Paul Things Considered

Ducati Thanksgiving

Paul NPRDucati — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:41:31 GMT

As we enjoy another Thanksgiving that can't be beat, I was reading our local Athens rag, The Flagpole (www.flagpole.com). In the editorial fronting the paper is Pete McCommons piece on Thanskgiving and how he reads the holiday. He meanders through his experience, and wraps it up with his observation that, as an editor and writer, he is thankful for his readers. Those people that are "bright, intelligent, engaged citizens" etc. I smiled as I read his view that he was padding his column and then coming to an epiphany that it was worth it, after all, to reflect and come to an understanding of his own view of the holiday. I had dinner at Nathan's house (Nathan is the 'N' in NPR Ducati, and his brother-in-law, Terry, delights in stuffing his guests with all manner of comestible delights) on Thanksgiving and the ritual go around the table and tell what you're thankful for came up. In my turn, I allowed that I was thankful for my shiny new niece Valerie is here and well.
But there's more to this year than personal gratitude for family blessings. Here we stand, at the ending of 2007, having experienced the culmination of all things Ducati. The list is long and most Ducatisti already have some awareness of the Ducati World outside their surroundings, but I should mention a few of the highlights from my perspective.

The first item has to be Casey Stoner dominating the most prestigious race series in the motorcycle world, MotoGP. Not only did he win the championship, but Ducati came home with the Team and Contructor championships as well. The diminutive Aussie kicked ass all season, and sealed the Championship with three races left in the season.
The second thing to be thankful for is-surprise-the Hypermotard. The new bike is an absolute gas to ride, and a venture one might not expect from Ducati. That's what makes it all the better. As good as the Superbikes are, they are what Ducati is known for, after all, and the fact that they have a Superbike that is all-conquering is not the biggest news for most riders. If you haven't ridden one, come and try it. There is no reason for this bike to exist except that it is downright fun to ride.
Third thing, the 1098. While Superbikes are Ducati's bread and butter, being known for them and then actually building the most-anticipated bike in ten years are Two Different Things, as Peter Eagan might say. And there's no doubt that they have hit a home run with this bike. It is lighter and faster than anything to ever come out of Bologna. And it looks like a Ducati. No excuses, no spin. Ride it and see.
The Fourth thing on my list has to do with the changing of guard at Ducati Motor Holding. I have never seen the company more excited to be buidling motorcycles than currrently. There were plenty of the Ducati faithful that were sorry to see Minoli, the previous leader, leave the company last May, and wonder what his replacement had in store for the future. After having met "the new guy" Gabriele del Torchio, I have to say wait and see what they can do now. Ducati have some formidable new bikes on the horizon-we're eagerly awaiting the new 848 here at the shop-and a forward looking and ambitious strategy that will see great things in the next few years. Quality is emphasized over and over when talking to the factory folks, and performance is their mantra for the new bikes coming out. Stay tuned.
Lastly, and most important, has to do with what we-all do with the Ducati community. Our first year has been a pretty good ride-we garnered the Best New Dealer Award for all of North America-but have lots in store for 2008. Like the editor of our paper here in our small town, I value our riders and know that it is y'all that give us a reason to work twelve hours a day. That's all of you, from Brisbane Australia to right down the street here in Athens.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Paul

World Ducati Dealer Conference-3 Wrap-Up (in a bathrobe if necessary)

Paul NPRDucati — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:21:52 GMT

Dear NPRHeads,
The rest of the Ducati Dealer conference went far too quickly. Ducati hosted us all at a mammoth club in Milan, some distance from the hotel. The evening was just typically Ducati great fun. We had a cocktail reception where I unveiled the Bathrobe #2, causing a myriad of reactions- big laughs from (Gabriele del Torchio), goodnatured headshaking from some (Michael Lock), many many questions (Norwegian dealers particularly), and some well-deserved attention from the bevy of Ducati beauties.
Then they converted this gigantic dance club into a dinner hall for 1000 of your new best friends, complete with runway and stage for the Ducati Fashion Show, wild-ass drum group, trapeze and silk artists, and a legion of servers keeping the beverages flowing and the guests fed. Here's some pics, sorry for the crappy quality, I'll supplement them later with some better ones...

Above, Our table early on in the evening. Notice my buddy and Ducati Sales Rep Extraordinaire Jim, bottom left, is still vertical.

Above, Ducati Fashion show in progress. Very popular item with both men and women; unfortunately the camera had a snafu and I didn't get pics of the studly guys. My apologies to the ladies.

Above, the new M696 and the goddess of the show on her last turn. Pic got a little blurred to umm, save bandwidth? We chatted after the show, and she's a doctoral candidate in biochemical engineering at Bologna University, speaks 5 languages, turns World Superport qualifying lap times at Monza on her 1098S, and volunteers at the local orphanage helping destitute children.

