Five years in the making

I see in nearly five years the sign has changed as well!

And a few headaches along the way!

2006, it was cold, I was wet, 200 miles covered on a bike that I later found out shouldn't have made it out of Devon, let alone get back to Surrey, and then to East London for a service! Those good old days! When I was daft, slightly slimmer, slightly more in control of my sanity and just about had some hair! The Monster was bought with one aim in mind; "get me to the Isle of Wight for a holiday and last the two weeks I'm there for!" It was a strange idea, one born out of madness probably! I owned a 1997 Alfa Romeo GTV at the time and working out the cost of getting the car over to the island nearly scared me, so I decided to buy a bike! Save on the ferry crossing, and try to have some fun!

Looking back at that idea now... God what was I thinking! To save about £100 on a ferry crossing, I spent out (in the first few months) £1300 for the bike, then another £2000 on getting it repaired!! I must have been working for a bank at this time!! Would I go back in time and change that idea? No!

As the magazines are having an Il Mostro revival (The Monster for those not knowing Italian speak), and especially when you think the Ducati Monster has now been around for 18 years! Nearly as long as the Fireblade! Nowhere near as long as the Gixer, but the Monster invented a whole new style of motorcycle.

A parts bin special, the Monster was bit from bits of Supersports, Superlights and any other bits and pieces in boxes at Borgo Panigale. 18 years on, it is still Ducatis best selling bike! Back to my old, and not forgetting original Monster.

I've now owned her for nearly five years. Yes five years of riding, abusing, blowing it up, rebuilding, and more abusing! In the five years, I've done about 20,000 miles on her, and apart from breaking two of the four rear cylinder studs, and a few other temperamental Ducati problems, she has been fun! A bike that in five years, still is a pleasure to ride. Still feels like part of me, still puts a big grin on my face and not forgetting, sounds like the Apocalypse is arriving into a town near you, just on tickover!

Now I've spent over £7500 on her, and she is slowly becoming the Monster I want. There are some more jobs on the horizon, getting a full respray for the tank and seat hump, wheels to be finished off, a bit of tidying up on the wiring, new seat cover and then she'll be close to completion!

Would I sell her? No! She is part of me, she is too precious to sell now! A 1993 904cc Monster, a classic, the best of the Monsters as she is the original that sparked the rest of the "Il Mostro" clan!

Don't forget, they also saved Ducati!

What ever happened to this bike?

Well, she changed a bit in five years!

Taken December 2006

Taken July 2011

Just a small amount of changes in five years!

Daftness and gadgets

After the Bank Holiday weekends fun I decided to go shopping.



The 'Tunnel Monsters' in London

A few fellow Ducati owners decided on a Tunnel Run, and apart from a bit of bad timing for the run, it was a good crack to get out, ride through some tunnels with 20 plus other Ducatis! It all finished up with (soft) drinks at a café in Soho.

So, back to my spending spree. As I used to dabble in a bit of photography, I decided, well, I decided years ago to buy one but just never got round to finally taking the plunge! I bought myself a Dogcam Bullet HD camera.



It's a teeny weeny thing, and fits nicely onto the Monsters trellis frame.







Armed on a mission this evening to catch up with a trailer at South Mimms truck stop, I decided tonight was a good night to try out the camera. Well, after a f**k up on my part as I couldn't remember if I turned it on so I ended up with 20 minutes of footage from a petrol station, whilst I was filling up the bike, 10 minutes of sitting at a roundabout whilst I was on the phone to a customer and 5 minutes of sitting in the truck stop.

Finally I worked out what I was doing and got 20 minutes of my ride back to the secret West London workshop!



Apart from a few problems, myself being the main one! The camera is good. Easy to use, quality is good, sound is ok as well bearing in mind my bike is a quiet thing! Now, as summer has near disappeared, the camera will no doubt not pop out much. Once I get the hang of the editing lark, all will be fine!!

Surviving the Royal Wedding and then some..

It's been a busy weekend, and it's only Saturday!

