Ducati Diary

Page 7 of 11

French Leave

August 23, 2004 / / 0 Comments

It’s 6am on a Friday in June, and some sort of semi-conscious recollection tells me that this is D-Day for the annual club invasion of France and that I really should be heading for the nearest ferry terminal. After managing a state of denial about my increasingly frantic alarm, I finally give in to its electronic persistence and fall out of bed at 6:30. But by 7:20 I’m sitting on the loading ramp of the ferry in Portsmouth harbour.

Call me an antisocial git (form an orderly queue, please), but a 5am hack across 120miles of Southern England to reach the Chunnel with the main group is not my idea of wakeful fun. The fast SeaCat had been full (a P&O claim later denied by others) so I took the slow boat, arrived in Le Havre at 3pm and I was sitting in the bar in the Hotel Dauphin in L’Aigle by 4:30pm.

Which was probably a mistake, as I was cheerfully beered-up by the time everyone else arrived and great concentration was required to maintain conversation. Which of course explained my headache the next day – too much concentration, clearly. As before, the Hotel Dauphin was welcoming, hospitable and thoroughly pleasant. Pity then that I wasn’t there – along with the rest of the ‘disreputable bachelor’ contingent, I’d been booked into the only other nearby alternative, the Hotel Artus. L’Aigle is a small town and, it being national Musique week, everywhere was booked solid, so t’was Hobson’s choice. And I have stayed in worse: a flophouse in The Congo being about all that springs readily to mind. One night there was quite enough, after which bribery, corruption, luck and pathetic whimperings found me a place in Le Dauphin.

First Aside: when does a habit become a tradition? In each of the last two years a certain member of the club has entirely failed to finish the French trip on the same motorcycle he started on. That looks like a habit. Now it might be pushing it to claim that two years of expiring Ducati, BMW-hurling and deer attack can be called a tradition. Three I’d suggest lays a good claim. So, while sitting contemplating the joys of Biere pression, I heard motorcycles approaching. Particularly, I heard the sound of a v-twin exhaust playing continuo to the rattle of a Ducati clutch. “Aha”, thought I, “that’ll be either Malcolm or John, then”, just as a group of machines hove into view, led by Mr C’s Ducati. I’d just got as far as thinking, “Coo, he’s made it this ti…”, when I saw the state of the fairing. So let’s call it a tradition, shall we?

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Things that go Bang! in the Night

July 29, 2004 / / 0 Comments

There’s almost always more than one reason for something. “Stay away from the river: you’ll get wet and catch your death of cold; you’ll drown; it’s full of hungry piranhas”. Any and all of those are possibilities. But at least there’s fun to be had in going there anyway. Then there are lorries: big things; slowish; difficult to see around; lots and lots of kinetic energy. No fun at all to be had in going there. But lots of reasons to avoid the things.
The most common training mantra regarding lorries (and other suchwhich) and the overtaking thereof, is to hang back, clear of the vehicle, until your exit beyond is clear: i.e. do not sit up the back of the slow car overtaking the slower lorry, but wait until it’s crawled past and (hopefully) pulled back left. Reasons are, I hope, bleedin’ obvious – Big vehicles have Big blind spots. And you’re on something very small and vulnerable, should the Big decide to go elsewhere than it’s current trajectory. So, keep clear until you can get past in one smooth, fast manoeuvre (both wheels on the ground, by preference).
Further to the above, if you’re on a single carriageway road, you’re minimising your exposure time to oncoming vehicles and, on any road, you are giving yourself the greatest number of degrees of freedom of movement, to go forward, backwards or sideways depending on need.

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Flying the Flag

June 25, 2004 / / 0 Comments

The last few week, nay months, have given motorcyclists, cyclists, horseriders and road-crossing mammals a new game – dodge the flying England flag. These items are affixed (loosely) to a good many of the nation’s cars and are prone to being whipped off in the slipstream at any speed greater than that of an arthritic milkfloat. There may be one, two or more of these objects (I’ve seen five on one vehicle) and observation suggests that the number seen is in directly inverse proportion to the standard of the driving. So before I plunge further into rant mode on the things, I will consider the possibility that they should be made compulsory. Should they? Naah – the immediate problem of ducking the bloody things as they fly off at far outweighs the early-warning signs and, besides, such vehicles usually give off many other of the cues of approaching idiocy. I believe that all of this (and it took some investigation) is associated with some sort of football (that’s soccer to the Atlantically-challenged) competition that’s going on in Portugal as of this moment. While an early departure from this by England might be seen by some as a national tragedy, it can only be good for the heartrates of the rest of us. And, in the current furore over petrol prices, would any of the muppets displaying these be prepared to stomach an extra 5% on their petrol costs (at a rough guess) for the duration? Thought not.

