After the selling of the Suzuki to one of my mates for the princely sum of £300, I began to wonder where I was going to find the grand plus necessary to buy a Duke 900SS. Then a brilliant idea struck me - after charging my eighty five year old granny the reasonable sum of £1400 for a full service of her Zimmer frame and promising to dig her garden for the next fifty years, I managed to get enough money together for the only 900SS I could locate. After an extremely painful journey to Farnborough on the back of my mates Le Mans, I had managed to relieve myself of £1700 in exchange for a 1975 vintage Duke 900SS.
The return journey home was a real eye opener, the lazy beat of the V-twin motor lulled me into a false sense of security, I soon found myself approaching bends 30mph faster than I was accustomed to. The resulting panic braking meant I went around the corner 20mph slower than the bike seemed capable of. This had the effect of making me want to do a thirty point turn (the steering lock was crap) to go back and try it again at a proper speed.
After each outing on the bike I would sit out. the back of the house drinking a cup of tea, listening to the engine cooling noises and still feeling the throbbing in my knees, recalling an approach to a rather tricky bend and thinking to myself, God I must look pretty good on that bike (I was young and care free then). Now I was equal to my mates, no more being burnt off by my peers, I thought.
I decided to take a week off work to get accustomed to the bike. This included a rather involved starting procedure - petrol on, tickle the carbs until petrol soaks your fingers, twist the throttle three times to squirt petrol into the bores, ignition on and kick the bike over with gusto. At first, used to the low compression Suzi, I didn’t apply enough boot effort, resulting in a fairly nasty kickback - it puts your foot, ankle, shin and knee into orbit. Eventually, I mastered the starting technique, inspired, in part, by the fear of getting it wrong.
The first part of that week’s holiday was spent posing around the local town. The Contis might be described as a bit antisocial by those deaf to the sheer music of a V-twin engine shutting off the throttle between high buildings and glancing at my reflected image in shop windows was a real ego trip (God, was l a prat).
The latter part of the week was spent out on fast sweeping A roads which are Ducati country. B roads are, however, a different kettle of weasel vomit - on sharp corners the Duke’s long wheelbase caused quite a few problems, if I went around too slow it just wanted to drop into the bend, if I went at what I thought was the right speed, the bike drifted over to the wrong side of the road.
On some of the local B roads, and even the A roads, it had to go over seventy before the suspension began to soak up the bumps; any slower and the bike seemed to bounce all over the place. I found out later that the bike stays exactly on line, its suspension, on bumpy roads, doing nothing to stop the brain shaking that makes it feel like the end is nigh.
Well placed potholes - that the council must spend a fortune getting into just the right position to cause the most inconvenience to motorcyclists - never bothered the Duke, as long as you were going fast enough for the dampers to soak it up. I later fitted gas Girlings which made a major improvement to the ride quality.
Even the electrics were quite good, although the switches were the usual crap however even in heavy downpours the bike never missed a beat, which surprised me a little as all the reports I read suggested that if the Duke saw a mere black cloud it would start to misfire. The clutch was always a little nervous about its role and it soon started to slip under full power. This was a good excuse for a trip over. to Mick Walker at Wisbech to buy some Duke 450 clutch springs which solved that problem.
The first major trip was to the V-twin rally, but I didn’t manage to arrive there because I crashed into the back of my mate’s Le Mans - thanks to the council positioning road work traffic lights the wrong side of a blind bend at Cleeve Hill. After shelling out £145 the bike was repaired, but no sooner had I hit the road than the electronic ignition packed up, amid much swearing at the greatness of the Ducati name.
The next outing was to Le Mans, the bike quite impressing me, travelling at a constant eighty with bursts up to 100mph. At these speeds it was quite comfortable, however as soon as towns were entered wrists, legs, back, bum and neck ached and extended exposure to such low speeds meant recourse to the NHS was in order.
I was quickly coming to the conclusion that the Duke was only suited to balls out scratching on sunny Sundays. On one of these blasts I was approaching my favourite series of bends - hard left, hard right, hard left and up the hill - I got as far as the hard right when the front wheel hit the diesel, leaving bike and I to pirouette down the road. I managed to total one side of the bike with only two weeks to the Isle of Man - drastic action needed here. I figured I'd better dig my grannies garden again.
The bike was eventually fixed a couple of days before we departed for the Island. On the way down the motorway to Liverpool the gearbox decided to stay in fourth gear, some adjuster thing had come undone. My love and admiration of Ducatis was now beginning to wane rapidly. However, after much fiddling on the instant euthanasia of the M6 hard shoulder I managed to obtain the use of 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear, crawling the rest of the way to Liverpool - I did, however, manage to sort the problem during the long wait for the ferry.
The week in the IOM was ideally spent upon the big Duke and so my love increased no end, forgiving it for letting me down on the motorway. The day after our return from the Island, the Duke & myself and the Lemon and my mate collided after I slowed down to turn tight - he thought I was slowing down to let him overtake. The result was that both machines were totalled and the riders didn’t escape unscathed. The insurance company coughed up £1600 and the wreck, which I sold for £850, so I suppose I didn’t do too badly out of the deal.
The 900SS is, as this very mag states, a Sunday afternoon classic. The bike always needs fettling - some people, I hear, call this character - however, when I owned the bike in 1978/79 the prices of spares appeared to have been confused with the part numbers and it soon became an expensive pain in the arse when it went wrong.
The paint finish is crap, the GRP is akin to papier maché, the suspension was just bloody hard unless you were doing over 70mph, the riding position created havoc with my body unless I was doing at least that speed and the Smiths clocks were as much use as a fart in a space suit.
I can’t remember much about tyre wear, chain and oil consumption, other than that they were nothing out of the ordinary - if you own one of these bikes, or are thinking of buying one, these considerations are the least of your potential worries. As you have probably gathered, owning one of these bikes is more of a love/hate relationship with the hate disappearing into insignificance when the beast is running at full bore.
For this reason I’d recommend one to anyone, the only reason I sold mine was because I felt it was jinxed I’d only owned the bike for nine months, five of which it was in the garage. The bloke I sold it to fell off in the first week after rebuilding it. If anyone out there owns MEF 323P let me know how it’s getting on [Currently on SORN in the back of someone's garage, it would appear - 2022 Ed.].
John Sheldon