Day -1 at the U.S. Red Bull MotoGP in Monterey CA was quiet, but attended more heavily than expected. The day before the official start of the event is always interesting.
I meet the vendors while they are setting up, and for those that are already selling, I start relationship building with them. This always pays off in many ways, not the least of which is simply meeting new people, and often old “friends” from events past.
Here are some photos of the wanderings around we did on Day -1.
Last night we had the 2nd meeting up of the Nor Cal Ducati Club this evening in at Cibo, in Monterey CA.. It was a nice evening, warm, sunny and the food was quite enjoyable, but the company made it all worth the ride. And a bit of a challenging ride it was!
I met up with Dimitri on his cool Monster900 (a deal may be in the works soon!), at the Vista Point on Highway 1, for the ride to Monterey.
View Larger Map
We waited a little while to try and catch a couple of riders coming down from the North Bay, but by 5:30 PM we decided it was time to head south. We didn’t make it far before we were caught in a massive traffic jam on Hwy 1. It was a virtual parking lot, we were going nowhere.
Fortunately we both knew of an alternate route and turned around on Hwy1. By the time we reached Castroville, the traffic heading north was also backed up for miles. A check of the local news sources didn’t reveal the cause of all this chaos, but I heard that at least one person was life-flighted from and accident scene on the highway.
We arrived in Monterey a little later than planned but it was no matter, there were two parking spots for us in front of Cibo, so we pulled in, popped off the helmets and met up with the southern contingent of the Nor Cal Ducati Club. It was nice little array of fine Italian machines on display:
Thanks to The Bear for setting this all up. Looking forward to the next Ducati Bike Night.
Awaking this morning, I decided to put together this little rundown of my two liter-class Italians. For a pair of bikes with remarkably similar style, their characters are vastly different.
Here is the 411:
Finding a race dash brace for the 749 was far harder than I thought it would be. Nobody listed the part new, so it was off to eBay I went. Even there the options were very slim. I found one in Europe, and another here on the West Coast of the US.
The part in Europe was one of the highest recommended solutions, but price was over $150 not including the costs and issues with international shipping. The other option was a part made by Lockhart Philips, located just 70 miles north of me in Santa Rosa. I pulled the trigger on the local part and had it within a couple of days.
Having removed the street bodywork last week, I found that having it on the floor was not a good option, so a quick trip to the hardware store to get some bicycle hangers solved the problem. Up, safe, and out of the way.
With the street bodywork away, the search is one for suitable track bodywork. Much like the race brace, it’s not the simplest to find. More information on that once I have my decision made in that regard.
Having the bodywork issue resolved, and the race brace in hand, the front assembly for headlights and dash were dispensed with. Despite the size, they were not nearly as heavy as I had anticipated. But they were a little challenging to remove with more than 9 bolts holding the two halves together, and another 4 attaching them to the frame. Access to some of the bolts was not the simplest either. Never the less, it’s done.
After a couple of hours of test fitting and trying to decide where to mount the fuse block, the bracket was installed and the wires tidied up.
The updated view of the cockpit.
Having the bike in the shop for a few days now, and have been putting the plans together for the transformation.
First order of business was to remove the street plastic and start working on removal of all the street parts.
Having ridden the bike more than 100 miles from Redwood City to the shop, I knew it was in good running order, with a couple of exceptions. All the same, have the bodywork off makes it easier to examine things closely and determine if any additional work needed to be done.
I plan to run the bike at Laguna Seca, and the maximum sound limits are pretty strict. So, the cool Remus exhaust…
had to be replaced with the very heavy and not very sexy looking stock component.
The dash and headlights are in great shape, and I hope to keep them that way. However track bikes do not need lights. Most organizations will let you run the bike on the track if you tape them off. But I plan to remove them all together and replace the entire assembly with a race bracket. One other item that needs to be dealt with, is the lack of a factory steering stabilizer on the Ducati 749 Dark. :/ That’s not going to be cheap.
One of the repair issues I have is a leaking right front shock fork. It’s not easy to see, but it’s much wetter than it should be, and it’s known to be leaking. I knew this when I bought it. Since the forks will be re-worked for the track, I’m not too worried about it, especially since the previous owner supplied me the repair parts.
