Its now only a few days from the start of November. The clocks have already gone back, but today the sun was shining bright in the sky; almost in defiance to the inevitable. After taking so getting started, the great summer of 2013 that burnt so brightly this year doesn't seem to be giving up without a fight, but annoyingly, nobody explained this to the night time. Leaving the house this morning, it was proper cold and it was the first time my fingers have hurt by the time I got to work. Sadly we all know that this will soon become the norm and any ideas of leaning through some quick corners will just be distant memories.
The 1098s isn't suited for winter riding. There's nothing physically stopping me riding it in the winter that it, with the exception of the tyres, but that could easily be sorted. The engine would still work, the wheels would still roll and the brakes would still clamp onto those two twin Brembo discs at a mere moments notice, but this Ducati is just too good to introduce it to sub zero temperatures and the dreaded road salt. This is why, today, I called up Mike and his team and told them I'll have the Monster. I know that it too is an Italian bike, but with liberal coatings of ACF 50 www.acf-50.co.uk it will be fine. To fully 'winterise' it, I've already arranged for a set of Pilot Road 3 tyres and heated grips to be stuck on and although it already wears a hugger, I'll look at getting a shock tube too and probably some bar muffs. Now I know I mentioned all this before, especially about bar muffs being possibly the least cool modification you can make to any bike, but warm hands are a must in winter and I'm too old to care what anybody else thinks.

Following on from my big crash in 2011, I've been having niggling and sometimes very sharp pains when running in my left ankle. This led to booking up an appointment to make two MRI scans done of my left foot and ankle. Despite being fine in normal conditions, I'm worried that even after over 18 months I still suffer. I requested the MRI so my doctor and I can see if any bone spurs have grown following the fracture, or whether the tendons and cartilage are lining up properly. As always, I will keep you posted

As I write this, Southern England is taking a battering from some serious (well serious for my little island) winds. The wind started to pick up last night and into this morning and those lovely chaps down at the Met Office are warning the worst is to come tomorrow. Now as you all know, I love my bikes and love riding them, but as the saying goes, 'discretion is the better part of valour', so with that in mind, my Ducati is staying locked up in the garage tomorrow. Now I can take 80mph winds just as long as they are dead straight and being generated by me on the bike. That's not a problem, but when there's the very strong possibility of being hit by 80mph side winds, well, for me, that is far too dangerous. If you're in the South of the UK and you're out on your bike over the next few days, please take care. It's going to be tricky.

I haven't confirmed with myself, let alone the local dealership, about buying the Monster, but today my head was filled with thoughts and ideas on how to modify it. I know that for the first three/four months the bikes sole job would be to get me too and from work in probably some fairly grim weather, but I'm starting to look at this bike as a potential project. I was searching the web, as you do, and found a few colour schemes that incorporate the classic black/gold Ducati paint scheme. Below is a picture I took of a 900ss that was on display during the Ducati trackday at Donnington earlier in the year.

I love the way the gold contrasts against the black and I especially like the classic Ducati logo too. Now I also found this colour scheme on a more modern Ducati machine, this a custom Ducati Sport Classic which is a modern retro bike that was available for a few years from 2006.

You can see that the colour scheme already pays homage to the SS, but the shape of the bike in the bottom picture is far closer to that of the Monster. Now if I decided to go for something like this, I would plan on keeping the trademark bright red trellis frame currently on the Monster. It could be a nice little project to get my teeth into, but of course, I would have to buy the bike first.

As the sun was shining and I had the afternoon free, I took the chance to take this Monster out for a spin. As you may remember, I saw it when I went to test the Hornet a few weeks ago and to be honest I had thought about it a fair bit, especially as winter is drawing nearer, which in its own way has heightened my desire to get another bike. Why not use a car? I hear you say, well the problem is that driving in and out of London is okay for a day or so, but any longer than that, the almost constant clutch action needed badly affects my ankle, specially the tendons around the side and the back. Its one of the reasons I've having an MRI on it this coming Monday. Anyway, back to the bike

