Month: May 2010

Gravity 1: Multistrada 0.

In my unending quest to bring enlightenment and knowledge to the world of the Ducatisti, I have taken one more tiny step towards Zen mastery (which must now put me on about the level of the average grasshopper) – this time to answer the speculation on various online fora about the potential cost of an off-road drop of the Multistrada 1200. Here’s the answer: zip. nada. nowt. bugger all. OK, that’s on a sample size of one: your mileage may vary. Turning around on a local forest track, I ran out of steering lock and decided to hop off to back ‘er up, only to discover that the ground was further away than I thought. A lot further away – I’m 6’, with 34″ inside leg, but it still went past its balance point, at which point, whether or not it’s 20kg lighter than a GS became entirely moot – it’s a big, tall bike, and it was gone. Having convinced a couple of passing deer that very bad-tempered bears had been reintroduced to the Highlands, I hauled it back upright. Not a single, solitary scratch, scrape or ding. Relieved, impressed and relieved, in that order. Now off to put an ice pack on my knee…

Dude, Where’s My Ducati?

For the last three weeks, I’ve been revisiting my childhood as the kid who can’t wait to get downstairs and open his Christmas presents, only to be frustrated by an entirely unreasonable (in my self-obsessed juvenile view) parental moratorium on leapings around before 5:30am. This time however the problem is not adult whim but the non-appearance of Santa’s sleigh — the one carrying my new Ducati. I’m fed up, the dealer is fed up and the ever-helpful Ducati UK are no doubt fed up with my plaintive — and no doubt still self-obsessed — phone calls. My bike was the second UK order and, apparently, was built as such, in the first batch of black 1200S Touring spec bikes. It was then loaded onto the trailers that were to go to the UK. No problem so far. What has apparently happened is that the shipping company have picked up the trailers in the wrong order. And, to judge by the 14-day lead time from Bologna to the UK, they bring them here via Central Africa. Guys, I could CYCLE from Bologna to the UK in less than 14 days…

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