DUCATI 1098 ALL SERVICE DONE CARBON EXTRAS EXCELLENT

REVIEW:The Testastretta Evoluzione twin is shamelessly biased toward fast. twisty roads and even faster racetracks. Still. it's a competent if vastly overqualified commuter. Pushing its 443 lbs. with 138 horses. the basic 1098 is a full 25 lbs. lighter and 19 bhp stronger than an equivalent 999. Armed with a stiff. stable chassis and the astonishing stopping power of Brembo's Monobloc calipers. it dominated Motorcyclist's "Class of 2007" sportbike comparison. getting around Northern California's Thunderhill Raceway quicker than any of its classmates. Shifting is lighter and more precise than earlier editions. A MotoGP-style LCD tachometer tells you most of the big twin's cavalli live between 6000 rpm and the electronically enforced limit at 11. 00. Surf the power peak at 9850 rpm and you can cover a quarter-mile in about 10. 3 seconds at 139 the 1098 is quite reliable. The 1098 delivers all the panache and performance that made Ducati legendary for the price of something ordinary. Big power and bigger brakes in a razor-sharp package. Thoroughbred performance with a powerful desmodromic backbeat. FUN REVIEW:Hunter S. Thompson reviews the Ducati- Dr Gonzo on the Ducati £?by Hunter S. ThompsonI have been a connoisseur of fast motorcycles all my life. I bought a brand-new 650 BSA Lightning when it was billed as "the fastest motorcycle ever tested by Hot Rod magazine. " I have ridden a 500-pound Vincent through traffic on the Ventura Freeway with burning oil on my legs and run the Kawa 750 Triple through Beverly Hills at night with a head full of acid. I have ridden with Sonny Barger and smoked weed in biker bars with Jack Nicholson. Grace Slick. Ron Zigler and my infamous old friend. Ken Kesey. a legendary Cafe Racer. Some people will tell you that slow is good - and it may be. on some days - but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I've always believed this. in spite of the trouble it's caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles. Bubba. So when I got back from New York and found a fiery red rocket-style bike in my garage. I realized I was back in the road-testing business. The brand-new Ducati Campione del Mundo Desmodue Supersport double-barreled magnum Cafe Racer filled me with feelings of lust every time I looked at it. Others felt the same way. My garage quickly became a magnet for drooling superbike groupies. They quarreled and bitched at each other about who would be the first to help me evaluate my new toy. And I did. of course. need a certain spectrum of opinions. besides my own. to properly judge this motorcycle. The Woody Creek Perverse Environmental Testing Facility is a long way from Daytona or even top-fuel challenge-sprints on the Pacific Coast Highway. where teams of big-bore Kawasakis and Yamahas are said to race head-on against each other in death-defying games of "chicken" at 100 miles an hour. No. Not everybody who buys a high-dollar torque-brute yearns to go out in a ball of fire on a public street in L. A. Some of us are decent people who want to stay out of the emergency room. but still blast through neo-gridlock traffic in residential districts whenever we feel like it. For that we need Fine Machinery. Which we had - no doubt about that. The Ducati people in New Jersey had opted. for some reasons of their own. to send me the ss-sp for testing - rather than their 916 crazy-fast. state-of-the-art superbike track-racer. It was far too fast. they said - and prohibitively expensive - to farm out for testing to a gang of half-mad Colorado cowboys who think they're world-class Cafe Racers. The Ducati is a finely engineered machine. My neighbors called it beautiful and admired its racing lines. The nasty little bugger looked like it was going 90 miles an hour when it was standing still in my garage. Taking it on the road. though. was a genuinely terrifying experience. I had no sense of until I was going 90 and coming up fast on a bunch of pickup trucks going into a wet curve along the river. I went for both brakes. but only the front one worked. and I almost went end over end. I was out of control staring at the tailpipe of a U. S. Mail truck. still stabbing frantically at my rear brake pedal. which I just couldn't find. I am too tall for these new-age roadracers; they are not built for any rider taller than five-nine. and the rearset brake pedal was not where I thought it would be. Mid-size Italian pimps who like to race from one cafe to another on the boulevards of Rome in a flat-line prone position might like this. but I do not. I was hunched over the tank like a person diving into a pool that got emptied yesterday. Whacko! Bashed on the concrete bottom. flesh ripped off. a Sausage Creature with no teeth. fucked-up for the rest of its life. We all love Torque. and some of us have taken it straight