The bike is a 2006 one owner model and had a full service history and its in pretty good condition. The belts were done fairly recently, but the bike is due a service and if I bought it, it would be done before I picked it up. There are however some small problems. The tyres, for want of a better word, are awful. Its looks and very much feels that the bike was hardly ever leant over as when tipping into corners, you can feel the bike slide on the hard shiny rubber. The brake and clutch both feel like they need a really good bleed. It's been dropped on its left side, with a mark on the brake reservoir, the bar end and it looks like as a result the tank has been resprayed, fairly poorly it has to be said as there are several bobble marks showing through on the top. At first I thought they were water droplets. Those end cans, although it good condition, don't seem to have been set up for the bike. Don't get me wrong they sound lovely and look fairly decent to, but they have resulted in a very lumpy delivery between 4k & 5k. Hopefully this could be ironed out, or at worse, I could hunt down some original cans to pop on. Just a thought. There is no underseat storage. Absolutely none and finally, the side stand it tucked right up under the foot peg, making it tricky to get easy access to.
Now the good points. It is really really comfy. The long stretch to the bars suits me quite well. The mirrors work, the screen is effective and it has some lovely old school clocks.
I like it. Its at the very top end of the money I was looking to spend, but the bike is really nice, but not nice enough that I'd worry about riding through the winter. Basically, just like the Ninja.
Here are some more pictures. Oh and did I mention it was exactly the same colour scheme as my 1098s?

Well today, to and from work, I experienced two very different rides. The way back with warm, dry, sunny, easy and fun. The sort of ride you wish every ride home from work was. However the one first thing this morning was, how shall I put it, eventful.

So there I was, just trundling up the A1 heading away from Highgate, thinking about a Monster that's at Metropolis. I look down, the fuel light is on, as it has been since the last time I rode the bike, and the trip meter is saying that I've travelled 17.7 miles with the light on. This didn't worry me as it should do at least 25 miles before panic sets in. I'm minding my own business when the bike dies on me. I'm out of fuel. I don't believe it! I manage to coast the bike up onto the pavement away from the local bus stop. Frustration quickly gave way to amusement as I thought to myself that it had to happen sooner or later. I started looking at my options. I passed a petrol station just over a mile back and there isn't one closer, so if I walk back to the station, I'll have to buy a petrol can and then throw it away afterwards. Bit of a waste. So, I call dad, who came to my rescue. He and mum were already heading out, so I managed to catch them just in time. 30 minutes later dad and I are pouring five litres worth of Esso's finest into the tank via a cone filler. One jab of the starter and we were back in business. Thanks dad, your a life saver.

After a quick visit to my local picture framers www.forartssake.com in Hendon, I headed over to have a better look at the Monster. Its a 56 plate Ducati 695, full service history, 12,000 miles, fly screen, non original cans and in black with a tasty red trellis frame. Hopefully I'll be able to get a good deal on it as I'd want to put heated grips, maybe hand guards, a shock tube and almost certainly a pair of Michelin Pilot Road 3's on it. It will have the belts done before it goes out, so as its in seriously nice condition, it is very tempting. I've still no news of the Duke 200 at the moment, which is disappointing, but there isn't a huge amount I can do about that at the moment and winter is drawing closer.
In somewhat less exciting news, as a planned coffee on Sunday was cancelled at the last minute, I took the opportunity to clean the Ducati. As we all know, Sunday is a day for either riding or cleaning, normally both. Although the sky was fairly clear, I'd seen the forecast which pro claimed biblical rain by early afternoon, so cleaning it was. This gave me a change to try out the new WD-40 chain cleaner I recently picked up.

Now I'm really not the kind of guy who expects too much from any cleaning or polishing product. All I want, expect if you will, is that the product will do exactly what it says on the tin. I don't want the earth to move. I don't want angels to descend from the heavens. I just want the cleaning stuff to clean. Simple really. So it was with great relief that the WD-40 cleaner did just that. Like most of us I've been using 'normal' WD-40 for years, in fact I still use it to clean my wheels, so I was very pleased with the quick easy result. Aim at chain, spray on, wait a few mins, rinse off. Sorted. Just like it should be.

