The road was fast and loose, the Ducati was taut and close to putting 120mph on the clock. I could bank over until the tip of my boot caressed the fast flowing tarmac, yet when the road swerved violently in the other direction just a bit of knee pressure and muscular input had the 900SS changing direction without any of the signs of trauma that had plagued my previous Japanese bikes. The motor thrust out its power in an instantaneous way so typical of vee twins, made all the more apparent in the big Duke’s case by its mere 420lbs.
These impressions were rather at odds with my initial experiences. My first ride had my left wrist screaming at the pressure needed to pull in the clutch, my back in a frenzy each time the wheels hit a pot-hole as the suspension seemed still as stiff as the day the bike rolled out of the factory, and my mind was warped by the ill-running at low revs, the motor threatening to stall at any moment.
A stalled 900SS motor in the middle of traffic was not my idea of heaven; the kickstart lever was incredibly hard to use, as ill-placed as it was poorly geared to the high compression of the motor, whilst the electrics had been stripped down to the extent that the battery had been dumped and a bloody great capacity sulked under the seat. All hell broke loose when it rained and the motor tried to imitate a 450 single.
But that wasn’t enough to put me off. The 900SS has the same kind of reputation as big Harleys, it inspired love and loyalty despite its all too many faults. Even on the test ride, taking a large handful of throttle in second gear gave the engine a lovely growl and the Duke a gut bursting, grin inducing burst of acceleration that nearly put me through the back of a meandering Morris Minor. It wasn’t just the sight of such an odious car that made me want to throw up.
The twin Brembo discs out front, fitted incidentally off a nearly new Guzzi as the original calipers were cracked (they, along with a large pile of equally useless bits were thrown in as part of the deal), but not sharing that machine's linked brakes, had the kind of vicious action and lack of feel that left me in dread of them in the wet, but would howl, nay smoke, the front tyre on dry roads. Until I became used to the way the Ducati moved the brakes saved me from disaster on several occasions.
On fast A-roads the front brake was even vicious enough to cause the ultra-rigid front forks to dive, slightly, which caused the old girl to shake her head at my ineptitude. It would have made more sense to dab the back brake lever, but that had long given up working through a combination of 15 years worth of abuse, vast quantities of English rain thrown off the poorly protected back wheel and chain, and total neglect of the previous owner (who claimed to have never used a back brake in his life, under the amusing impression that it was there only to be employed when the front brake failed).
This paucity of sensitive braking made slow speed town work a horror story which would be enough to put many a punter off motorcycling for life. Of course, the riding position didn't help, it seemed to emphasize the heaviness, awkwardness and violence of the controls and was entirely ill-matched to my short, portly frame. The seat was the kind of evil bit of violence on my backside that in other circumstances would allow me to claim massive damages.
Vibration was a sort of subtle chainsaw type buzz that came and went according to both engine revs and loading. The directness of the 900SS experience meant it would often only become noticeable after an hour or so of highway excess, when I'd suddenly find that I'd lost all feeling in a foot or hand. Various bits would probably have fallen off, had not a whole string of past owners taken the trouble to wire in bolts and rubber mount chassis parts. Or perhaps I'm just getting too old and cynical.
You really need the suppleness and slimness of youth to get the best out of the 900SS. It's the kind of bike that you can wrap your body around and really become part of - when I tried that my beer gut bounced off the back of the tank and my arms felt like they were being stretched on the rack. I almost bounced over the bars once, when we hit a series of bumps at about 70mph.
At least on fast, curvy roads most of the pain is sent into the background, whilst the music of the motor and the precision of the chassis sends my senses reeling; the countryside really does become a kaleidoscope of fun! I keep the motor in fourth for most of the time, for the fantastic punch between 75 and 110mph. The Duke isn't the kind of bike that you need to ride on the gearbox, which was just as well because mine was a bit of a truculent beastie.
Don't get me wrong, it may well be that the transmission on low mileage, pristine machines is faultless, but on this 82000 miler it was worse than a BMW R75 boxer with 135,000 miles on its clock - believe me, there are few bikes you can say that about. With the state of the brakes, the looseness in the transmission was all the more galling; the 900SS possessing an excessive dollop of engine braking that would've been ideal had not the transmission, grumbled, growled, twittered and shook every time I was forced to close the throttle down dead.
Changing gear cleanly proved equally annoying. The box had developed a BMW-like clunk-click every time my foot, necessarily enclosed in heavy-duty boots to overcome the pressure, hit the lever. The way to make sure that the gear engaged was to take it slowly and steadily. There were still all too few days when I didn't miss a change. Changing down through the box was even more traumatic as it could find a false neutral or lock up the back wheel. Whether it was better to be suddenly free-wheeling or fighting a locked up back wheel depended on the circumstances.
It says a lot for the strength of the Ducati's minimal frame that such traumas are absorbed into the riding experience without throwing the bike down the road. The instant way the 900SS would recover from sudden intrusions always impressed me, whether it was my own ineptitude locking up a wheel or the whole chassis trying to shake itself apart over bumpy going yet retaining, almost defying the laws of physics in the process, its almost holy line.
A brief excursion on smooth, fast roads somehow made up for the manifold discomforts in traffic. I'm not sure if they compensated for the series of electrical horrors I experienced (again the system wasn't new or even standard but from what I've heard about seventie's Ducati electrics I got off lightly). The first problem was that every time I turned on the lights or used the horn (there were no indicators, idiot lights, brake lights....) at less than 5000 revs the engine coughed, spluttered and dropped into a deathly silence. For some reason it would refuse to start again unless given at least 20 kicks. Anyone who has tried to start a big Ducati vee will know that one kick involves serious effort, by the time the bugger had started again I was close to being rushed to hospital from lung, heart and brain failure!
At least that problem was predictable and solved, more or less, by fitting a battery. The reason that the battery had been removed in the first place soon became apparent as the one I'd put in proceeded to burn off acid fast enough to have a trail of degenerate youths sniffing around the machine for a fix and lasted a mere 2000 miles before it refused to hold a charge. The dubious looking rectifier and regulator proved only to hold to a marginal grasp of Ohm's law, promptly proceeded to burn my mate's multimeter to a cinder when he was foolish enough to offer to test the circuit whilst the engine was running. He reckoned nothing was getting through so I'd blipped the throttle...
About the only component worth keeping was the generator, but a pile of car bits from a scrap yard seemed to solve all the problems except for cutting out in the wet, which was eventually traced to dodgy HT leads - a police officer was kind enough to stop me on a wet day to inform me that he didn't think the pyrotechnics from the sparking front cylinder were quite in order. I meekly agreed and got away with the usual patronising lecture on the evils of motorcycling.
By then I'd had the 900SS all of eight months and 6000 miles. I felt it was about time I did something more than change the oil in the Desmo engine (every 500 miles, there was no way I was going to chance writing off the main bearings) but wasn't looking forward to the horrors of dealing with the complex top ends. A Ducati dealer who I was on speaking terms with, viewed the old girl with lust in his eyes (despite the mileage the chassis had been comprehensively refurbished) and decided he would offer me a deal on a new 900SS that meant I would come out ahead financially. The new Duke performs even better than the old with none of the hassles. I haven't been so happy since I lost my virginity!
Dave Coulson