Ducati Travelogue of Tigh Loughhead's Motorcycle Adventures in NYC | NYDUCATI
NYDUCATI is a collection of Tigho's motorcycle photography from New York City and around the world, the bikes he encounters and the beauty of riding a Ducati Streetfighter 1098S, a 996, a Monster and an ST3.
Introducing Gotham Ducati, New York City's first and only DOC officially sponsored by the Ducati factory in Italy. There are numerous riding and social clubs, as well as groups built around track days around the tri-state area. There also quite a few Ducati fan clubs, spanning New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but until now, there hasn't ever been a dedicated club celebrating New Yorkers who ride Ducati motorcycles.
Gotham is open to all New Yorkers, Italian motorcycle enthusiasts and Ducati owners, but will focus on and in New York City. From MotoGP events at Ducati New York in Soho, to bike nights at Spiegel, Gotham will partner with businesses, vendors and dealers that support the local motorcycle community in NYC.
Picked up this weapon from Connecticut this weekend, which apparently has been called "the nicest 848 in the USA." Dynoed at 158hp, this Ducati 848 actually houses a 1098 engine, reinforced with 1198 rods and bearings by the legendary Ducshop in Marietta, Georgia.
this track-day weapon sports Ohlins suspension, both front and rear, as well as an Ohlins steering dampener sitting behind a custom adjustable triple clamp.
and came with spare wheels, a tank and two sets of Armor Bodies body work,
and numerous other spares.
There is nearly nothing I can do with this bike,
except maybe give it a wash, maybe peel off some of the vinyl,
and wait until track season.
Here is the bike on the dyno.
Engine: 2007 Ducati 1098 (Built by Ducshop) - 158hp / 90ft-lbs on Pump Gas. 1198 Rod and Main Bearings ARP Rod Bolts Shimmed Transmission Cams Degreed New Belts Termignoni Carbon Slip-ons Ducabike SBK Slipper Clutch (48th Basket) BMC Air Filter
Motul 300V with New OEM Filter Chassis: NEW Ohlins Steering Damper Podium Racing Adjustable Triple Clamps with (6) Insert Sets Sato Racing Ride Height Adjuster Tapered Steering Head Bearing Kit Speedymoto “Underbody” Frame Sliders AFAM Quick Change Sprocket Set-up with spare gearing. DID ERV3 520 Chain Magnesium Upper Cowl Brace Tank Stomp Grip Zero Gravity Double Bubble SBK Screen NEW Tape Works Rim Strips NEW Armor Bodies SBK bodywork with fresh paint. Armor Bodies SBK Air Ducts NEW Drippen Wet “Blank” Number Plates
Brakes: Brembo RCS Master with folding leaver 1 into 2 Braided Steel Lines Ti Cross Drilled Banjo Bolts Ti Cross Drilled Caliper Bolts New Brembo Race Pads Motul 600RF fluid
Suspension: Refreshed (New seals and oil) 1/15/17 by KWS Motorsports Ohlins 30mm Cartridge Kit (.95 Springs) Ohlins TTX MKII Shock (1.0 Spring)
Electronics: Microtec M97 Stand Alone Engine Management with Cable and Software. Microtec Quick Shifter (GP Shift) Motion Pro Right Side Switch Woodcraft Ignition Delete Kit NEW Ballistic EVO3 EVX16-12 Lithium Battery NEW Ballistic EVO Health Monitor NEW Ballistic EVO Advanced Charger
The size of the outfit is impressive, sitting on a parking lot filled with gift-wrapped luxury automobiles, and driving in, you really feel like you have reached the Los Angeles suburbs of Southern California.
I am loath to disparage other motorcyclists. Riding is a small community, and yet there are certain transgressions that are unforgivable, and this happened today when Mo at EagleRider San Francisco put me on an unsafe bike that nearly killed me due to his neglect.
I picked up a Ducati Scrambler last night with my friend Patty, who happens to run Desmo Silicon Valley, a Ducati Owner's Club in the Bay Area. Similar to NYC, the riding scene in San Francisco / San Jose seems fairly well-connected, and Patty knew Mo from various bike events. Last year, I had a great experience with a Ducati Hyperstrada, but when Patty dropped me off to pick up the Scrambler, I nervously noticed that not only did the bike have over 27,000 miles on it, the Desmo service light was on.
Ducati motorcycles require valves to be checked regularly, I asked Mo about the light (with Patty as a witness), and he laughed it off, saying he just serviced the bike, but didn't have the software to flash the ECU (and thus reset the maintenance light). Now I know a number of riders who check their own valves, and Mo owns multiple Ducs, so I trusted him as his word. Unfortunately, this would turn out to be a huge mistake.
This morning I was up by 5am, and suited up to head south. Patty and Eric had convinced me to skip Yosemite, and stick to some canyon carving in Southern California.
Initially, I had planned on doing the PCH, but there had been several landslides knocking out bridges and Route 1, so I resigned myself to slab much of the route to get down there, but possibly take the coastal route back.
I was on the road by 6am, and took a scenic detour on Route 25, from Hollister through San Benito to Lonoak, California.
There was nearly no-one on the road, and it was probably in the mid forties, with a dense fog clinging to the tops of the hills, obscuring your view and chilling you to the bone riding through it.
But as the sun came out, the scenery was dazzling and other-worldly.
After stopping briefly to warm up my fingers, I continued on back on the 101 South all the way to San Luis Obisbo and Pismo Beach, where the palm trees beckoned the seeming beginning of Southern California.