Another bit that I want to address is the clutch cover. This is looks very sturdy, and I’m sure will work far better than the stock stamped sheet metal cover in a crash. However I plan to replace it with one identical to that which I run on my 1098. It’s made by Woodraft and has a replaceable slider.
(originally published January 25th, 2010)
Awaking this morning, I decided to put together this little rundown of my two liter-class twins. For a pair of bikes with remarkably similar dimensions, and engine type, their characters are vastly different. Some of this is clear in the HP and weight differences, but it goes beyond that. There is a ‘feeling’ you get when riding a Ducati that no other bike I’ve owned, delivers.
Here is the 411:
Here it comes, yet another bike project. The question you might be asking… “Will he actually finish this one?” OF COURSE!!! Well, that intent is always there. One major difference in this project, is that the bike I’m starting with ACTUALLY RUNS!. And not just runs, but is perfectly road worthy. After buying the bike, I road it 100 miles home, over some of the best local twisty roads this area has to offer (to be honest, these are some pretty good roads by any standard!).
Here is what I’m starting off with. A 2004 Ducati 749 Superbike. She sure looks good, doesn’t she? Why I’d take a perfectly nice looking bike like this and turn it into a track sled might seem boggling to some (and perfectly sensible to others). Well, let me start off by saying that the bike was CHEAP! I mean, 1990’s 600 sport-bike cheap. A 1990 Honda CRB600 generally goes for more than I paid for this bike. Beside the fact the Ducati really is a track weapon, this one was also eminently affordable. 🙂
Now stay tuned as I work my way through this bike, get it ready to hit the track, and of course, shoot some video along the way! 😀
Yes, Sunday was a great day for a ride. Met up with some pals in Gorst (armpit of Puget Sound) and we headed across the Hood Canal Bridge.
Oh.. we tried to cross the bridge, instead we spent a little time waiting for one of the NAVY subs to transit the canal, which requires them to open the bridge.
Ripping the Testing Grounds
Rumbling down Hwy 101
Well, due to events outside of my control, I’ve decided to cut my Stacation short, and take more time off next month. Plans seldom survive first contact with enemy. This one did not.
My 2nd part of the vacation could have proceeded as normal, but I decided the increased cost (up 20% from last year!), lack of big factory demo truck support (only Kymco was going to appear) and what sounded like a very tentative offer by South Sound BMW to offer a few demos, and without my best friend there to share the roads with, the value proposition became inverted. The hundreds of dollars the event would have cost me are better spent elsewhere.
I hope Tom gets his rally sorted out soon. In the past it was THE EVENT of the year in the PNW, big name speakers, factory demo trucks, awesome food and t-shirts included (last year was the first where the t-shirt was an extra $$$$ add-on.). Pfffft. Plus the fair grounds re-did a bunch of the shower/camping facilities to make them a little *less* accessible to us.
Oh well. I’ll put together my own route for August, toss some camping into it and hit the things I want to hit. Mary Hills Loop Road. Been there, done that, and frankly, it’s not all THAT awesome to me. Others find it heavenly. To each our own.
Oh, and I won’t miss the every hour freight trains that keep the campers awake all night if you don’t sleep with ear plugs. :/
It came up in one of the discussion boards I frequent, the question of personalized plates.
Over the years, I’ve had a few. Most of them long gone, and mostly forgotten, but there is one that I did keep.
This plate was on the first new motorcycle I ever purchased. A 2000 Honda VFR (aka RC46). Yellow of course! Not long after the purchase of the bike, I registered the domain name RC46.COM. I long let it lapse. It was picked up by someone else about 8 years ago. Now it’s parked at sedo.com a domain auction/resale site.
What was fun, is that I did find it captured in the ‘Internet Wayback Machine‘. Here are a few snapshots.:
I don’t think I’ve had any personalized plates in WA. Maybe I have and I’ve simply forgotten. I do run LEM plates on my cars and motorcycles, but they are not really ‘personalized’. I do this for many reasons. One of which is that they are very easy to remember when filling out hotel registrations. 🙂 When on a road trip, not having to run outside to check a plate is just one little thing that makes life a bit easier.