Yesterday was spent trying to hide from the Royal Wedding. I did managed to hide from most of it. An extra day off is good, but there is always too much hype with these things!! I didn't service the bike in the end, all I did in the end was ride it back home from the secret workshop and cover it up until the next days fun.

Saturday morning started with one of my neighbours being threatened with a hammer. Oh what joy this place is. 1am and the nutters are out! I finally managed to get back to sleep and then woke up late for Auto Italia.

I fell out of bed at 810am and was at Brooklands Museum at 840am! The first bike of the day as well, even with a pit stop to change a blown fuse (must fix this problem next week!). A quick wander around and a few more Ducatis appeared, and a nice day of wandering around looking at cars and bikes and just chilling in the sunshine!







I left Brooklands to head up to London. The UKMOC had arranged a meeting for this afternoon and I was not about to miss this one. A gentle ride through London was the order. A top afternoon was had! 20+ Ducati Monsters heading through the city. Fine the traffic was a bit rubbish, but the sound was just mad!









After a leisurely pit stop at a cafe in Soho, I headed back out of London and after another blown fuse (I really must fix this next week!) induced pitstop at the Fox and Duck at the bottom of Richmond Hill, it was back home to try and get rid of the smell of London and upload the pictures from todays fun!

The Royal Wedding and what to do instead....

I've just been sitting here at my desk pondering the question. Tomorrow will be bad, not a lot happening apart from some bloke marrying some woman in a big church somewhere. No doubt lots of other people will be getting married tomorrow, and I haven't been invited to any of them.

So, Mr Grumpy here is deciding what to do to try and avoid this over hyped event.

Back on the 5th September 1997, at about 10pm I decided to get out on the old Ninja. 8 hours later, a fair few miles done, mostly riding round the M25, I was tired and had a big grin on my face before disappearing off to sleep for the day.

Now, do I decide to be daft and watch the thing on TV? No, can't be bothered. William has not invited the Ducatisti to do a ride past so I'm not going to watch it on the TV.

Go out on the bike. Suppose I could, but the weather is not looking 100% for tomorrow.

Service the bike. Good plan, and I can get some tinkering in before Auto Italia Day at Brooklands.

Do some paperwork. Nah.... That can wait!

So, tomorrow looks like a day of servicing the Monster. Oil, plugs and cleaning stuff has been purchased. I've bought a carbon fibre tea tray off of fleabay, but I'm sure the post office will not be running a delivery service tomorrow.

Bikes, bikes and some ice cream

Last weekend was the open day at On Yer Bike just outside Aylesbury.

It was a good little run to try out the Monster after her little clean up. A nice blat from the secret workshop up the back roads to Aylesbury. Only a couple of small issues. The exhausts were still burning off some polish which was an interesting smell and one of the 7.5amp fuses keep blowing. This has been traced to the number plate light bulb. A little bit of jiggery pokery and the fuse was fixed.

Typical Ducati bike meeting then. Heading to a bike shop and having to buy pieces for the bike!

Still, a good day out was had. Ice cream, some Lemoncello cake and some new bikes looked at. The only problem now is, I have found a new bike I want. A ZX6R. Time to get my saving hat on.











The Horsham Italia Piazza meet on Friday and looking at the weather this is going to be a good one.

Pondering time

It's late in the evening and time for a ponder before I watch another couple of The Professionals episodes.

Today would have been the old mans 77th birthday. He died one day after his birthday, so all in all, it will be the one year anniversary tomorrow since he died. Yes I miss the silly old bugger. I miss his daft money making ideas, the next idea that will cost me some money, the silly chats on whilst we were out in the car / van somewhere, the cleaner from work, the moans about me spending too much time out on the bike / car / work / pub.

If he was still about today, he would be getting me to drive him down to the local Superfish to have his usual rock and chips, or he would just ask for the keys to the Jag (more than likely he would want me to drive him somewhere), just to get out and show off for a bit.

Finally, a virtual toast to the old man, happy birthday and what ever you are doing somewhere, don't come up with some hair brained idea, unless it is a good one and I can't think of any problems to ruin it!

A nice little blast

They clear the cobwebs they do!

