in a nutshell for me. being eternally poor/fick(but happy)i enjoy everything no matter how hard it tries to kill me. have owned literally hundreds of bikes,mainly skip fodder that ive bodged and ridden and my fellow riders were of the same ilk mostly in my early years. for me,somewhere in the last 25yrs biking got taken over by a different mindset,*ank managers and various in the wallet-gang types etc oor ive was in a coma perhaps and awoke to a different world. main reason i dont get involved in the forum thing really,when i had bmws id go to theirs for bodging info and be repelled by "wallet bikers" who simply had no intrest in anything unless it was fashionable/latest wizzbang model,triumph forums much the same,and even some jap forums are just showrooms of brand new shinies covered in all the latest glue on chinese accessories. harley forums i find are split,half living some sort of wierd wallet fueled"biker" dream and tothers being mechanically minded like me albeit a lot more accomplished. ducatis,well im the only duc owner i know,i see them out there but when im riding im too busy to nod etc,not ignorance just that i need all my concentration to ride,my ability still isnt great after 40+years riding,and as for standing in a carpark for hours with a million other bikies,not my thing ,defeats the purpose of a bike imo. this strictly my personal opinion mind,now im officially at the grumpy age and note im not a "biker",im just someone who enjoys and rides bikes heheh.
@JerryXt there was me and these two other guys with 'modern' Ducatis, one had an arm missing and the other a younger guy. We had a great chat and, as you know and I like to think, I can get on with almost anyone esp face to face, as happy to chat about anything with anyone. Tbh thats why I ended up at DSC door, as most of the people I met just wanted to ride a bike, have a laugh and generally were helpful and not too derisive to those with less knowledge or who weren't interested in the mechanics of things. But just as not every R6 rider is a spotty twat. Not every Ducati rider is a snobbish bore. And we can all be both of those at times, just not all the time
That isn't surprising, standard cast-iron rotors are positively useless and dangerous in the wet. How the 906 ever made it past type-approval mystified me. (I fixed this by having Spondon steel floating front discs made for mine)
Before I owned a Ducati (2007) I couldn't see the point in them. They looked nice but they were too expensive, too unreliable and were generally ridden by twats. That was my opinion back then.:Bag:........... Of course I don't think that now! Honestly.....I ride one now and I'm not a twat, am I ?:Happy:
You will be surprised at the amount of people you meet and become friends with when you own a Ducati.
I have met many good folks via the DSC and ISC and having owned a lovely 748R it seems the the opposite tends to apply.Its the non Ducati owners that just dont get it and couldn't believe the mindset of some of those and the comments about Ducati owners from them.Ducatis are expensive to buy and run (although better now).They generally dont get as missused or used by many when the weather changes for the worse as pointed out by some non owners as if that is an issue or shows that we are any less motorcyclists.But if my old "R" was parked next to a string of Jap IL4's,the bike that got the most looks and comments was mine.I used to get car drivers pull next to me on dual carrigeways and wind their windows down giving the big thumbs up which has never happened to me on other bikes.
Not altogether. There was a batch of nearly 3,000 singles which were sold off cheap from 1968 to 1972 by Bill Hannah. These 350 Sebring, 250 Monza and 160 Monza Junior bikes had been rejected by the USA market. They were available in the UK at bargain-basement prices. One of my mates, Terry, bought one because he couldn't afford anything better. Thus Ducati owners by 1972 had a reputation as cheapskates. Surely you haven't forgotten this, Steve?
I didn't have an opinion on Ducatisti, HD owners or anything in general. I do hate brand snobs though. There isn't one bike/brand that is the be all and end all...
I got my first Ducati (first bike) in 1978. At that point if I was given a choice of bikes I probably wouldn't have chosen a 250 Scrambler but I was still at School, didn't have any money and the bike was free! This was in Italy though and I was not aware of any brand snobbery, that said the 'big boys' had Z1/Z900's...
is there any chance the negative reviews are based on the posters own insecurity? just thought i would throw that in there. :smile:
93.....didn't even know what a ducati was. I was riding a GSX-r 7-11 that my mate used to race, swapped it with an immaculate TDR250 (my most favourite bike ever), Q plated it and got it back on the road. Still to this day the scariest thing ive ever ridden - even moreso after I gas flowed the head...which leads on to why I now own a hypermotard - its the closest thing to my TDR with a 1 litre lump in it.
The only "elitism" I see is one Ducati owner to another. "I know all about sag...and you dont..." "I'm a gnarly old w@nker and have been riding bikes since fecking Doomsday..." "Boxhill is for sad to$$ers..." "Never done a trackday......!?!?!?!" "Here's a picture of me taken on a box brownie with my pubes blowing in the breeze....! :Muted:
Not sure of what the average stereotype of a Ducati owner is even now but I got a real shock when I met loads of owners via the different Forums as they were nothing like I had imagined, maybe because the price of owning a secondhand one has become reasonable now especially if you fix it yourself.
To be honest a long time ago (20 yrs +) I thought most of the Duke owners I met were complete & Utter twats. And they were. "look at my shiny red thing that has to go back to the dealer every time I ride 10 miles" "You cant afford one they're only for proper racers" CNUT'S I ride mainly by myself these days so the only nob I meet is myself. I still get pissed at any type of "elitist" group in any walk of life. To me it matter not one jot what bike you ride as long as you ride.......
I've only been riding for a few years, and to be honest I'd never heard of Ducatisti until shortly after I got into bikes. I only know one lad who had one until a wrist injury meant it became too uncomfortable to ride, and he's a top bloke. Ducati had never seemed any different to any other brand, other than being very beautiful and supposedly a bit temperamental/delicate to my uneducated mind. Now I've met a few Ducatisti, they seem nice people and not unhealthily devoted to one make of bike, and neither have they seemed to be elitist pilots or bankers. Just normal folks enjoying their gorgeous Italian machines. Now, Harley riders in the grungy leathers and Nazi helmets - they're tools.
