Twisting Asphalt - A SoCal Ducati Motorcycle Blog

The saga of motorcycle anguish and despair finally ended this morning and it feels absolutely great to finally ride myself of this awful nightmare once and for all. Thankfully everything worked out in the end and MotorMilt & I are luckily back on Ducati Motorcycles once again. As Doug K so eloquently guessed in a comment on a previous post, the 999’s have arrived.

At 10am this morning we pulled up to ProItalia in Glendale, California. We had been talking to Bill Nation and Jake for the past couple of weeks trying to see if we could pull off a spectacular switch. Taking the insurance payout from the 749’s and trading in our two BMW R1100S bikes on two brand new 2004 999’s. Somewhere along the line I decided that I wouldn’t post anything about it because I just didn’t know if it would happen. I’m not usually a one of those folks who gets worried about this sort of thing, but it just seemed better not to jinx it.

Cutting to the point, Bill & Jake were fantastic. They worked with us, put two magnificent biposto 999’s on hold early on in our conversations and eventually matched a late lower offer from Spectrum Motorsports in Irvine (who’s sales staff called coincidentally after someone from either the insurance company or finance company called them). We were in and out of ProItalia in just a tad over an hour. Jake had most of the paperwork prepped and ready to go and they were more than happy to take the beemers in trade. This was by far the most painless part of this entire bike replacement exercise. So I have to give big props to the PI gang.

MotorMilt outside of ProItalia before we take the new Duc’s home

After picking up the bikes, we headed out on the 210 West, to the 118 and then the 23. Eventually ending up on the 101 right next to the Malibu Canyons. All in all we put about 130 miles on the new bikes in our first day.

Frankly to be honest I’m not sure exactly where to go from here. I’d like to think that I usually can adequately describe the events and moments in my life, but to be completely fair these bikes almost leave me speechless. They’re special beasts and so completely unlike the 749’s it’s scary… Actually that’s a favorite word for the day, because with every corner and every straight away all I could think to myself underneath my helmet was that these suckers have “Scary Power” and I mean that in a good way. For so long I’ve heard people say that Ducati’s are the motorcycle equivalent to Ferrari super cars, only affordable. After spending most of the day riding an 124 horsepower cruise missile I tend to disagree - at least right now - these things are like Dodge Vipers. They tell you exactly what they’re doing. They feel the road, they sense the corners, they wrap you in such a different level of confidence and they rumble. They’re not nice and they don’t play fair. They run wild. All day it felt like I was taming a bull. They are without a doubt absolutely amazing motorcycles. And I have no doubt that this is true of any of the modern liter bikes…

Thinking back on when we went to pick up the first set of Ducs, I remember feeling a great deal of trepidation and anxious energy over whether or not I would be able to handle a mid-level superbike or even if I would enjoy riding one. Up until that point all I had known as a rider were BMW’s. Things like ABS brakes, saddle bags and sport touring were paramount issues for me. Yet as it turned out little did I know that something deep inside of me had switched and while a part of me still cares about bits and pieces of the beemers, they simply are no longer pushing my soul in the same sort of way that a Ducati does. For all intents and purposes, I have completely fallen in love with true sportbikes and Ducati’s especially.

I suppose that’s not such a shocker since if you look back on this very blog which happened to start coincidentally just about the same time that the idea of picking up a pair of Duc’s struck, you’ll see what basically amounts to a change of heart and a love letter all wrapped in one. I hadn’t quite realized my mind had solidified this much until my good friend Gaz pointed it out to me the other day while I was fuming about the State Farm claim adjuster and my motorcycle situation. Up until that point I had felt more than a little bit uncomfortable with the idea of trading in the R1100S, but once I sat down and re-read all the motorcycle posts that I had written about riding, I realized that he was right. My heart simply was no longer in the ‘S’ and it was time to move on. If this is starting to sound all together to similar to a relationship, I suspect that’s because for me that’s what riding and owning a motorcycle has become. In so many ways it has become part of me, my identity, my idle thoughts, my vacations, my relaxation, and my soul. Sometimes I think that might not be such a good thing, but then on days like today I’m reminded that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay profess your admiration to an inanimate object because the minute that I fired over the 999 for the first time the most amazing feeling took a hold of me. From that point forward no matter what I tried to do I couldn’t shake it. This bike feels more alive than any other motorcycle that I’ve ever ridden. It shakes and screams and begs you to let it lose. It might be all in my head, but the sound reverberates differently than the 749. It echoes. It stirs. There more there, there if you know what I mean.

Towards the end of Mullhulland Highway, near Neptune’s Net on the PCH

Veering back towards reality, a couple of instant reactions from the ride today. While on paper the 749 and the 999 seem amazingly similar - just about everything is the same except the suspension and the motor - they are not the same at all. The clutch on a 999 seems to engage much further out and seems to take a heck of a lot more throttle to be smooth. Although to be fair, as the day went on the clutch seemed to break in a bit and get a little less stiff. The brakes feel remarkably similar which is a good thing in my eyes. However the ride is much stiffer. It hadn’t dawned on me until today’s first ride that when a Ducati dealer or message board member says that the 999 has a “better suspension” then the 749, they mean better racetrack suspension not ride comfort… At the 600 mile service I’m thinking that I’ll have the ProItalia techs soften it a bit. On city streets and freeways at high speeds the bike feels a bit less dexterous than the 749, but once in the canyons it feels more nimble. And the engine… It roars. Every RPM is more linear. From 1k to 5k it pulls as well as the 749 did from 7k to 8k. Above 5k it fly’s. I greatly understand now why motorcycle mag editors suggest that people start off on 600s and not liter bikes. It takes much less effort and perhaps even skill to make this rocket ship blast off while the 749 towards the end was just making aware that the real power lied at the end of the spectrum. The 999 starts right away and just gets better and better. There’s just a different sort of grin factor here. And I’m pretty sure that none of it is street legal. If I have one reservation it’s the fact that a fair amount of the powerband seems greatly unusable on city streets. On the 118 freeway I was at 6k in 6th gear and hitting 99 miles an hour. That leaves 4k or 4.5k available? Like I said, Scary Power…

Coming around the bend, today’s ride was fantastic. It’s been awhile since I was on any bike and really felt alive. This whole stolen bike ordeal has hung over my head like I never thought possible, so it was wonderful to finally be able to let that one go. After we hit the usual Deli breakfast spot, we took Kanan Rd to Mullhulland Highway and proceeded to head all the way to the PCH near Neptune’s Net. From there we put our first fresh tank of gas in the new bikes and then backtracked (slightly unusual for us, but it was a special day I guess) to Encinel Canyon Road. Took that all the way until it became Mullhulland. Along the way we stopped at the Rock Store, where we stopped for some water and a smoke. Out of nowhere the lady who owns it and two of the waitresses ask where we’ve been. Apparently without realizing it MotorMilt & I have become noticeable at The Rock Store… How odd is that?

Anyway after getting back on the bikes, we shot down Mullhulland and did the portion commonly called “The Speedway” and then ended up taking Mullhulland all the way to Old Topanga Canyon and back to the PCH. All in all it was around 130 miles for the day. So we’re more than 1/6th of the way towards the first break in point. Pretty sure that I’m going to be sore in the morning…

Okay, so that’s probably enough rambling for now, here’s a few picts from the day…

The 999 on the Mullhulland Highway by Neptune’s Net

Another angle of the same road before one of the last corner

MotorMilt & His 999

At The Rock Store

The View From Mullhulland

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