Well I just got back from Brands Hatch after spending the day with Ducati UK at the final round of this years BSB championships. Now as much as I'd like to say that I'm in with Ducati, sadly, I'm not. This was just a perk following the damp Ducati trackday back in September. I have to say, it was very helpful indeed, especially with today's weather.
I got there a little after 09:00 and had a wander around before heading over the Ducati Tent/Gazebo/temporary housing thing. Ducati had brought along several bikes such as the 848 Streetfighter, the Diavel, a Multistrada, the 1199s Panigale, but more importantly, this weekend represented the first UK public of the 899 Panigale. I have to say, it's bloody lovely. 

What was almost as amazing, was the price. At a list price of just over £12,000, if you popped down a deposit of £3200 (if memory serves) you can have a brand new 899 Panigale for £139 a month if you sign up to the TriOptions PCP deal. £139 a month....they are going to sell shed loads of these things. 

The Ducati hospitality suite was lovely. Two walls were covered in emotive black and red images of Ducati's history with the final third wall showing stylish press and PR shots. Lunch was very tasty and any place that distributes unlimited coffee is okay in my book.
As you can see from the photo of the 899 and as I've already mentioned, it was pretty damp on track, which made for some exciting qualifying and racing across the card. Watching the bikes squirm coming onto the start/finish straight under power was a sight to see. 
I really enjoyed the day and would really like to thank Ducati for allowing me to spend the day with them. 

Well after getting well and truly soaked yesterday on the ride home from work, today's weather made a very pleasant change. I received a call yesterday afternoon from Mike saying he had a bike I may want to look at. It was a 2009 Honda Hornet with 30,000+ miles on the clock, all done by the one owner. It was certainly worth a look.

From a distance the bike looked okay and I was riding it before Mike and his team had a chance to tidy it up a little. At the time of riding the headlight didn't work (so I used full beam instead), the right fork seal appeared to be weeping and the bike was generally pretty grubby, which in truth didn't really bother me. So what did I think? Well, the good points first; the engine is superb. It has a really high rev limit and pulls evenly through the rev range, with a lovely addictive raspy exhaust note. The riding position is very comfy with weight taken pretty evenly through the feet, hands and bum, however to start with I did find the handlebar position a little high, but I think this was more to do with coming straight from my 1098s. Finally the brakes are excellent and there is plenty of feel at the lever.
Now the bad bits, but before I start I should point out that this bike is a well used example of a 2009 bike that has clearly been used every day in all weather, so some of what I say in the next few lines may be seemed as being a little unkind. I've already mentioned the possible blown front fork seal, non working headlight and general dirtiness of the bike, but what I haven't mentioned is that the bike was showing some serious signs of wear and tear.

One of the rear indicators was taped on, the rear brake pedal was rusty, one of the engine cases was showing signs of corrosion, the previous owner couldn't apply a tank pad, I struggled with one of the keys to open the seat and even then it was a struggle to get it off, so much so that I gave up and the clutch had an exceedingly long travel. But the thing that annoyed me most was that at 5000rpm, which was the perfect rev range for the engine, the front bikini fairing vibrated horribly.
As a winter hack, its perfect, but I would have to spend more getting set up the way I would have wanted, ie heated grips, better tyres, refreshing the rear shock. I won't say how much the bike was up for, but personally I didn't think it would have been a good investment.

Not a huge amount happened in my biking life today. It was drier than it has been over the last few days, so that made a nice change. There was the usual myopic pedestrian on his phone just stepping into the road to provide a little practice for my reactions in Islington to keep it interesting. I headed the long(ish) way home to fill up with fuel and I followed up with the KTM Centre in Hemel Hempstead this afternoon. I hadn't heard back from them, so the call just acted as a way of catching up. To be honest, it felt a bit weird, rude even, to ask them if there was any news. I'm not sure I'll even want to buy a KTM 200 at the moment. The price, for me is the big issue. The closest I can get that to the £2000 mark, the better I'll feel. Maybe I'm being too optimistic and should just hunt down a £1200 ZX9-R or even a Ducati ST3 to inflict a season of winter riding.