Spotless Desmosedici RR with only a few hundred miles on it.

 I had ridden up to Woodstock on Saturday with a few friends, some of whom were going to the track, others who were headed home, and I wound up riding down to the BBQ on my own, after a lovely morning riding around the Catskills.

Christan's lovely SportClassic

Also, the appeal of riding out of NYC from Central Park with 50 other Ducati enthusiasts has waned a bit.   Attendance has also dwindled a bit; last year the DOCNYC had maybe 25 riders up to Hamptonburgh, and this year even less.

Untouched 1985 Ducati 750F1A, #570 of 602 (and the last Ducati made before Cagiva purchased the Italian manufacturer).

  The ride was hot, and by the time I got there, most riders had already showed up. There were a few classics, but the main attraction was a trailer-queened Desmosedici, with barely any miles on it, number 850 of the 1,500 produced.

1990 Ducati 851 Superbike, the predecessor of the 916.  Stock except the Termignoni exhaust.

There were a bunch of regulars, and the raffle was fun as always. 

Ducati 900SS Superlight

 I walked away with five hats, and a few t-shirts, but nothing outrageous.

Ducati 749R Custom paint... everything possible upgraded, and best in show last year.

DESMO unbelievably has been around for fifteen years.

A couple of heavily-modified 1198S Ducatis, with more carbon-fiber than imaginable.

 I've started using Waze pretty seriously, as the directions automatically update based on traffic conditions, which are actually crowdsourced from users contributions,
 But alas, even Waze had me mixed up, and I ended up taking a very circuitous route home.
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

 I woke up early this morning to a beautiful, blustery spring morning.
 I hopped on the MTA North (Hudson line) up to Garrison, to be picked up by the guys at Rockwell Cycles, who had just done the service interval on my Ducati 996.
 They picked me up at the Manitou station, and I decided to walk up the hill towards the Bear Mountain Bridge, and a stumbled upon a couple incredible houses, like this uber-modern glass structure overlooking the Hudson River.
 After I picked up my bike, I texted a few friends, one of whom came up on his black Monster, and we took a quick ride up to Bear Mountain.
 After parting ways, I headed over to the DESMO "Oil Spill" at ECS outside of Middletown, NY.  I got terribly lost without a proper GPS setup, but eventually got there around 2pm for some cold pizza and a few members still wrenching their bikes.
 I parked next to one of the coolest (and most bizarre) cafe racers I have ever seen; a custom built 748 (you can see my matching tank in the background.
 The owner had totally rebuilt the bike, and added all kinds of aftermarket black and red parts, carbon fiber, and even a custom carbon fiber and fiberglass tail he made himself.
 The guys at ECS were fantastic, even helping to change DESMO members' timing belts.
 Other members brought their race bikes in for minor adjustments.
About 5 of us took off around 4:30 or 5, and went for a quick ride, back the way we came, on a 996, a Panigale 1199S, an 899 Panigale (above), a 1200 Monster and a Speed Trip-
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

Photo Credit (not me): Nejat

2014 was an incredible year for riding Ducatis.  Over the course of the year, I rode from NYC to North Carolina, then up around the periphery of Nova Scotia and much, much more, racking up over 13,000 miles (about 10K on the ST3 and 3000 on my Monster).

  In February, I bought a 2004 Ducati ST3, and rode it down from Ringwood, NJ to Southern PA though, unfortunately, I needed to put a bunch of money into it almost immediately.  The ST3 is an awesome bike, but I spent the first several months of ownership undoing the mistakes made by the previous owner, who fashioned himself a "mechanic."
 In April, I joined a couple friends riding cross country on superbikes, and I tried to keep up on my Monster with my buddy Cam on his brand new Ducati 899 and my friend Jay on his Aprilia Tuono.
 I rode around quite a bit locally (think Delaware, central PA), and finally got my ST3 back on the road for a rather impromptu trip with a buddy to Nova Scotia. I planned out a 2600 mile loop, from NYC up to Canada, across the Digby ferry (below),
 and around the fabled Cabot Trail.
 At the apex of our trip, we took our sportbikes down miles of washed out road, up and down severely graded gravel switchbacks, on balding tires and with no cell service, till we reached the northerly-most part of our trip, where we camped out on the beach at place called Meat Cove.
 A few weeks later, I rode up to wedding in Boston,
 And there were always organized rides, like our DOCNYC Distinguished Gentleman's ride,
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

I braved some miserable weather up to Rockwell Cycles this weekend with a friend from the DOCNYC, for their annual holiday party.  Good food, music and a great atmosphere provided a festive backdrop to Rockwell's beautiful motorcycle inventory, like this Ducati Panigale R.

That evening, the DESMO Ducati Owner's Club held our annual Christmas as well.  The party was a bit more subdued than last year, but we really appreciated all of the sponsors, including: Absolute Cycle Experience, Rockwell Cycles, Motorcycle Mall, Klim, Shoei, California Superbike School, Brillianize, EVS, Olympia, European Cycle Services, New Pig, Techspec, BST Wheels, Vortex Racing, Odyssey Battery, Sargent Cycle, RKA, Revzilla.

To find out more about the event, check out http://www.desmoducati.org/hp2014.html
© 2014 Tigh Loughhead

DESMO 14th Annual Ducati BBQ

 The DOCNYC (The DOC's local chapter, based in New York City) met up at 8am on 61st Street and Central Park, by Columbus Circle.
 Gathering the urban crew for a little pre-BBQ pep talk.  Riding with 30+ motorcycles in NYC is fairly dangerous, so the club coordinators laid out some ground rules as it began to rain.
 After a bit of debate, we took off up the Palisades Parkway, and the skies cleared up.
 We stopped for gas about an hour into the trip, where I got a chance to admire the new Ducati Monster 1200S (below), which is a hell of a Monster, but a totally different design from the classic Monster I know.

Ducati 4 Valve SuperBike Section

 We took some twisties, but got up to the Park a little after 11am.  Perhaps it was the rain, but there were far fewer bikes than last year, and less bikes entered in the bike show (below) as this year we were required register before parking.
 The 749 was immaculate, and had been rebuilt from the ground up.
 The bodywork was filled with touches of carbon fiber, and custom painted as well, from both the pearl yellow to custom, hand-painted lettering to match the Ducati red highlights of sprockets, steering dampers, bolts, etc.
 This Ducati 1198S showed up a bit later, but was sporting a ton of mods, including a complete Akrapovic exhaust, Carbon Fiber EVR air intake, a kevlar tank, super-light cams, flywheel and sprockets, dyno-tuned at ECS.

Ducati 2 Valve

 There were at least five or six 900SS Ducatis that showed up; some fully, some half-faired.
 Included in this section were two GT1000's.
 The red GT1000 was a beautifully modded machine, with tons of Rizoma parts including clear belt covers.

 The silver GT was a Paul Smart GT1000 with a full race fairing, sporting a eggshell teal colored frame.

Ducati Naked Bikes

 This hypermotard had also had extraordinary care given to detail, with blue accents everywhere, from tire stem caps, to a complete titanium bolt set, to sprocket and wheel nuts and much, much more (though the picture doesn't do it justice).
 This Ducati M1100EVO had also been heavily modified, and won best naked bike. Dyno-tuned, with a a complete exhaust and race map, I bet this motorcycle has some serious power.

Vintage Ducatis

Unfortunately, there were only a couple vintage Ducs this year, including the '75 850GT above
 I'm pretty sure this was actually an 848 and not a $70K motorcycle someone was throwing around at the track, but you can see "Desmosedici" fairings on the side.

Post BBQ Run back to Bear Mountain

© 2014 Tigh Loughhead