Today was spent riding the Monster and changing fuses due to a dodgy number plate light bulb! The joys of owning an L-Twin and watching the vibrations bounce the bulb out of it's fitting and then deciding to blow the fuse for the dash and indicators. I love my bike, I really do.

Well, that was until I got to On Yer Bike, Aylesbury. Now I have seen something rather interesting. A bike that could join the stable of the Monster and the Bandit (still in two boxes). A Kawasaki ZX6R.

Yes, I did own one back in 1997. I owned the green meanie for a year. It was my second Kwak, and I enjoyed it for the 15,000 miles I put on the bike. A couple of trips down to Poole, around Cornwall and lots of short blats to the coast and the hills. Come the end of the year, I know what I could be looking for. A 2007 or 2008 ZX6R. Insurance price is slightly better than it was back in 1997, £1000 TPFT for a 22 year old on a brand new sports bike! Quotes for todays Loon, 36 year old with 14+ years NCB, £105! It's still £40 more than the Monster though, but the tax is £21 cheaper!!

So, could this year be the return of the green meanie. Who knows, it is only April. Still a while to go yet!

A work in progress

Nearly two weeks ago the old Monster was lying in the road after just being twatted by a BMW. At the time I thought it was the end of the Ducati. No more will she be singing to the locals in her own unique rattle, clack clack way. The oldest Monster in the land dead, expired an ex Monster.

Thanks to a quick and relatively easy insurance claim and payout within a week, a big thanks to Moto Rapido who had all the parts sent up to the secret workshop with in a couple of days and also a big thanks to my mates who came round and rescued the old Monster and myself.

Apart from a couple of small battle scars, the old Monster is still alive and everything seems to be in one piece still. Project cleans first stage has been completed and it's now the weekend and time to give her a quick road test before Horsham next Friday.



There are a couple of small dents on the tank, easy to spot really.

Tonight I cleaned up the carbon fibre side panels, the chain and T-Cut'd the tank and seat cowl. A quick buff and polish, re-attached the small pile of carbon fibre bits back onto the bike and she is almost ready to roll. It's just a matter of checking the tyre pressures and topping up the oil now.





All back together and waiting for the call from the open road!

I think it is time for a well earned beer and some relaxation!

All good things come to an end....

I just have no idea when this will finish. Will this be like painting the Forth Bridge? Oh no, that can last 25 years now between painting!



Before the clean up operation started. Rusty pipes and dirty bits!

After a bit of thinking today, I've decided to take the option of making the Monster look clean, but still keep some of the 18 year old character. Or in other words, get rid of the rust and other brown stuff off bits and pieces, but don't go too OTT and make it look brand new, because she isn't!

This afternoon was spent finishing off the spaghetti pipes. Lots of sandpaper used and I also found out the T-cut metal polish is a damn sight better than Autoglym metal polish!! After I finished off the large section of the spaghetti pipes I decided to do the rear cylinder section. Well, that was a stupid mistake!! The rear cylinder pipe is a pain to get off! My ratchet would not reach, no matter which extensions I used on it! The spanner didn't have enough room to move without having to strip the side covers, air box and fuel tank off! So, after getting the fuel tank, side covers and unplug the brake light sensor, I could final get about an inch of movement on the spanner!

Bruised knuckles later, and the pipe fell to the floor with a satisfying clang! God it looked awful. I thought the front down pipe was horrible, the rear was covered in rust. Luckily it is only small, and after a couple of hours of sanding and polishing, the pipe was back to a rather nice champagne colour, which I've found out now is actually the proper colour the pipes should be, not silver!! (opps)



Getting there slowly



Pipework put back together.







And finally all back on the old beast!

The only problem I have now found is that the list for the 'Winter' project is getting longer. Wheels need powder coating (or polishing), rear shock needs powder coating, replace brake reservoir, and paint or polish the footrest hangers.... WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Yes ok, it is childish, but noisy fun!

Why not do it. It's fun, it keeps the neighbours awake and if you are lucky, you may get an ASBO as well!

If I could edit the clutch out, well just hide the pictures and the dry clutch noise, I could be listening to a very sick American V8.....