Ducati Diary

Lots More on the A84…

Richard — 2007-08-18T20:42:02+00:00

I've mentioned before that I live next to one of THE great biking roads, the A84 from Callander to Killin. That's all of 20 miles of fast, wide sweeping bends that every so often turn into narrow, bumpy, twisty complexes that test machine set-up and rider anticipation, skill and basic sense. And far too bloody many people are failing that test: we've just had what (I think) is the third biking fatality of the year – and all of these on the mere eight miles between Callander and Strathyre, particularly through the twisties of the Falls of Leny, just North of Kilmahog and at the notorious "Doctor's Bend" a couple of miles further North.

The consequences of this aren't just limited to the motorcyclist and his or her (almost always 'his') family and friends but affect the local community: firstly, this is the only road South from here (without a 50-mile detour), so when it's closed for most of a day it has a real local impact. Secondly, and mostly importantly, people here are genuinely upset about the sheer bloody waste of life that's going – I haven't spoken to a single person who's anti-motorcycling in any way, but to many who are affected by the knowledge that another life has been needlessly lost on our doorstep and who genuinely feel the sense of lost humanity. While writing this blog entry, I've been approached by several friends and neighbours, each asking me if there's anything at all I can do to raise awareness of the specific risks of this road. So here it is.

A821 Dukes Pass

Richard — 2007-05-03T17:57:50+00:00

Today I should most definitely have been working – too much to do, too little time, yada yada... But by 11 o'clock the temperature was about 23° and not a cloud in the sky. I also tripped over my Arai on the way to make a coffee, which was an omen not to be ignored, so the concept of 'early lunch break' had its definition rather stretched. Besides, I wanted to test out a new toy – a little Sony GPS that records everywhere you've been – the downloaded results then being used to tag the photos you've taken along the way, before mapping them in Google Maps or Google Earth. And where should I go to test this but a second (and third) pass at a road I discovered last weekend – the A821 from Kilmahog (I kid you not) to Aberfoyle, via the Duke's pass. That's the Duke of Montrose, not the Duke of Bologna, which would have been so much more appropriate. This road is something else – it starts with a couple of fast sweepers that throw in a decreasing radius 120° corner at the last moment, then into a switchback straight which has self and machine airborne at anything over about 70mph – even with the new suspension. A large number of sump gouges and suspicious stains along this stretch tell their own tale. The road is a mixture of old and broken surface (with the occasional pothole and patch of loose gravel) and brand new shiny tarmac – overall, not too bad by Belgian standards, and less than brilliant by anyone else's.

Pass Wide and Slow – Bikes and Horses

Richard — 2007-04-30T19:06:06+00:00

Here in the National Park, we've got pretty much every category of road user – bikes, bicycles, cars, walkers, horses and the occasional tap-dancing Pine Marten, all trying to do their own thing at their own speed, and often at the same time. While there's a wider concern about how all of these can share the roads (in like peace, light and harmony, man…) the technique for passing large, hairy quadrupeds does seem to cause some stress amongst all parties. So here, reprinted with the author's permission from our local community rag is a small plea on behalf of horsey folk everywhere:

"Honey, I Spent The Aga Budget…"

Richard — 2007-04-09T18:16:47+00:00

Time for a new toy. My old faithful STealth – my ST4s – has served me well for four years and it's a keeper, as a supremely capable all-round machine, so I'm looking for something more specific and more focussed for play on the local roads. Which is where the first of many dilemmas kicks in – which toy for which roads? Around here there are ballistically-fast, sweeping A-roads with sudden sections of tight twisties: that'll be a Ducati 1098S then. Then there are the smaller glen roads - rising and falling, twisting and turning back on themselves as they follow the edges of the lochs: much more Monster or KTM SuperDuke territory. Finally, there are bikes that seek the best compromise for all of these, plus my kilometre of potholed Belgium-on-a-bad-day drive: possibly a Multistrada 1100S - in fact if the Multistrada had the Testastretta engine, it would have been a shoo-in - I've ridden the earlier incarnation enough to know just how good a chassis they've got. But hang on, we're not talking about looking for an all-rounder here: we're looking for the maximum of engagement, hoot-inducing fun and the ability to get from A to B, usually via C to Z, with as much flair as possible and a decent tank range, given the distance between filling stations hereabouts. So I'm off to Ducati Glasgow to sample a selection of their range.

