Felt like my left foot was turning into a cloven hoof, the gearchange changing into a piece of dung the further I got from the previous owner's home. Was I once again to turn out a gullible fool? With used bikes bought privately I had a fifty percent success rate - I was due to take a bath again. By the time I rolled up at my house, it was patently obvious that I'd bought a dog! Looking down, imagine my relief to find merely a loose gearchange lever!
The owner had sold the bike to me as a prime example of the Ducati vee twin breed, only two owners and 7000 miles. Given that they have a rep for a dodgy finish, it certainly looked the business. Only a Philistine would call it anything other than beautiful - I preferred it to the much hyped 916, at least with regards to its looks.
The next morning it spat out smoke like an old man does phlegm. The engine made grinding noises as the starter spun before the motor caught; something I've always had a phobia about - heavy mechanical noises in the early morning did my head in! The exhaust note soon drowned out everything else, including coherent thought at that time of the day.
The explosion of angry combustion caused the nutters next door to pop their heads over the fence - saffron coated, crew cut, religious fanatics. The first bite of early morning acceleration hit me like a quick taste of sake (that's what my Japanese friend reckoned he was brewing in his basement).
After that it was all a bit of a saga. The big vee twin wanted to bound forward with maximum violence whilst the traffic wanted to close all the possible escape holes. Salad days with the Duke included many a near miss - thank goodness for its powerful discs! Trying to ride slowly was like rubbing salt into the wounded pride of the SS - its clutch went all jerky and the motor threatened to (but never actually did) cut out. I tried to bolster my ego by running along at high revs in first and second. The glorious noise went down as well as the time I'd pissed in a public swimming pool. The engine didn't so much vibrate as feel as if something was on the verge of locking up solid, though it never went that far.
Because of the riding position, I had to bob my head up and down, checking the tarmac ahead and then the traffic. If you were into bondage and SM then the riding position might be thought comfortable but, for me, I found anything less than 80mph made no sense at all. After the first ride into work I felt like I'd been seriously abused. I was a tad embarrassed to get off the bike in a stagger reminiscent of the more depraved bum-boys. I almost fell into a trough of depression but got myself together before I had to confront my workmates, came up with the usual spiel about how brilliant it was.
Coming home the weather turned stormy, the engine cutting out. Formerly lithe and controllable, the bike seemed stout and unsteady. I only made it back by pretending to strafe the cages that got in the way, a straggle of inconveniently placed auto's. WD40 cleared up the ignition hassles and straightened out my mind the following day when it was nothing but rain. A few more days of that left the bike looking a bit wretched, with loads of rust and alloy corrosion sprouting out of control. Could've reduced a grown man to tears - just as well I'm still a juvenile delinquent, then!
The weekend finally came around, time for the open road and some speed kicks. Much more fun, shooting around at 120mph and going into corners far faster than my mates on Jap fours. They had the last laugh when I collected two speeding tickets on the same day. Extreme mental trauma that - the first real outing, I get done every which way! I think the cops have something against big red motorcycles. Or perhaps, just the way the handling and power encouraged me on to ever crazier riding. Whee!
The next week, a not so gentle trawl through heavy traffic. The clutch nasty, the motor demanding to be given its head. I'd expected some low rev torque, the kind of beat you could luxuriate in, but the SS didn't really want to know. Violently self-willed and obstinate just about summed up the headstrong Ducati. In some ways quite hazardous as it often pushed me to ride a bit harder than I really wanted. The motor may've been tweaked because another SS I came across couldn't keep up, like they were different models! I couldn't see any telltale signs of the heads' bolts being tampered with, so maybe I was a better rider than I thought. Or not!
A sunny spell revealed just how much of an old heap, in appearance, the Ducati had become. It shone up okay but the polishing sessions soon became a regular (twice weekly) necessity. They should come with parasols, or something. Other peccadillos included gumming up the calipers (nothing a good kicking couldn't sort) and losing one of the mirrors. And there were a couple of smears of oil where some of the engine casings met. To keep the level topped up took half a litre of lubricant a week.
There was no doubting the bike's pedigree, many Ducati's put on a pedestal by their admiring owners. I could almost feel its history seeping out of the components. Nevertheless, I had some negative feelings. A montage of near misses and recalcitrant metal often popped up in my mind when I should've been working or glued to the TV. As if my subconscious tried to warn me off! I became almost as moody as the Ducati. All it took to revive my spirits was a blast out in the countryside when the sun was shining. The bike egging me on to greater things, only complete paranoia about more speeding fines holding me back!
Talking of moolah, I was in dread of the fines to come, and possible ban, for picking up two tickets in one day. I was hoping the fact that they happened in two different counties might confuse them. With that in mind, when someone offered me £500 more than I'd paid for the Duke I was well relieved to see the back of it. I moped around the house for a few days for no sane reason that I could see, but soon found happiness in a cheap CBR600.
H.E.T.