I'm exhausted, and I should be packing for EICMA in Milan in a couple days, but even though my eyes are bloodshot and my wrists sore, I know that I won't put this up unless I get it done tonight, even though I was riding from eight this morning till nearly eight tonight.

Hawk's Nest with the East Coast Ducs

 Over the years, my riding friends have dwindled as the seasons change, so I was fairly amazed that twelve or thirteen bikes from the East Coast Ducs showed up on 10th Avenue and 45th Street this morning at 8:30am.
 Braving 40-50 degree weather, we went up the Palisades towards Bear Mountain and Seven Lakes Drive, a notoriously twisty, scenic series of roads.
 I was happy to be testing a whole bunch of new winter gear,
as in a week I'm hoping some friends can rent a bike and travel up around Lake Como in northern Italy.
It would be nice to do it on a Ducati, but I'm just hoping we can find some wheels outside Milan.
 Today was good practice though, and the weather really warmed up towards mid-day.
 Our penultimate destination was Hawk's Nest, a couple mile stretch of winding curves, one after another, a few hundred feet above the Delaware River Below.
 Hawk's Nest is just north of Port Jervis, and if I remember correctly, it's sort of the informal northern end of the Delaware Water Gap.  We arrived at around 1:30, and ended up way behind schedule, going back and forth up the mountain.
After some fantastic Barbeque. we didn't head back home until nearly 4:30, as dusk approached.  I stupidly had only my dark visor, which is basically useless at night, so I had to ride back for nearly an hour, from north of Bear Mountain, all the way back to the Lower East Side, with no visor at all.
Luckily I made it home safe, but clearly no prettier than when I started.
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

 I ran up to Bear Mountain last weekend after getting a tire changed at Rockwell Cycles.  My beautiful 996 complimented the stunning scenery on my favorite scenic spot in the park.

This incredible motorcycle rolled up at Rockwell Cycle last weekend.  This Bimota Tesi 3D is quite rare; only a handful were ever imported from Italy, only in 2008 (so I think this might actually be a 2007 model), when they cost somewhere around $30,000 if you could find one.
Powered by a Ducati 1079cc L-twin engine (from a 1000DS Multistrada I believe) , the most immediately apparent featured of this radical design is that the bike doesn't use forks.  Rather, the actual frame of the motorcycle is mounted on a pinion in the front wheel.
 Bimota developed what they call "Hub Steering" technology, and the hydraulic suspension and a pull-rod system is actually mounted beside the engine, cradled between a pair of swing-arms on the front AND rear of the bike.
Chatting with the owner, he said he took great care to avoid potholes, as there is no vertical compression possible, and that he didn't notice too much of a difference in the handling of the bike, until he started cornering at high speeds, where the bike felt quite different.  On traditional bikes, the rake (the angle at which  the forks are connected to the rest of the motorcycle) has huge effect on the bike's ability to turn in a corner, whereas on a forkless bike, the suspension doesn't distort the turning radius.
 There were a couple phenomenal MV Agusta F4 RR's that rode by, like this MV Agusta F4 312RR, and a giddy fellow MV rider informed me that the "312" stood for 312kph (roughly 194mph), as this was the top of the line RR a few years back.
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

Last week, a friend of mine (a fellow DOCNYC member who would like to remain anonymous at this point), who helped push me over the edge buying a 996 instead of a BMW S1000RR,
 fell in love with my bike so deeply he bought one of his own, purchasing a 2002 998.
 He and I are just itching to get out and ride this spring, though the weather hasn't really warmed up enough to ride very far.
 As we were driving up the Palisades Parkway in my friend's van, it started to snow, which turned into nearly blizzard conditions by the time we got up to Fort Montgomery.
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

I picked up my ST3 a few days ago from Rockwell Cycles and out in the lot they had two matching sunburst Ducati SportClassics back to back. This is probably my favorite bike that Ducati has made in the last decade, and this coupla Ducs lined up in a row did not disappoint...



© 2014 Tigh Loughhead

 It's hard to believe such beauty and great roads are less than an hour outside of NYC.






© 2013 Tigh Loughhead

© 2013 Tigh Loughhead