When You've Had Your Kicks On Route 66…

Richard — 2006-12-08T18:41:06+00:00

…Then Get Some More On The A84

Been a bit quiet of late, haven't I? There's a reason for that and, I hope, a good one: self, partner, our businesses and the cats have all been busily uprooting ourselves from our past lives – in my case, twenty years in the hinterlands of Surrey and replanting ourselves in our new demesne, the Highlands of Scotland. We've been here for two weeks today, and I'm typing this whilst looking out over the local Loch as the low Winter sun glows off the hills opposite. Which isn't a bad way to start the day, and a distinct improvement on the absolutely solid rainfall of the last fortnight. And, if the viciously incompetent British Telecom ever starts keeping its broken promises to provide us with our landlines, things will be just perfect. The lack of photographs in current posting (since updated) are just a reflection of the very limited bandwidth I have here via my mobile.

Safety Last

Richard — 2006-12-08T12:08:26+00:00

My mother doesn't change her car very often: her last change was in 1991, from a thirteen-year-old Fiat 128 to her still-current, Zen-basic, 1-litre Peugeot 205. So basic in fact, that it doesn't even possess a clock, let alone advanced toys like a radio. The upside of this is that it represents motoring at its most focussed and basic, with nothing to distract you from the act of driving – and with such skinny tyres, you can have huge fun at very low and genuinely legal speeds. The late James Hunt used to drive an old Austin A30 van for exactly the same reasons. The Pug also possesses supremely good all-round visibility from narrow pillars and a low waistline. Its absolutely direct handling is a delight and the only downside is its criminally heavy steering, making three-point turns an exercise in forearm-pumping and giving my mother a seriously dangerous left hook. That little Peugeot is now fifteen years old and, despite its only having 25,000 miles on the clock, is starting to show signs of incipient decreptitude.

Scott of the West Midlands

Richard — 2006-11-22T04:10:01+00:00

Warning: Gratuitous and rambling nostalgia ahead: In 1981 I was living and working in Warwick, in my first 'proper' job after graduating – my prior history as a ski bum didn't really count. Now Warwick is a very beautiful olde towne in the English Midlands, but it is some 330 miles from my semi-ancestral home of Edinburgh, which is where I was intending to be for Christmas. Now I could have done the sensible thing and taken the train from Birmingham, sitting (or at least standing) in a semi-comfortable fug of other people's colds, second-hand cigarette smoke and generalised flatulence. But somehow that didn't sufficiently appeal to the masochist in me. My newly acquired pride and joy at this time was my Honda 400/4 – a finely crafted jewel of a motorcycle and an utter paragon of reliability after my upbringing on (and off) old British iron. I guess there was a mindset here that said, "I'm on a wonderful piece of to-the-minute japanese engineering. I am therefore invulnerable to the vicissitudes of the world". Which in turn led me to think, "So I'll just leap onto my machine and ride to Edinburgh for Christmas".

Boxer Rebellion

Richard — 2006-07-31T16:43:12+00:00

I like BMWs. Or rather, I've always tried to like BMWs – they plough their own furrow (sometimes literally) and are distinctive and different in appearance, ride and attitude, offering an intriguing alternative to the ubiquity of across-the-frame four-cylinder machines. My earliest vicarious experience with the marque was in the mid-seventies, with Bike magazine's breathless review of the rip-snorting R90S, which heavily implied that only those stout of both heart and sinew could be expected to master the mighty beast – quite a heady concept to an impressionable student who was just then coming to terms with the unbridled power of a newly-restored Royal Enfield 250. The fact that the R90S actually put out something like 60bhp on a good day was neither here nor there – it was the shock and awe that counted.

In the early eighties, I occasionally knocked around on an R90/6 and on one of the first K100s to hit these shores ("What shores?" – "Mine's a gin & tonic, thank you…") – compared to my Pantah, it was like riding a fast-spin washing machine that was attached to the world by rubber bands. Slack rubber bands. Thankfully chassis and suspension have improved over the years and BMW, after a short-lived attempt to abandon the Boxer twin layout, still offer a range composed predominantly of the twins plus four-cylinder heavyweights. I've ridden several of the current generation of both and am generally of the opinion that there are some truly excellent chassis here, all however desperately in search of decent engines.

I have seen the Future…

Richard — 2006-06-15T23:09:33+00:00

….and it goes "whirrrr".

I spent today at meetings in London: it was hot, dirty and noisy and I was contributing both considerable decibelage and a fug of semi-combusted hydrocarbons to the ambience by whomping around on a 1000cc Ducati. At regular intervals the phrase, "there has to be a better way to do this", kept springing to mind. Of course, my bicycle would have been perfect for the job. Had I been able to get it there: with a despairingly predictable lack of joined-up thinking on transport and the environment, the UK government has allowed the rail operators to ban bicycles from most services. Which has rather put a stop to that.

