Yes, it’s been a GREAT many years, but there is a special place in my heart for this girl.. and I’d like to see if I can track here down. We sure had a lot of good times together!:
Goofing around on the best roads in the the Pacific North Wet;
Riding was not limited to the PNW either, I rode her all the way to the World Superbike Races in California one year!
Had some fun out on the race track too!!
The bike always held a special place:
I’m going to see what I can do to find her. I hope it survived over the years, and maybe I’ll get lucky enough to see her (and maybe own her) again. Only time will time.
UPDATE 1: 13-NOV-2014
So, looking for something like CarFax for bikes, I found this website https://www.cyclevin.com/ and ran a report. $25.00 later I find the first resale of the bike in 2003, and NOTHING after that! True, they had a record, but it’s basically worthless. Lesson learned… technically they provided the info they said they would.. but it’s totally incomplete.
CycleVin BUYER BEWARE!
UPDATE 2: 12-DEC-2014
Stumbled across this site, while looking at some Track Bike posts on Craig’s List. It’s the National Insurance Crime Bureau Running a VIN check on that indicates that the bike has not been reported a stolen or a total loss. More evidence that she’s still out there.. somewhere… waiting to be found.
Big things happening on July 13!
Bootstrapping a start-up is hard, expensive work. But when you hear the call, it simply must be done. This was the case with OutspokenNinja. Balancing life and business is sometimes a tricky tight-rope affair. I believe it can only be done with an understanding and supporting partnership with the family. I’m blessed to have such a partnership.
For those embarking on the road to starting up, or even re-inventing your business, having buy-in from your family is critical, for they are the true support system when the road gets bumpy, and it will.
I’m looking forward to sharing more about this experience, once we’ve come out of semi-stealth mode, so I hope you follow me and the team on this new adventure.
Well, it’s a high-strung bike, but over-heating on the street in comfortable temps (70F for example) is just NOT acceptable. I love the bike, but his is major issue. I’ve started work on trying to solve it. Here are some of the research points I’ve found, and lists of things that others have done.
This post will grow over time, and hopefully become a FINDABLE resource on the web, for the next owner of a gorgeous MV Agusta F4 1000R, that needs to solve this problem.
Here is a list of things another owner did, that I piked off of MVAGUSTA.NET:
Modified the shrouds on the MV fans to eliminate the gap between the stock shrouds and the rads. — APR-15: it took me a week to decide how I wanted to attack this. In the end it was much simpler than I’d thought. – read about my experience here
The fan switch circuit. All three fans come on with either the switch circuit or the ECU.
Opened up the bypass holes in the thermostat. 9-MAR. & 15-APR This seems like a simple thing to do to the thermo itself. My original plan t was to purchase a new thermostat to drill. In the end, I just modified the original by doubling the diameter the existing 6 bypass holes, which are extremely small due to the very narrow flange. Sorry, I don’t have any photos of this.
Engine Ice — 15-APR: the instructions implied you need to flus the entire system to use the engine ice. Not knowing if any of these tips were working, I opted to simply use Water Wetter from Redline mixed with existing anti-freeze and distilled water. This seemed to help a bit, but didn’t seem to make a dramatic improvement.
MV impeller
Silicone hoses
Coated the headers – having completed this modification, I’m unsure of how much benefit it really is, but I suspect there is some, considering the pipes are close enough to the cooling components to melt the original fasn! read about my experience, here
I ran the fans continuously below 40 mph. The important thing is to be able to get a jump on the temp before it gets up into the 200’s. It’s much easier to keep it cool than to have to bring it back down and keep it cool. On an average summer day, with the fairings on and the bike idling it would maintain 167F.
Hi-flow Bodywork
Another option found was to get these fairings with big openings to vent out the air. About $300 for the pair, and then of course I’ll need to get them painted too.. BUT it’s an option!
After opening the pipe, this is the view you get. From here, it was a matter of drilling out the center (drilled out a 2″ diameter with a 1 1/2 HP hammer drill), then hammering chisels along the sides to break up where it was attached to the inside of the section. The final step was using a 1/2″ drive 30″ extension to ram it out the cut-open end. This last part took a couple of hours, but eventually it was removed.