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Spring Upgrade

April 30, 2004 / / 0 Comments

After a moderately soggy winter and some blusterily soggy early April days, today dawned bright, clear and without a cloud to sully the sky. With clients vaguely under control, I’d a couple of hours to bunk off and enjoy the arrival of Spring. So I did just that and trundled at a leisurely pace through Haslemere and thence onwards towards Chichester, picking up the pace on a nice selection of twisties.

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Goodwood Revived

September 7, 2003 / / 0 Comments

Here we are again: I’ve described the atmosphere and environs of Goodwood once before, for the Festival of Speed, but this is different — a festival, but not The Festival, and a full race programme rather than a hill-climb. This is the annual Goodwood Revival meeting, where the proud and doting owners of classic racing cars and bikes meet up for mutual admiration, conversation and annihilation, all held in front of a large crowd of enthusiatic spectators in period dress. Although which actual period seems to be a matter of some debate — anything from the 1940s to 1970s seems to be acceptable, although I couldn’t help but feel that some of the crowd wouldn’t, if challenged, have considered themselves to be in costume. Much tweed was apparent. As was a splendid selection of classic cars and bikes, as both competitors and spectators.

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The Marmite Machine

August 6, 2003 / / 1 Comment

Sometimes, just sometimes, there is no middle ground of opinion, no equivocation and no compromise possible for those times, places, events or objects which excite lust, disgust, incomprehension, inspiration or apoplexy — anything but apathy. As with Marmite (that’s Vegemite to the antipodally-challenged) itself, you either love it or hate it, and, if you’ve enough confidence in your product, you can even make an advertising campaign out of it. To be a tad more specific, if you are a motorcyclist and have ever seen a Ducati Multistrada, you have an opinion. You will either consider it an abomination, to be consigned to the pit whence it came, preferably as the headstone of its designer, Pierre Terreblanche, or as a bold and unconstrained leap into the future of what a motorcycle should be.

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Seeing the Light…

June 23, 2003 / / 0 Comments

It’s an early summer Sunday night, warm and rather humid. I’m heading out of London, in mellow mood, just watching the miles slide under my wheels on an empty A3. Past the M25, the stars all vanish. Somewhere near Guildford, the rain starts, and gets heavier and heavier, until I’m doing a good impression of a sea slug — at least it’s warm. Then the lightning starts up with a really good display of heavenly angst. I’m rather enjoying it, and just cruising along at a steady 80mph or so, with warm rain trickling down the back of my neck.

Then the world turned into a photographic negative — the black of the night replaced by an all-consuming whiteness. I felt a massive shock travel up from my fingers, down through my body and out through my toes (some people pay good money for that sort of thing). For a moment I actually felt that I was riding through a tunnel of light – Hallelujah! and all that. It was all over so quickly that I didn’t even have a chance to react, which was probably no bad thing.

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Good Frideday

April 18, 2003 / / 0 Comments

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My subconscious is obviously at work — it’s half-past six on Good Friday morning and I’m wide awake. A low dawn sun throws soft luminous patterns across wall, floor, duvet and the severalsome infeasibly large cats who are occupying far more than their fair share of the bed.

The awakening mind prompts again — it’s got a lot to deal with at the moment — some good, some bad and some merely paradoxical. But around and around it whirls all the same. The best medicine for this is the detachment of doing something — anything that requires total focus. This however from someone who, in the general course of things, is quite capable (to choose but two instances) of having malevolent door frames leap out and gratuitously bruise him or of losing the sunglasses that he’s been wearing for the last two hours — without taking them off.

That focus comes though, when I change modes — when I’m skiing, reading compelling books or listening to truly great music. But above all, it comes when I’m on the edge, in that space where enjoyment and survival depend on the interplay between concentration, judgement and execution. And that, for me, is when I’m skiing the high mountains, extreme mountain biking or motorcycling for its own sake. As it’s mid-April, and I’m in Southern England, let’s say it’s going to be a motorcycling day.

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(Un)Shiny Toy

October 14, 2002 / / 0 Comments

In Southern England, an only moderate spring and summer have suddenly sequed into a classical Indian Summer – it hasn’t rained at all for over two months. Today, it is absolutely pissing down. So guess when my new bike arrived?? Very nearly right – I actually picked it up yesterday afternoon, and managed the first 60 miles in the glow of a glorious Autumn evening, presumably running on residual kharmic credit. It’s been damply downhill ever since.

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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

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