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Showing posts with label Ducati GT1000. Show all posts

I woke up this morning with weather in the 30's, and realized I had no warm gear with me for the weekend in Pennsylvania. My brother in law wanted to hit the road early though, so I was on the road at half past seven, though my fingers were numb when I got to his house.

With the frosty weather finally feeling like fall, we waited for a couple other people to join us, then over to Honeybrook for breakfast at Wimpy & Dee's.

Every first Sunday of each month at the American Legion in Ephrata, PA, several hundred motorcycles convene for an impromptu bike rally, and that was our original destination..

Unfortunately, we arrived close to 11:30am, and it looked like most of the motorcycles had already departed, though there were a few vintage racing bikes like this Yamaha RZ250R.

A few companies had sent showroom bikes, like EBR (whose bikes I detailed at August's First Sunday) and Eurosport, exhibiting Brammo. There's a Zero SZF11.4 that charges outside my building, but I had never seen their main competitor's $15,000+ electric motorcycle, the Brammo Emp ulse R, that boasts a top speed of 110mph, and bizarrely a 6 speed transmission (but unfortunately less than a 100 mile range on a single tank).

We bummed around for a bit, and were getting ready to roll when a rather large fellow came rolling in on a tiny Gixxer. His gear matched this 50cc lawnmower powered GSXR, and though it looked absolutely ridiculous (see little girl for scale), I'm sure he had the actual bike at home.

I'm not sure about this monstrosity either, though someone looked to have grafted an old Harley front end onto an old truck motor and frame.

My riding buddies assured me that First Sunday used to be nearly ONLY European bikes, but like much of motorcycling culture, this event has been taken over by Harley Davidsons.

We rode around Amish country for a while, stopping off to pick up another rider, *(my bro-in-law admiring his brand new to him '-08 GT1000 detailed here) before chilling out with some Yuengling Oktoberfest, a suitable festbier for an awesome autumn day.

DESMO 14th Annual Ducati BBQ

Sunday was DESMO Ducati Owners Club's annual barbecue, a massive Duc extravaganza held every year at Thomas Bull Memorial Park, northwest of Middletown, New York

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.

Above from right to left, a 749, two 899s, an 848Evo, a 998S Troy Bayliss Replica, a Panigale 1199 Tricolore, another 899, a 999S Parts Unlimited Replica and a 749R.

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 749 won both best in show and best of the Superbike category.

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.

Hamza's Bayliss

Ducati 2 Valve

There were at least five or six 900SS Ducatis that showed up; some fully, some half-faired.

The nicest 900SS was this pretty yellow "Superlight" edition:

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.

A much later 900ss

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

There were also a whole bunch of bikes that didn't compete in the show, that parked out in the parking lot.

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.

I'm pretty sure this wasn't a Desmosedici though, as the bike was a bit beat up, with track stickers all over it.

This Diesel Monster was pretty cool, and the helmet gave the whole bike a kind of Call of Duty impression, what designer Renzo Rossi called "urban military chic."

Post BBQ Run back to Bear Mountain

After the Barbecue, several DOCNYC members wanted to get back the the city, while others still wanted to ride.

A veteran DOC rider Lew (with something like 70K miles on his yellow ST4) offered to take about 25 of us around a bit, and after losing most of the group, we wound up back at Bear Mountain.

The sky was so clear you could easily make out the NYC skyline an hour away.

We lost half the crew, but ended up meeting up with another 10 club members who had left separately and had the same destination in mind.

As the sun set over a such a beautiful day, we took one last look at each others' amazing rides, the stunning scenery, and finally made our way home back home to our most likely more ordinary lives.