I then got off the highway, and headed towards some amazing roads along Route 166 going into Los Padres National Forest.
I was a bit grumpy over an earlier fight I had had with my girlfriend,
but stopping to pee I started to appreciate this alien landscape (at least for an East Coaster).
Looking down in during my rest-stop, I noticed a dead coyote or wolf in the canyon, and realized I was somewhere totally different.
The canyons and roads of Los Padres are phenomenal, but unfortunately approaching Ojala is was when my bike started to malfunction.
Completely leaned over in a turn, the throttle of the machine started to jerk.
At first, stood the bike up, and shrugged it off thinking this was a new machine (to me), and that every rider doubts a bike once in a while, when going over a steel-grate bridge for example, or changing from asphalt to a concrete surface.
So maybe it was just me... But then I started to lean the bike over around turns again, and the throttle cut out again.
I found myself having to rev extra, and the throttle-response would suddenly lurch, which is incredibly unsafe when trying to power out of a canyon corner.
Here I was in some of the most spectacular country I'd ever seen, on one of the best roads I'd ever ridden, on a bike that I didn't trust.
I then began to wonder if there was something wrong with the throttle,
or if the chain was too tight (I had a similar issue when getting a tire changed on my ST3.
I didn't think this bike came with DTC, but perhaps there was something wrong with the traction control going around corners.
The issue seemed to settle when I didn't push the bike, so I began to doubt the issue again.
I ended up picking up the 101 in Ventura, California, and decided to shoot for Ducati Westlake, a large dealer Patty had told me about the day before.
I was back in traffic, and realized that I could split (legally), and suddenly the engine started to surge again, this time quite violently, making me feel like my life was in danger for the second time today. Changing gears at about 4200rpms and the engine would sputter and either surge or cut out, and bobbed and weaved and eventually made it down to the Ducati shop by about 3pm.
Just as I had stumbled on the fabled Munroe Motors (Ducati San Francisco) last year while at Dreamforce, I wandered by a shop this year overflowing with Italian Motorcycles which turned out to be Desmoto.
Walking around the Mission looking for a Best Buy (so I could find a card-reader to download my GoPro videos riding),
I happened to pass by a Cycle Gear and Desmoto.
I struck up a conversation with the service manager Brien, and even though he didn't ride Ducs,
he told me that Desmoto specializes in all types of European machines, from service to restoration to race-tuning.
There were race farings and Italian machines everwhere, like this 850GT Moto Guzzi sitting next to a Ducati Monster.
In addition, there were a whole slew of trophies and posters from years past.
Brien told me that the space had gotten incredibly expensive, and was slated to move to Portrero sometime in the coming months.
I told him about my upcoming trip,
and my plans to try and hit Yellowstone before heading south towards LA.
Brien also knew Patty (with whom I was going to hang out with the next day) and Mo, from whom I was renting a Ducati, who he claimed had hid bikes serviced at Desmoto, though not too frequently as I was about to learn in over the next few days.
Last year, I had a quite a bit of awesome route guidance from friends who had lived or ridden the West Coast, but none better than from someone I had not met yet named Patty, introduced to me by a local friend Sandro, who helps to run DESMO on the East Coast.
I've wanted to do the Tail of the Dragon for years... The Tail of the Dragon is one of the few motorcycle trips on my bucket list (besides maybe the Bavarian Alps) that I haven't ridden before.
If you don't know, the Tail spans a vertiginous 308 turns in 11 miles from North Carolina to Tennessee, nestled in between the Smokey Mountains and the Cherokee National Forest, and which is widely considered one of the riding Meccas in the United States.
One of the greatest motorcycle trips I ever rode was a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway about three and a half years ago. Back then, riding my M600 Ducati Monster, I'd attempt to keep up with two friends riding the first 899 Panigale ever imported to the United States, and a brand new Aprilia Tuono.
If you consider yourself a motorcycle-sort of person, then a trip to Barber will become more of a religious experience than an educational trip to a museum.
Last week I was down in PA, belatedly celebrating a bday, and my buddy Alex asked if I wanted to try riding a couple of his vintage Italian motorcycles. Now I've long lusted after the 1980 Ducati 900SD Darmah and 1981 Moto Guzzi CX100 Le Mans that sat in his garage, so I grabbed my GoPro and headed over to Giegertown.
I saw this bike a few years ago, and was profoundly struck with its beauty, even though I didn't know a thing about one of greatest custom motorcycle fabricators at the time.
Walt Siegl might be greatest living Ducati builder alive, designing and manufacturing super-light custom Ducatis (Leggeros), and his precise aesthetic turns already-beautiful machines into something transcendent (in this writer's humble opinion).
I recall wishing that I had a better camera to capture the beauty of this machine, and I later learned that the bodywork and custom subframe weigh just 8.5lbs. Known sometimes more for the appearance of his beautiful bikes, Siegl is an engineer and ex-racer, who knows modifications impacting power-to-weight ratio are much more useful than fancy farings, as sublime as they may be. This Bol d'Or comes in at nearly a hundred pounds lighter than the factory Brutale.
Walt Siegl builds out of Harrisville, New Hampshire, and is currently working on a couple Ducati projects using prototype aircraft-grade steel.
I someday hope I can afford one of these machines, which I hear start at about $50,000, and are backordered for quite some time, but until then... I'll just be happy that bikes this beautiful actually exist.
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