Plus Ça Change (Tweaking Part II)

Categories: Bikes Diary Reviews Tech

I've had my Multistrada for just over a month now – time enough to find out the good, the bad and the incomprehensible about it. And yes, it IS as good as the reviews say it is (my own full review has been much-delayed by the simple fact that I've been out riding it!) but it ain't entirely perfect, so here's my thoughts to date on what can be improved in future and what needs to be fixed by Ducati right now. It's a very short list, considering that this is a brand new bike designed to appeal to a much wider market than Ducatis of yore – and, by definition, a market less accommodating of Italian, ah, idiosyncrasies. But here they are, in all their ignominy – let's see what Ducati come back with:

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Tweaking (Part I)

Categories: Bikes Diary Reviews Tech

Whilst my natural inclination with a new bike is to start fiddling with its setup pretty much on the way out of the dealers, with The Raven I've been giving myself time to slowly get used to it, to play with the various suspension modes and generally suss it out until I understand it enough to start prodding at it. That does however assume that Ducati have pretty much got everything right to the point where, whilst I might want to tweak to taste, there's nothing I can't live with. So time to look at the figures.

The graphs below show the electronically adjustable bits of the system and the stock settings for each mode and load (for the Preload settings, the higher the number the greater the preload and, for damping, the higher the number the 'lower' the damping effect). Whilst there's a mostly logical progression - increasing rear preload and commensurate increases, particularly to rebound damping as the load rises, there are a few anomalies in various modes that I'm still trying to work out. Also, rear damping is jumped right up in Two-Up+load in Sport mode - a bigger difference between any other mode and we're finding that Touring mode is generally a little undersprung and damped and Sport mode slightly overdamped. I've a feeling that the rear shock might need respringing - I probably weigh a tad more than the target Italian norm...

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Gravity 1: Multistrada 0.

Categories: Bikes Diary Reviews

In my unending quest to bring enlightenment and knowledge to the world of the Ducatisti, I have taken one more tiny step towards Zen mastery (which must now put me on about the level of the average grasshopper) - this time to answer the speculation on various online fora about the potential cost of an off-road drop of the Multistrada 1200. Here's the answer: zip. nada. nowt. bugger all. OK, that's on a sample size of one: your mileage may vary. Turning around on a local fire road, I ran out of steering lock and decided to hop off to back 'er up, only to discover that the ground was further away than I thought. A lot further away - I'm 6', with 34" inside leg, but it still went past its balance point, at which point, whether or not it's 20kg lighter than a GS became entirely moot - it's a big, tall bike, and it was gone. Having convinced a couple of passing deer that very bad-tempered bears had been reintroduced to the Highlands, I hauled it back upright. Not a single, solitary scratch, scrape or ding. Relieved, impressed and relieved, in that order. Now off to put an ice pack on my knee...

Nothing for Years…

Categories: Bikes Diary

Seven years. Seven years? That's 45,000 miles and but a single breakdown on my ST4s – my matt grey STealth machine – and it's not even clear whether that breakdown was component failure or dealer-induced (another story too long in the telling). And once again going strong, even after three years of enduro use on our so-called drive – a kilometre of potholed track, with bombholes and mudbaths enough to please the most discerning hippo. Fully serviced suspension has brought the dear old thing back into an extended prime, but the world moves on and its time to see where to go next. Or rather, "as well", as I've no intention of getting rid of the ST4s. But what to get?

Now things have changed. A lot. Motorcycles are very different from what they were in the early Noughties, as is my life. They're faster, more sophisticated and more expensive. My life is has probably managed two of those three, but with a complete transplant from the depths of the overcrowded Home Counties to the wilds of a Highland Glen. New life, new places, but still with love and mammals. What hasn't changed is that I still live on some of the finest biking roads on the planet, so the basic need hasn't changed:

I still want a SPORTS tourer. More than ever I need the virtues of comfort, adaptability and a decent tank range – the last of these being utterly essential, given the distances between filling stations hereabouts – Highland Scotland is four times the size of Wales, but with the population of Cardiff. That makes for a lot of empty roads, motorcyclists for the entertainment of…

And heated grips have gone from being a luxury to a necessity.

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"Honey, I Spent The Aga Budget…"

Categories: Bikes Diary Reviews

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.

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I have seen the Future…

Categories: Bikes Diary

….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.

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DesmoSedici RR, Oh my…

Categories: Bikes

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…

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Butting In…

Categories: Bikes Tech

The Ducati STx bikes have pretty good seats. For a Ducati. That actually doesn't do them justice – several 500 mile-plus days without major pain, loss of feeling or feelings of self-flagellation have demonstrated that. However, to be picky, the side ridges of the rider's perch can start digging into the inner thigh after a few hundred miles, and one 600-mile two-up epic revealed a few, ah, points of discomfort for my uncomplaining pillion – it wasn't anything she said as much as the very fine John Wayne impression she did on dismounting. So several alternatives presented themselves: the buy-in, from Corbin or Sargent, a new model year Ducati OEM seat (they're distinctly plusher on the butt) or the full custom route.

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How far? On a what?!