Miss South Carolina, eat your heart out.

The girl climbing the silks above our Nuovo Mostro. For any guys that don't do dance stuff as it lowers their man score or whatever, you should check this out, its highly entertaining and you can enjoy the beauty of it while still pretending to only be interested in the more prurient aspects, thereby keeping your chauvinism intact. Blatant Comercial Plug Warning: By the way, there's a pretty good studio in our town called Canopy, they do regular shows.
Peanut, I bet you didn't see this one coming

Above, I take my turn ~~flirting with the hostesses~~ welcoming people to the shindig. She was a Nobel Laureate after being raised in the desert with no formal schooling, speaks 7 languages, and lives in Milan where she cares for her elderly neighbors in her block. No, you can't have her phone number.

Above, the new emerging fashion trends all start in Milan. Paris is so last month!

Above: I had heard there was a lot of street crime in Northern Italy. So, I had to have an escort most places I went...the girl on the left is an accomplished stunt women and bodyguard, and the winsome lass with the cross doubles as a mobile confessor. I cropped the picture, there was an entire army of them outside the frame. Grazie Mille Cristiano for being so concerned for my safety! The tall girl with the red umm belt was vigilant about making sure my pocket wasn't picked, I felt very secure.

Above, I describe the story of the bathrobe to the Young Republicans Leadership Council, today's students ARE tomorrow's leaders.

Then they cleared out the tables from the hall and we danced rather badly to the great delight of the Japanese contingent. They moved in and kicked our asses with their dance dance revolution practiced moves. I used their distraction to go and flirt with their very beautiful wifes and sweethearts. See ya suckers!

We ended up getting hearded onto the buses with very few casualties, getting off the bus may have been another matter as there were some that couldn't see very well and lost their ~~cookies~~ footing in the dim light.

Great Party Ducati, thanks for the big fun and we look forward to replicating it in miniature all over the world with the three new bikes, the M696, 848, and 1098R are sure to cause parties on roads all over the Southeast!

PB

World Ducati Dealer Conference 2

Paul NPRDucati — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:31:51 GMT

Dear NPRHeads, (spoken as Nipperheads, like the RCA dog Nipper looking at the Victrola),

Totally gratuitous, but I love that dog and our new bike! The 848 is the answer that many interested parties have been looking for-130 hp with great torque in a middleweight package of 369 pounds dry. All told, this will make a responsive, lithe package that will tear up your favorite road or track. And it is killer in the new for the 848 metallic white paint. Traditionalists will appreciate the alternative red color, but you have to see the white, it's that cool.
We have deposits already for this bike, sight unseen and unheard, I hope we can get enough to satisfy the demand.
Let's put the latest Ducati Superbike in context, so to speak. This is my totally anecdotal SBK history, and we had a killer Italian meal tonight, with plenty libations, so bear with me.

Item A.
My beloved 888, with a ton of work in the motor, including a bore kit equaling 926cc, 54mm mega full system exhaust, race pistons, big valves, race rods (about 1500$ back in the day!), an SPS-style crank, flowed heads and lots of other bits, made a whopping 110-114 hp at the wheel. It also ran poorly at less than 4500 rpm, came on the pipe viciously, and got about 34 mpg. It was also tall and heavy, even with the custom swingarm, liberal carbon usage, and deep-sixing a lot of the street bits and the heavy stock bodywork for race glass. Sure loved that bike.

Item B.
My favorite in the next series of the Ducati Superbike was the 1996 916SP. Such a beauty, and a little helping hand from the Ducati engineers resulted in a bike that made about 112 hp, with the usual big torque and steady handling of these bikes. A limited edition, rare and pretty pricey 12 years ago. Fun bike, but pales in comparison to our new girl.

Item C.
In 1999, Ducati unveiled the 996 series. Cool bike, with the bore and stroke of the previous 916SPS bikes. It never really caught fire until 2000 when they made a bunch of invisible changes like a different primary. These made about 118hp, some a little more with creative mapping. Early ones came with Ohlins shocks standard. Five spoke wheels helped the bike as well, but a set of SPS cams really started making it go right! These hit the scales around 440 pounds dry, if I recall correctly. Hmm.

Item 4.
The 996r came next, with the first Testastretta motor. These were getting there, being a super-limited edition bike that grafted the then unknown Testa concept on the 996 motor. The first deep sump motor as well. I loved this bike, but bike was so rare it was out of my reach in any case. I seem to remember they made two batches of 25. We sold two. The first guy still has his and the second guy brought his 1098 in last week for Dean to fettle. Power was around 122hp, but no warranty.