This evening however I've found that better way: I went somewhere else in space and time, to where the whole future arrives, not with a bang, but with a muted whirring - to my first close encounter with the ENV – the world's first dedicated fuel cell powered motorcycle.

DesmoSedici RR, Oh my…

Richard — 2006-06-01T14:47:18+00:00

I'm not impressed by power. No, really. If I were, I could have bought any of the current crop of Übersportsbikes for less than I paid for my Ducati, had another 45bhp in my right hand and a license in the shredder. I'm much more interested in handling, real-world performance, and maybe a little bit of cool engineering style. However…

The Zen of Sports Touring

Richard — 2006-06-01T13:10:02+00:00

The UK's Bike magazine recently asked for contributions to a story about the why, the how and the myth of "Sports Touring". Which prompted me to put together a few random thoughts, and here they be:

The Why?

There's something very basic here: you don't need some full-blown mile-muncher to tour on: what has been done on a Gold Wing will, I guarantee you, also have been accomplished by some nutter or other on a Honda 90, probably whilst wearing wellies. They may have been a bit slower, carried fewer changes of clothing and been rather more numb of the fundament at journey's end, but they'll have gotten there. The fact that the current round-the-world record holder, Nick Sanders, did it on a Yamaha R1 is indicative both that you can tour on anything and that he really is quite mad. Mind you, if he'd done it on a BMW 1150GS, as per Kevin & Julia Sanders, the previous holders, he probably wouldn't look quite as shagged out as he does in every picture I've seen of him. But he did it. And there's nothing quite like barreling across Europe on a sporting motorcycle, accepting the slight-to-monstrous trade-off in comfort for for the sheer joy to be had from being able to make full and focussed use of the really fun bits: the hairpins of the Alps, the fast sweepers of the Eiffel Mountains or the cliff-hugging nadgery of the Amalfi coast. That's what it's all about.

Now for a little of the how and what…

Random Act of Idiocy…

Richard — 2006-04-27T15:28:47+00:00

This picture is of a Toyota Corolla, registration number M381 HPG. I took it at about 11:40pm last night, 26th April 2006. The reason I took it (Toyotas being not, by and large, objects of desire) was that the prize git driving it had just overtaken me on the A287 in Wey Hill in a 30mph limit, whilst doing, at a rough guess, 70mph. To make the overtake, he used the oncoming right turn lane to the Midhurst Road. I felt particularly sorry for the poor sod who was entirely reasonably occupying that lane at the time, waiting for me to pass before turning right. Quite how the situation didn't become an expensive and painful snooker shot, I really don't know. And if the driver of the oncoming vehicle (I think a Vauxhall Omega estate) happens to read this and wishes to contact me, I'll very happily join him or her in making a statement to the constabulary. Whether that would serve any purpose or not is another matter altogether…

Dear Ducati…

Richard — 2006-03-14T13:53:43+00:00

I've owned your bikes since 1982, albeit with a longish break along the way. My current machine is getting a little leggy and, despite its so far consummate reliability, I'm looking for a replacement. But here's my problem: you simply do not make a motorcycle that meets my desires. And a quick glance at your 2005 sales figures suggests that many people feel the same way – your motorcycle revenues worldwide were down 13.1%, with total unit sales down 5.5%. Margins were also down, occasioned by a 40% collapse in the sales of your higher margin Superbike models. The only ranges that increased sales were the Multistrada (up 57.9%) and the new-retro Sport Classic range.

Small and Perfectly Formed…

Richard — 2006-02-12T20:19:15+00:00

Here's a thing: a non-Italian bike, sight of which had me screeching to a halt outside the dealer while going about my business of the day. I can't think of anything save the current R1 that's managed that before. So here's a teaser: My photoshoot of the very new, very shiny Triumph Daytona 675, in tasteful dark grey:

Click here for the Colour image gallery.
Click here for the Black & White image gallery.

Fool to Miss It: Rob Vine Fund Charity Auction, April 1, 2006

Richard — 2006-02-04T22:52:40+00:00

Haslemere Motorcycles are running a Charity auction in aid of the Rob Vine Fund on the 1st of April this year. The fund helps to keep the Isle of Man TT races and Manx Grand Prix running by funding medical equipment for the Manx Air Ambulance: quite simply, no Air Ambulance, no TT!