Categories: Bikes Tech

“You go touring. On a Ducati? – so where's the tow truck?â€Â� – if I'd had a quid (Eng. coll: unit of currency) for every time I'd heard that from fellow bikers, I'd be at least a couple of dozen cappucinos to the good. So here' we are, three years and 31,000 miles down the line, and me and the Stealth Bomber are not only still hanging around together, but doing very well – I haven't even managed to drop it yet, despite one panic-fuelled deadlift of 210kg – a strained muscle was self-healing, fairings aren't. So, 31,000 miles in three years, on a Ducati. Without a support vehicle? (remembering that the average annual mileage of a Ducati in the UK is 2,500) Er, yes actually, so it's probably worth a review of the score so far – let's see just how temperamental these 'fragile' Italian beasts really are. First, the vital statistics:

Number of breakdowns: 0.
Number of no-starts: 0.
Number of not-quite starts: 1 (cold day and dodgy battery - replaced under warranty).
Number of stops on-the-road: 0 (although a worn-out wheel bearing discovered at the Nurburgring caused some nervous twitching).

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State of the Art…

Categories: Bikes Diary Rants Reviews Rides Riding Tech

Bear with me, will you? I've been running this blog and site since late 1998 and have finally gotten around to migrating it all into my Two Worlds vServer engine, a set-up based on Movable Type content management system plus lots of other bits and pieces, held together with various hackettes (sorry, "ubiquity integration modules) in perl and php. Anyway, most of the raw content is across, but I'm still writing a few scripts to handle images and attachments, hence the sudden lack of photos, incriminating or otherwise. This will be completed very soon, at which point whatever passes for normal service will be resumed.

Richard

Those Definitely Weren't the Days...

Categories: Bikes Diary

During a recent discussion on the Ducati ST owners' list about the relative merits of kickstarts and electric starts, I was forcibly reminded of a friend's 1954 BSA B33 500cc single. Despite having the flywheel mass of the Brooklyn/Forth (choose according to domicile) bridge, it would frequently not-quite-make-it past TDC and kick back with the full force of its very long stroke. But in slow motion, as befits a very leisurely motorcycle (at 'touring' revs it was firing every other streetlight). Quite enough to cause any or all of: knee to hit chin (moral: don't stick your tongue out while kickstarting a motorcycle); knee to hit handlebar with eye-watering force; or, and from the spectator point of view, finest of all, to fire the entire hapless and sweating human being into orbit - half a dozen of these things in sync and Britain would have won the space race years before Gagarin and Thunderbirds got in on the act. Landing was iffy - I'd arrive in the gutter, do a half roll and rise to my feet just in time to watch the thing gracefully keel over sideways and land with the metallic sigh of a job well done. I like - I REALLY like – electric starts.

STealth Bomber

Categories: Bikes Diary

Here's where I come full circle: I'm doing higher mileages and longer distances – over 400 mile plus days on a 748 are entirely doable, but my back, neck, knees and occasional passengers are starting to ask telling questions. The 748 is also building a highish mileage, so everything points towards it being time for a change. Reluctantly, as I've had a great time with this machine – It does need a new chain and sprockets, and the rear tyre is looking just a tad distressed. Apart from needing a bit of a freshen-up at its forthcoming 18000 mile service, it's running beautifully.

So what to go for? The first intent – a 999, in standard or S form, has already been dealt with, on the grounds of comfort and cost. The Aprilia Futura looks good (yeah, my taste is weird like that), but is a little characterless; the BMW R1150GS is great, but doesn't quite do it, and the new Honda VFR800 is a two-stroke reincarnate. So it's a Ducati ST4s, that's what. The ST4s: take a concept – that of a sports tourer, then hand the development over to a bunch of Italian engineers who can't, under any circumstances, bring themselves to put the 'tourer' before the 'sports'. They started by taking the 996 engine, retuning it slightly for more low-down torque and stuffing it into the ST frame. They then found that, with the less restrictive low-level exhausts, it puts out MORE power than the 996, not less. Thus inspired, they went to town on the suspension, with a very shiny remote pre-load Ohlins rear shock and Showa Titanium-nitrided forks, complemented by lightweight Marchesini 5-spoke wheels. That's nice, then. All wrapped in the now-trad ST bodywork, with big tank, comfy dual set and pillion grabrail. Not to forget the pannier mounts. And a centre stand. So practical too.

Having decided on what I wanted, then it's a matter of finding one - these are Ducati's forgotten machines - people who don't know ducati's don't know what they are, and most ducatisti will go for the image of the Superbikes or a little light lunacy from the Monster range. A recent second-hand one would do nicely, preferably in stealth matt grey, with panniers. This might take a while. On the other hand…

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Me and Mine

Categories: Bikes

In the Beginning…

All stories should have a beginning – here it's 1977, and my first bike, a 1958 Royal Enfield Crusader Sports, 849 EBB. Bought in a box and several paper bags for £80 and rebuilt over the summer of 1976 by myself and my father, this was my transport through my second and third years at University. Sold in 1978 to fund an expedition to Africa, it was briefly seen in about 1988, putting down Princes Street in Edinburgh, pursued by myself on foot, with a cry of ââ?¬Å?come back you bastard, I want my bike back!!ââ?¬Â�

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