Woke up Saturday ready to ride. and spent most of the morning mulling around Ducati Soho.
 Tricked out perfect purple Panigale with everything powder-coated from TheChopShopNY

 Friday night, a couple buddies were planning on a ride, though I mentioned I wanted to go down to Revzilla and try on some new boots, especially as I wanted to be down in PA to see my family that night.  Instead, I ended up planning a route for the NYC boys, up to Port Jervis and then down through the Delaware Water Gap, where we would finally split off in Easton, PA.
Unfortunately, it looked like rain, and we ended up meandering around Ducati Soho all day. I've heard a lot of mixed things about Ducati Soho (and had some 'interesting' experiences with their service dept), but the staff was extremely hospitable, especially Abraham, who helped me try on a bunch of different Dainese gear.
Even though I was out of the house at 6:30, I ended up hitting the road after noon, and got solidly rained on for about an hour.  A little wet, but no worse for wear, I made it back down to the farm and managed to get all three of my bikes running.
I replaced the battery in my ST3, which happily started right up for the first time since I had the valves adjusted in November, but my Monster's battery was dead as well.
 Sunday, I rode out with both of my brother-in-laws (they both have GT1000's), and we took an amazing little ride around Oley, PA.
 Both of their retro Ducati's were gleaming, and my dusty ST3 paled in comparison.
 We ended up at Union Jack's, drinking some fantastic Stone Enjoy By 07.04.15 IPA.
© 2015 Tigh Loughhead

 So I hopped on my Monster, which was fitting, as none of my PA Ducati gang I joined was riding their nicest bikes. By 9am we were on the road in search of breakfast on a Monster, a Cagiva Gran Canyon, a 90's BMW R1150RT police bike, and a 70's R75 cafe racer.  This motley crew found its way to The Park Place Diner in Denver, PA for breakfast.

 After breakfast we rode over to the first First Sunday in Ephrata, where there a was a little fleet of modified Honda Groms, like the one pictured above with an extended swingarm. I guess even with only a 125cc engine he has a hard time keeping the front wheel on the ground...?

 There were several other modified Groms, with custom suspensions and paint jobs.

At around $3000 stock, these little bikes are kind of cool, and apparently kind of hard to get ahold of since demand is so great. 

The coolest bike had full custom race farings, though this photograph doesn't really show the amusing size of this motorcycle.  For scale, the top of the windscreen is probably around my waistline, and I'm hardly a tall man. 

 In addition, there were a couple of heavily modified BMW superbikes.  This blinging BMW HP4 was garishly adorned with carbon fiber parts, stickers and custom bits.  To call this bike tricked-out would be like claim Liberace had "flair."

At the same time, I almost bought a BMW S1000RR a couple months ago and bought a Ducati 996 instead, but the HP4 remains an incredible machine.
 The crowd was fairly large, and there were a couple of cool bikes.
This cool cast frame, British-made Velocette was built in 1951.

A couple of Indian Thunder Stroke 111's.

© 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 woke up early this morning to an incredible day in Pennsylvania; eager to get out on the road. My ST3 has been out of commission for almost the entire time I've owned it, and apart from one big trip,  I haven't had much of a chance to ride.


 Enjoying the stunning weather, I puttered around Oley, then over to Boyertown.
 Finally, we stopped off for milkshakes, at a strangely bustling and crowded venue with minigolf and fantastic milkshakes in the middle of rural nowhere called Heisler's Cloverleaf Dairy Bar.



© 2013 Tigh Loughhead