloody seat. All in all though, we got to talking about how well todays bikes actually work, they all do a pretty good job and there wasn't that much room to complain about things. A far cry from the old days when frames were made out of spaghetti and tyres out of wood. Todays smorgasbord of models all do a bloody good job. Aren't we lucky.
Well that's that I suppose for the weekend.
OK, bear with me for a little bit please. I had a comment from anonymous asking me what I knew about bikes and in particular Ducati as they seemed to be highly represented in my installments. Well it got me to thinking how many Ducati's have I actually owned, so I started a list. And it goes kind of like this. I am sure that I have forgotten some. Now these are the bikes that I have owned and used. As an aside to this I have also purchased approximately 35-40 that I have owned but did not keep and sold. I've ridden them all and while I owned them I dont count them as my bikes. On top of this I have owned a myriad of other brands several several BMW's, more than a few Kawasaki's, Suzuki's, even three Hondas, a couple of KTM's and a few Huskies as well and cant forget Moto Guzzi's.. In total well over 120 motorcycles. I had a list once on an XL spreadsheet but that's long gone now. I recall that on that spreadsheet I entered the purchase price for the next motorcycle. I didn't take into account trade in values on the next purchase, just the cost of the motorcycle. It came out at over 450K. So I stopped after that haha. So here's the Ducati list. I'm not entirely sure but I know I have left a few off. Where I've written the bike twice or even three times, that means that I have had them again. Some say a sucker for punishment, but it happens, you miss a motorcycle and you find one at a good price so you buy it again.
So when people ask me what do I know about these bikes, I've a pretty well informed opinion on what is good and what is not.
500 Pantah
750 Limited edition Paso ( the first one in the Southern Hemisphere, white in color)
900 Super Sport
900 Superlight
916SP
916SPS ( the first one in the Southern Hemisphere)
996SPS
996 Biposto
900 Monster ( didn't like that one)
GT750 GT750
Cucciolo Cucciolo
F1 Ducati F1 Ducati F1 Ducati
MHR900
MHR1000
MHR NCR 900
996 Café Custom
Multistrada 1200S Multistrada 1200S Multistrada 1200S
Multistrada 1260S
Bimota DB4R
Bimota DB4S
Diavel Diavel
750 Paso 750 Paso
That's 30 that I can remember
As an aside to this I was in the Local Ducati store in Wellington, and as you'd expect I got rounded up by the new sales person there ( everyone I knew over the past 25 years has gone). He as ked me if I had owned any Ducatis to which I replied "well yes ". His eyebrow went up "which one?", he asked. I laughed. But when I mentioned a few of them you could see he did not know the models ( Bevels, Cucciolos Pantahs) . I mean I'm not a train spotter sort of person, but I do know my Ducati history reasonably well. I suggested that he do some quick homework trying not to be too condescending.
The first image here was from my 50th birthday invite, which had a few of the bikes that I had owned on it. At one stage I even tried to have the photos all taken from the same place, but that didn't work out.
And for those that dont know, this is Ducatis first motorcycle engine, designed to mobilize the Italian workforce after the devastation on WW2. Normally appeared in BSA frames. The little pup as it was affectionately know, but true name Cucciolo
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