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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Redmond, OR, USA
Posts: 624
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I finally bought my first Ducati, come rain and snow.
Since I was a kid I always wanted a motorcycle. I remember seeing my first sportbike. My dad told me "Like hell you'll have one!" and when I grew up, I got one. A ninja 250. However, my dream bike was always to have a Ducati though I never knew anything about them.
When I got my 250 my wife worked at a different business and a local guy came in to get some framing done. She got to talking and they got on the subject of motorcycles. The random local guy who is now a great friend of mine ended up having a Ducati and an Aprilia and introduced me to a lot of local people and got my interest really sparked in riding. As well as DUCATI bikes.
Ever time we'd go riding I could never hear my 250 over his Ducati with the exhaust on it, it was like a monster from hell.
Since I bought my 250, and saw that bike, I had been secretly saving to buy a Ducati since then.
A week ago that dream FINALLY came true. As I had browsed craigs list, and searched a 5 state radius there was not a single bike that caught my eye. Too much, needed work, or something was wrong with them... nothing..
Finally as I hesitantly checked washington I found an exceptionally clean one.
I emailed the owner and told him one way or another I wanted that bike and would EVEN pedal bike up there to get the darn thing if I had to.
2 days later I grabbed my money and me and my wife headed to washington.
280 miles to drive in a tiny escort zx2. 6 hours later through rain, snow, ice, cinders and de-icer on the roads we got to our destination. We found the place at night time. Tired and sore from driving we got to the house, did our business and I scoped out the bike. It was more beautiful than in the pictures. It was clean, immaculate, just a great bike. I didn't hesitate to say "Thats the one."
No trailer and a time pressed schedule we decided to try to make it back the same night. It was 10:00 pm, we hit I-5. It was cold, it was nasty and I was determined to get home. We got roughly 100 miles the same night. My wife was flashing the brights at me, she was tired and we found a cheap hotel on I-5. By the time i was ready to park the bike I hadn't realized how tired and cold I was. I couldn't feel my face or my hands, and my chest was cold. We got inside the room and I was shivering and numb, and had beginning signs of hypothermia. It was time to take a break. I hit the shower for a good 40 minutes and then went back outside to look at my bike.
The next day we headed out at 11:00 am sharp. It was warmer, but still chilly, but I had been in worse and knew we could get home just fine. By the time we hit portland it was a lot warmer. We took the wrong exit to go back through warm springs and had to go back the way we came, through the santiam pass.
By the time we hit the pass it looked as if it was going to be clear. By the time we hit the top of the pass there was ice, snow, rain and de-icer all over the road. I have been in some crappy weather conditions on my wee little 250 but nothing like this... I tried my hardest to stay out of the cinder, avoid the de-icer, and try not to lean the bike too far, take it slow... I was forced multiple times to pull over to let cars go by for fear of lowsiding the bike that I just got. We caught up to a de-icer truck, the bike was slowly covered in de-icer as it was sprinkled on the road like a white cloud, nasty looking stuff... slippery too. Carefully on the brakes i slowed down as he pulled over as there was oncoming traffic, the stuff was all over and caked. i was able to slow down but not until the truck behind my wife wanted a piece of me, the truck nearly forced me and my wife off the road because he was following SO CLOSE, I pulled over onto a turnoff chain up area (thank god that was there) and was able to stop the bike just in time, pulled the clutch in and got on the brakes and the back tire locked JUST as it was coming to a stop.
After we let the truck pass we made sure there was no one behind us so we had room to keep going. We got the bike safely through the pass and ever so carefully. We managed to come back through sisters, hit redmond and were safely home. I've been in some bad weather, but on the santiam pass... you'll never see me take a bike there ever again. Cinder rocks, de-icer, impatient people, ice, snow, no fun. Thankfully I was not mashing on the brakes, I was on them but was gradual, careful and patient with the bike. It really handled great, did what it needed to and got home safely.
By the time we got the bike home it was muddy, nasty, and almost entirely white from the de-icer. I had to literally scrub the de-icer off the roads and pull parts off the bike to clean it so that it didn't mess with the aluminum swingarm as it is notorious for eating cars up and rusting them if left on and not washed off.
The bike ended up cleaning up nicely, I even 3 step waxed it, cleaned her up and she was GORGEOUS afterwards. You'd never even know she endured the trip.
It was a long, painful trip, 280 miles from the middle of washington to my home town in central oregon. It now has a happy home with 2 other bikes to keep it occupied and busy while I'm gone and has some great roads around here to look forward to. A week later my back still hurts, my arms hurt, my legs hurt, my whole body hurts as I took only 2 breaks the whole trip home. Amazingly comfortable for a reach like that on a sportbike and I am quite impressed.
the bike has already had some nice twisty roads to look at in the past couple days and a couple rides already. The previous owner put 600 miles on the bike total in a matter of many months..... I've managed to put 3/4 of that on it in a matter of DAYS.
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2005 Ninja 250R
1999 Ducati 900SS
1974 Kawasaki F7C
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Some people will tell you that slow is good -- and it may be, on some days -- but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I've always believed this, in spite of the trouble it's caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba....
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