Category: Diary (Page 5 of 7)

Semi-random thoughts and observations on the world as seen by enthusiast riders and drivers, or at least by this one. Your mileage may vary.

STealth Bomber

September 28, 2002 / / 1 Comment

Here’s where I come full circle: I’m doing higher mileages and longer distances — over 400 mile plus days on a 748 are entirely doable, but my back, neck, knees and occasional passengers are starting to ask telling questions. The 748 is also building a highish mileage, so everything points towards it being time for a change. Reluctantly, as I’ve had a great time with this machine — It does need a new chain and sprockets, and the rear tyre is looking just a tad distressed. Apart from needing a bit of a freshen-up at its forthcoming 18000 mile service, it’s running beautifully.

So what to go for? The first intent — a 999, in standard or S form, has already been dealt with, on the grounds of comfort and cost. The Aprilia Futura looks good (yeah, my taste is weird like that), but is a little characterless; the BMW R1150GS is great, but doesn’t quite do it, and the new Honda VFR800 is a two-stroke reincarnate. So it’s a Ducati ST4s, that’s what. The ST4s: take a concept — that of a sports tourer, then hand the development over to a bunch of Italian engineers who can’t, under any circumstances, bring themselves to put the ‘tourer’ before the ‘sports’. They started by taking the 996 engine, retuning it slightly for more low-down torque and stuffing it into the ST frame. They then found that, with the less restrictive low-level exhausts, it puts out MORE power than the 996, not less. Thus inspired, they went to town on the suspension, with a very shiny remote pre-load Ohlins rear shock and Showa Titanium-nitrided forks, complemented by lightweight Marchesini 5-spoke wheels. That’s nice, then. All wrapped in the now-trad ST bodywork, with big tank, comfy dual set and pillion grabrail. Not to forget the pannier mounts. And a centre stand. So practical too. Continue reading

IAM: Inevitable and Absolute Mayhem

September 16, 2002 / / 1 Comment

Brought to you by the Institute of Advanced Muppetry. Not the venerable IAM itself, you understand, but a number of its members. You what? OK, let’s rewind for a moment: start with a very good idea – to organise a track day for IAM-affiliated clubs, specifically for those people who’ve been put off track days by some of the on-track behaviour and the generally testosterone-soaked atmosphere around these events. Sounds good. Then pick an experienced organiser and book Cadwell Park, one of THE great bike circuits, anywhere. Sounds very good. In fact there’s about twenty people from WVAM going, which should make it a nice sociable occasion.

Now fast-forward to the day itself. [By this device I conveniently gloss over my hurling of toys from the group pram on the ride up — sorry, but 120 miles in four hours through 30/40mph limits on a 748 is going to do in anyone’s head (and in my case, their back). The journey improved though – the second, solo, 120 miles was over clear and wonderful roads and took an hour-and-a-half. Antisocial git that I am.]

Continue reading

Been a While…

February 28, 2002 / / 0 Comments

Indeed it has — sixteen months since the last update. In mitigation, m’lud, I have managed a few updates on the project pages, albeit more out of duty rather than enthusiasm. The management, what there is left of it, wish to apologies for a service interrupted by the overdue/untimely* collapse of the tech/new media sector, fallout therefrom and assorted other traumas which have no place in a site about motorcycling. I do still have the 748, despite having done depressingly little riding for some time. Time to do something about that. I’ve also registered and moved the site here, to www.ducati.info, so have rather painted myself into a corner if I want to buy anything else…

Continue reading

Maxing Madly…

September 6, 2000 / / 0 Comments

England leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve been away. I get back. Drive home from the airport. On the way, decide to fill car up – head for my local gas station, only to find a queue of vehicles heading off into the middle distance. I decide that civilisation has in fact collapsed in my absence, something I always suspected would happen. Turn radio on to discover that the English have finally learnt something from the French and blockaded the oil refineries as a protest against high fuel prices. Continue reading

This Little Piggy Went to Dorking…

July 16, 2000 / / 0 Comments

…and hung around to hassle innocent motorcyclists.
As the weather forecast for Sunday morning was good (being England, this simply meant it wasn’t actually raining), there was a early rideout to the new Ducati Owner’s Club venue — the Punchbowl Inn, at Oakwoodhill near Ockley in Surrey. The early bit was dedicated to the production and consumption of large volumes of strong coffee, before everyone felt sufficiently aware to survive the ride down via breakfast cholesterol at Box Hill. That was the good bit of the day — things went rather pear-shaped thereafter.

Continue reading

“My Fellow Amphibians…”

July 6, 2000 / / 0 Comments

OK, so it wasn’t actually snowing this time. Which is about all that could be said for the California (hah!) Superbike School Level 1 course at Cadwell Park. This time, I’d taken no chances and had ridden up the previous day, staying at a B&B near the circuit. However, come 7am and scrutineering, the local ducks were waterskiing on the Cadwell hairpin. So we all trooped into the first classroom session feeling a tad dispirited, and waited for the whole thing to be cancelled. Not a bit of it: “It’s wet out there, but that’ll focus you all on riding smoothly, won’t it?” Guess so – in fact only one person binned it, and that in the dry at the end of the day. Format? Simple – five track sessions, interspersed with classroom lessons, each adding another element to the mix of things to try. The order went something like:
Throttle control and no brakes drill – fourth gear only: lap times in the 2’15” range. In fact the ‘one gear, no brakes’ bit was something of a theme for the day. Then Turn Points – bloke standing at edge of track pointing to bit of tarmac at which to turn in. Ah, that late? Lap times down to around 2’03”, just by concentrating on turn-in. Next, Quick Turns: in late and use scarily heavy counter-steering to take bike to desired lean angle as quickly as possible. Lap times around 1’58”. Rider Input — better use of information, camber and track reading. Another 6 seconds off the lap time. And, finally, the Two Step — putting everything together with greater anticipation of the stages of the corner. Final result: lap times around 1’49”. OK, so some people could run around the Cadwell short circuit faster, but that wasn’t the point – it was all about technique, being smooth and thinking ahead. Definitely felt like I’d achieved something.

