Ducati Travelogue of Tigh Loughhead's Motorcycle Adventures in NYC

You know it's springtime when the motorcycles come back out on Tuesday nights to a little cafe in the East Village on 1st Avenue and 2nd Street called Spiegel for what's now becoming the city's pre-eminent bike night.

TwoWheelTuesday Bike Night in Manhattan at Spiegel

The Ducati New York Track Experience was so amazing last week, I'm spending the entire weekend at the track this weekend, but with a different crew, the club outfit EvolveGT.

We've all been waiting for this for weeks: The Ducati New York's Track Experience at NYST to kick off the track season.
https://www.ducati.com/ww/en/events/desmo-owners-club/gotham-at-ducati-new-york-track-experience-us-2019-09-02

It's been a long winter, but I'm finally ready for the track!

The track weapon is ready for action.

I'm down in Pennsylvania this weekend, working on my track bike for the upcoming season.

One of my friends Dave Wax is working on an incredible new electric bike and motorcycle project with Erik Buell, and they had a pop-up shop on the Lower East Side this week.

Before leaving Austin, and this epic MotoGP weekend behind, we had to check out Revival Cycles a custom motorcycle builder and shop.

It's a cute little shop that definitely caters to the hipster crowd, but they have a ton of very cool custom bikes.

Tigh Loughhead with Jorge Pister of DOC Mexico at COTA Motogp

After four days, it was finally race day!!

Today started out very soggy... both from the excesses of the DOC party last night; as well as torrential rains in the morning.

Golden Gate Ducati President Sandro Reis with Tigh Loughhead of Gotham Ducati

Patty Castro of Desmo Silicon Valley, Sara Cole of Houston Desmo Owners Club and Vicki Smith of Ducati.net put together an awesome bash this year in Austin to celebrate MotoGP and the Ducati owners' community.

Though I've been writing about motorcycles for nearly a decade, I've never actually been to MotoGP race in person.

Tigh Loughhead of Gotham Ducati Desmo Owners Club at Ducati Austin MotoGP Party on a Panigale V4R

Tigh Loughhead of GothamDOC's StreetfighterR: DUCATI Streetfighters 1198 Custom Superbike

Hot off of Henry Crew's talk last night at Ducati New York about riding around the world on a motorcycle,

Henry Crew of 35000miles Guiness Book World Record Holder for youngest person to ride around the world on a Ducati Scrambler

There is a pretty bizarre dealership way out in Long Island if you travel all the way out to a place called Oakdale on the South shore called FormulaOne Motorports.

Ducati New Yorks Dave You Suspension 101 class

Dave from Ducati New York puts on a pretty amazing suspension seminar a couple times each winter,

After the engine teardown in preparation for my StreetfighterR, Ducati New York asked Gotham Ducati to join to help ring in the new Chinese New Year blessing the shop.

Gotham Ducati and Ducati New York Chinese New Year with Tigh Loughhead

Tigh Loughhead and Gotham Ducati New York on a Streetfighter Engine Teardown

The 848, 1098 and 1198 engines all drop right into each other's frame, but the main difference between these models is between the Superbike and the Streetfighter.

NYDUCATI at Long Island Racing in Brentwood, Islip for my Ducati Streetfighter R

DESMO's holiday party this year was hosted after Christmas, at an Italian spot called the Woodstone Pizza Bar and Grill.

This week has been rough- with Monday blowing sub-zero temperatures into New York City...to nearly 60 and pouring by Thursday. I'm working on a pretty cool project with my Streetfighter... (more on that later- I'm dropping an 1198 engine in the bike to create a StreetfighterR), but I've been doing some clean up on the website, and it has made me a little sentimental for rides gone by.

So much of my identity has come from the rubber I've laid down on the road alone and with others, to the point that most of my closest people are now largely in the motorcycle community. I thought I'd take the weekend to reflect, listicle style- on some of my absolute favorite rides I've ever been blessed to take. So with all of that said, here are my top 15 Ducati motorcycle trips I've ever ridden, in no particular order:

1. Museo Ducati in Borgo Panigale

I've actually gotten to visit the Ducati factory a couple times by now, but the Museo Ducati is absolutely essential to visit if you go to Bologna (or even anywhere in Northern Italy).

2. The Cabot Trail

Going on 5 years ago (and before I took videos apparently), my buddy Jay and I embarked on a 12 day, 2500 mile adventure up to Nova Scotia and around the Cabot Trail, lugging a case of beer and camping out at Meat Cove, at the northernmost tip of Cape Breton Island. This trip was such a self-affirming journey, for the people that we met, and what I discovered about myself, and even moreso discovering what was out there available to me in the world.

Motos and Photos was back at Filipacchi tonight.

When Donny asked me to help promote Rockwell Cycle's trivia night in Hoboken a couple months ago, I was pretty pumped to participate.

In 2006, Ducati teamed up with famed racing parts manufacturer NCR to build an extremely limited run of its SportClassic line, that went on sale at the time for $50,000.

I've met Charlie a couple times over the years, but somehow had never been to his annual toy drive, where supercars and and the super-generous convene in Astoria to collect gifts for children.

Seems like Ducati is branching out from MotoGP and Superbike racing.

I've been going to the International Motorcycle Show every year since 2013, but last year Ducati wasn't in attendance, and I skipped the show.

Ducati New York invited Gotham members and customers out last night to preview the 2019 Ducati Panigale V4R, a homologation superbike with 231hp and winglets capable of delivering 60lbs of downforce at 150mph, perfect for the West Side Highway of course.