Item 5.
The next advance was in 02, with the true testa motors in the 998 models of various models, std, S and Bayliss and Bostrom models. I can remember selling the #1 Bostrom bike sort of by accident. We should have known, as Super Hunky used to say, since we had just sold the #12 bike a couple weeks earlier and elementary math
told us if we were listening that the bike with the 11 lower number VIN was pretty special, but we had been told that Ben was getting that bike. The guy that got it ended up not loving it much anyway, so maybe not much harm done. No offense Ben, but I really wanted the Bayliss bike anyway as he had kicked ass in the World SBK and I thought it was a little less tarty. Just one man's opinion. I should've told Bayliss that during the First Bathrobe Bonanza, I bet he would've thought it was funny. So anyway, the 998 bikes made about the same ponies as the 996r, but were better equipped and a little less money. Buy one if you can find one that's in good shape, great bet for a collector. They're still great fun to ride, although no lighter than the 996 etc. Super flash too.

Item 6.
The next couple of years were a little dodgy for the superbikes, the leftover and reissued 998, 998 Matrix, and 998S mixed in with the 999 models. I'm sure I'll get hate mail for this, but the early 999 models (2003-2004) are a pain in the ass. They're not really any more livable than the earlier superbikes, they were quite expensive, they are not fun to work on, and the easier set-up of the 999 chassis is offset by the numbness of the front end. With some work they can be made to work very well, but the looks were not what most Ducatisti were looking for, and the bike wasn't any more practical except in fractional terms. Still quite heavy-the 999 std models were a couple pounds more than the 998, IIRC. The motor was nicer, a little more power to see off those upstart Brand A and their cheater magazine bikes, and some other nice things like a light alternator and stronger crankcases.

Item 7.
The 749r. What a bitching bike it is to ride, it was lighter handling than the big bikes, had some good bits on it (especially the first year) and was the first xx9 series bike to look hot. This was the bike that started the red frame craze in modern terms-they had all been other colors since the F1, if memory serves-and the black wheels, running gear, and new red fairing started to show the promise the 749/999 had inherent. Fun to ride! Very quick and good ones pushed out 115 hp, almost as much as our 800 Pro-Thunder bike at the time. With a Ducati Performance race pipe and ECU you were looking at 122, and the 749r was the first of the superbikes that got more priority towards leanness. Jeff Nash and others have done some wicked work on these and got big numbers from them without spending VR money. Look at what Pegram and Craggill did last year on essentially 4 year old race bikes against the best that Japan has to offer in AMA Formula NOTV Extreme. The Brand J companies pay a lot of attention and yen to that class and were embarrassed by a guy that they had written off and a bike they didn't realize was fast. Larry says he has one left if anyone is interested.
Getting back to the point, it was expensive and they didn't make many.

Item 8.
2005/6/7 999/S/R
These are all pretty good bikes, in a variety of colors and versions. Much more better motors, lots of power up to 143 hp in the later bikes with no mods. Ducati had started measuring hp in (gasp) japanese terms, that is to say at the crank, but the L twins are pretty efficient and don't lose proportionally as much through the tranny and final drive as some bikes so it's still a valid measure to judge the bikes against their competition IMO. The bikes had better breathing by now, especially the 104mm bore R models, but they got wayyy up there in price, and still had a fair layer of pork on them. Even the bitchin bikes, with carbon fairings, forged wheels, alloy subframes etc were on the wrong side of 420 pounds.

Item 9.
All right, here's why I rambled on about the bikes. We have all seen the Kick Ass 1098, a bike inspired largely by
the lessons learned by Claudio Domenicali and the Ducati Corse team and the commercial lessons over the last ten years. The bike has great power, a trick chassis, good lines, and is reasonably affordable at a couple thousand bucks more than the cookie-cutter J brand alphabet soup bikes. Now we are happy to enter the fray with our 848 and see what we can do. And it looks good, doesn't it? The 848 specs out at 130 hp, great torque, top shelf suspension, brakes, and componentry, and hits the scales at an amazing 369 pounds. The quick-revving engine that uses a new crankcase manufacturing technology that removes excess metal from the cases and saves over three pounds from the cases alone. The legendary Ducati handling gets even better on this bike with the lack of mass to move, helping agility and stability, as well as suspension compliance and flickability.
One of the major comparative factors the car and airplane guys use as a measure of responsiveness is the weight of the vehicle divided by the power produced. The reason they do this is to give a general idea of the responsiveness of the vehicle. In the old days, the bike guys did it also, but over the years they got caught up in the horsepower wars, propelled by the Brand J manufacturers that measured their bikes by the last tenth of a horsepower, in some cases, which is a terrible way to measure performance, to my mind. Ask Bayliss whether he would rather have five more horses or fifteen pounds less. (Of course, he'll say he wants both, but that's beside the point).

369 pounds divided by 130 hp gives 2.83 lbs/hp. Pretty Kick Ass!

More later in the day. Let me know what you think.
Cheers,
Paul