Final prep was a die grinder and grinding stones to the walls of removed section to clean up any remaining material. Inside there is a really BAD step section on the exit… and that’s something I was just not prepared for, nor did I deal with. It’s NOT ideal. If I’d known that was there I might have considered simply driving a new section of stainless THROUGH the core. But that might rattle, and I know that the way I did it, rattles are not going to happen. Once that was done, a good friend of mine put his TiG welding skills to use for me and sealed it back up.
Finally, the pipes were sent out for ceramic coating. That will be discussed in a separate section.
Wow, what a great morning for exotic cars! The variety was fantastic, from 1960’s vintage GT40 to the latest from McLaren, the 650S!! And plenty of heavy metal in between (including an epic MBZ SLS Black, in red).
Here is a gallery of the pics… ENJOY!!
Devil’s Go-Karts
A line of raging bulls
Other fine Italian machines
848 EVO taken to the pink level
Amazing color on this Gallardo
GT40 in the house!
Getting the kids started on the right foot
2nd time seeing this car in the last 24 hours… Maz’s are really catching my eye!!
Mexico Blue GT3RS with an epic 4.1L custom motor
Ah.. a throw back to my 911 days.
More of that GT40
Maseratti brought some examples of Italian awesome.
100 Octane – event organizer
Again, the Mexico Blue GT3RS
Ferrari 599.. (one of two seen today)
A mega-clean e30 ///M3 so sweet.
Thanks to the organizers, especially Benoit Boningue, fellow car club member and just plane cool dude.
If you ride a motorcycle, and have never been to California, you are truly missing out on one of the best places in the United States to ride a motorcycle. PERIOD.
Here a few photos from various places along a ride I took yesterday from Santa Cruz, CA, to Lucia,CA:
We met up with the remainder of the group in Carmel.
View Larger Map
We gassed up the bikes and prepared ourselves (with more caffeine of course) for what was about to transpire. Rich (on the 916) took the time to model his man-sack for us. I hear it’s last word in manly riding apparel for the Central Coast.
PCH17 – Carmel Meatup
From here on our, it was Ride like the Wind all the way to Lucia. We did stop once to regroup, turn on the video cameras and discuss the awesomeness so far:
PCH Ride – Bixby Bridge Top
The first of many great surprises on this ride, was our lunch destination in Lucia. Ah.. what a view! What a great place to relax after a spirited ride up Hwy 1.
Next stop. Nepenthe in Big Sur. Despite a hair raising incident with an inattentive tourist in a rental car, we made it there without obvious injury. Despite the fact that the highway was the destination and the star of the day, this pulled off a pretty convincing 2nd place.:
What a fantastic ride today. Perfectly organized (or properly disorganized?) group. It’s always a blast to right with these guys and gals. Looking forward to our next epic excursion!!
PS. Video will be added to the blog as soon as I can clear 132 GB of space on a computer, somewhere.
WOO! Another year on Ducati Island, and being able to take advantage of the fact I own a few Italian bikes (including 2 Ducati) was awesome. My son was with me for the first time this year and he got to experience the awesomeness that is Ducati Island first hand. It was a great weekend!!
The first few pics were of us wandering around there on Thursday, before things really kicked off. It was nice that nobody harassed us, and my son was able to test sit a few bikes before the crowds descended the next day.
Friday morning arrived early, and we set about stocking the trailer and getting ready to tow back to Laguna Seca.
Having secured an overflow camping site (one of the last handful as it turned out), the evening before, we embarked on the first campout at Laguna Seca for us; despite attending motorcycle racing there since the 1980’s.
It did not disappoint! Everyone has seen a trailer, so there are not many pictures of the expedition equipment itself, but Friday’s small crowd allowed for a leisurely day of exploring the vendors and taking some more snap-shots.
Lesson learned… technically they provided the info they said they would.. but it’s totally incomplete.