Continue reading

England: Weather, Not Climate

April 12, 2000 / / 0 Comments

Let’s see: Friday through Monday — cloudless skies, warm breezes and everyone wandering around in shorts and T-shirts. Tuesday: Wet, windy and ‘orrible. Wednesday: The day I’ve booked myself on Keith Code’s California Superbike School’s training day at Brands Hatch. Wonder what the weather’s going to be like?
Scrutineering for the day is at 7am and I live about 65 miles from Brands Hatch, so it’san early start, with everything (including waterproofs) laid out the night before, ready for a quick start. By 5:15am (when?!) I’m kitted up and ready to go, so it’s time to fling back the curtains and see whether I should put my waterproofs on. White. Very white. Nothing but bloody white. Total blizzard conditions. Thanks a bundle — it’s hard not to take this sort of thing personally. So layer up with full skigear and waddle out to the garage. Start the bike (with unspoken apologies to the neighbours for warming up a race-piped Duke at 5:30am). Onto the bike and slither backwards down the drive, both wheels locked, until I reach the road. Ice, slush and a delicate snow topping. Yum. Comfort myself with the thought that, with our village’s local microclimate, it’ll be fine a couple of miles down the road. Optimist. Thirty minutes later, I’m ten miles away in Milford and things are, if anything, worse — riding through ridged slush, with wet sleet freezing solid on my visor. Visibility zero — can’t even see the damned instruments. It’s a silly game and I don’t want to play any more.

Continue reading

Gratuitous Nostalgia

March 26, 2000 / / 0 Comments

Now I’m sure that I said somwhere in these ramblings that I wasn’t getting back into biking to recapture any notional lost youth — I ‘m well rid of most of that part of my life. Bikes are about the now and the appreciation of the performance that the finest modern engineering can deliver. No intention of staggering around the countryside on any under-tyred, flexi-framed nostalgia special. Absolutely not. Right?

Continue reading

Making Progress

March 18, 2000 / / 0 Comments

So I passed my Advanced Motorcycling Test. Just what does that really mean? Not a lot, really — I’d regard the IAM test as the minimum starting point for being able to demonstrate control of a motor vehicle in good conditions with a favourable wind. Where then do I go from here?
In my earlier biking incarnation, I’d been an instructor with the old RAC/ACU training scheme in Edinburgh and later with Cambridge’s CAMrider Rider training scheme. That was around the time that compulsory basic training (CBT) came along and moved the whole teaching thing onto a professional basis, thereby rather taking the fun out of it for us enthusiastic amateurs.
What we have now of course is organisations like the WVAM, where enthusiasts give their time to help train people up to and beyond the Advanced Test standard. I like the idea of doing that — of keeping the cycle of learning going and having a good time with people whose riding you can trust — that and going ballistic down a wide assortment of twisty country roads.
So I put myself down for assessment as a candidate for Group Observer training with WVAM. Which is how I came to be standing in Box Hill car park at some ungodly hour last Saturday morning, stuffing coffee and a Ryka’s bacon butty into my face while our little company of five assembled — three potential trainees and two of the groups most experienced Observers. This was a 3-4 hour assessment ride, to work out if each of us was up to the required standard to go into Observer training. Rather than a prescriptive ride to arbitrary road rules,it was to be all about how we did (or didn’t) demonstrate the hallowed combination of Progress with Restraint — making the first while demonstrating the second.

Continue reading

Testing Times

December 29, 1999 / / 0 Comments

It’s the 29th of December. The temperature’s -4°C, the roads are like glass (the bits that aren’t are caked with diesel and salt) and it’s 7:15 am — a time I normally only ever see from the other end of the day.
So why am I even thinking about getting my bloody bike out? The usual excuse of congenital insanity doesn’t even hold this time, as the decision was made several days in advance, following a call from the IAM’s examiner for the advanced test — something I’d applied for back in November, when ‘dry roads’ wasn’t an oxymoron. I’d had one non-attempt at the test already — earlier in December, we’d arranged a Saturday morning. On the day, it was throwing it down and I had major-league jetlag. My server had also crashed so I obviously needed to go into London to reboot it (turned into a three day rebuild, but never mind :)), so that was a good enough excuse to cry off. This was the rerun.
I’d even managed to get some practice in — for a couple of hours on Boxing Day the gales died down and a strange yellow light appeared in the sky. That was enough to persuade me to kick the tyres and head out for a quick 70 miles down my second-favourite local road, the infamous A272. There is a certain perverse pleasure to be had in successfully and semi-smoothly negotiating conditions that, taken on their own, you’d simply choose a motocross machine for — washdown, leaf residue, tractor mud and diesel from numerous elderly horseboxes heading out for the Christmas Point-to-Points. All good practice at keeping a smooth line and learning good throttle sense — accelerating and slowing as far as possible without using the brakes — I managed thirty miles of twisties and villages at a halfway decent pace without touching either brake lever.

Continue reading

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Ducati Diary

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