over the high side from time to time - and there is always Pain in that. But there is also Fun. the deadly element. and Fun is what you get when you screw this monster on. BOOM! Instant take-off. no screeching or squawking around like a fool with your teeth clamping down on our tongue and your mind completely empty of everything but fear. No. This bugger digs right in and shoots you straight down the pipe. for good or ill. On my first take-off. I hit second gear and went through the speed limit on a two-lane blacktop highway full of ranch traffic. By the time I went up to third. I was going 75 and the tach was barely above 4000 rpm. And that's when it got its second wind. From 4000 to 6000 in third will take you from 75 mph to 95 in two seconds - and after that. Bubba. you still have fourth. fifth. and sixth. Ho. ho. I never got to sixth gear. and I didn't get deep into fifth. This is a shameful admission for a full-bore Cafe Racer. but let me tell you something. old sport: This motorcycle is simply too goddamn fast to ride at speed in any kind of normal road traffic unless you're ready to go straight down the centerline with your nuts on fire and a silent scream in your throat. When aimed in the right direction at high speed. though. it has unnatural capabilities. This I unwittingly discovered as I made my approach to a sharp turn across some railroad tracks. saw that I was going way too fast and that my only chance was to veer right and screw it on totally. in a desperate attempt to leapfrog the curve by going airborne. It was a bold and reckless move. but it was necessary. And it worked: I felt like Evel Knievel as I soared across the tracks with the rain in my eyes and my jaws clamped together in fear. I tried to spit down on the tracks as I passed them. but my mouth was too dry. I landed hard on the edge of the road and lost my grip for a moment as the Ducati began fishtailing crazily into oncoming traffic. For two or three seconds I came face to face with the Sausage Creature. But somehow the brute straightened out. I passed a schoolbus on the right and got the bike under control long enough to gear down and pull off into an abandoned gravel driveway where I stopped and turned off the engine. My hands had seized up like claws and the rest of my body was numb. I felt nauseous and I cried for my mama. but nobody heard. then I went into a trance for 30 or 40 seconds until I was finally able to light a cigarette and calm down enough to ride home. I was too hysterical to shift gears. so I went the whole way in first at 40 miles an hour. Whoops! What am I saying? Tall stories. ho. ho. We are motorcycle people; we walk tall and we laugh at whatever's funny. We shit on the chests of the Weird. But when we ride very fast motorcycles. we ride with immaculate sanity. We might abuse a substance here and there. but only when it's right. The final measure of any rider's skill is the inverse ratio of his preferred Traveling Speed to the number of bad scars on his body. It is that simple: If you ride fast and crash. you are a bad rider. And if you are a bad rider. you should not ride motorcycles. The emergence of the superbike has heightened this equation drastically. Motorcycle technology has made such a great leap forward. Take the Ducati. You want optimum cruising speed on this bugger? Try 90mph in fifth at 5500 rpm - and just then. you see a bull moose in the middle of the road. WHACKO. Meet the Sausage Creature. Or maybe not: The Ducati is so finely engineered and balanced and torqued that you *can* do 90 mph in fifth through a 35-mph zone and get away with it. The bike is not just fast - it is *extremely* quick and responsive. and it *will* do amazing things. It is like riding a Vincent Black Shadow. which would outrun an F-86 jet fighter on the take-off runway. but at the end. the F-86 would go airborne and the Vincent would not. and there was no point in trying to turn it. WHAMO! The Sausage Creature strikes again. There is a fundamental difference. however. between the old Vincents and the new breed of superbikes. If you rode the Black Shadow at top speed for any length of time. you would almost certainly die. That is why there are not many life members of the Vincent Black Shadow Society. The Vincent was like a bullet that went straight; the Ducati is like the magic bullet in Dallas that went sideways and hit JFK and the Governor of Texas at the same time. It was impossible. But so was my terrifying sideways leap across the railroad tracks on the sp. The bike did it easily with the grace of a fleeing tomcat. The landing was so easy I remember thinking. goddamnit. if I had screwed it on a little more I could have gone a lot farther. Maybe this is the new Cafe Racer macho. My bike is so much faster than yours that I dare you to ride it. you lame little turd. Do you have the balls to ride this BOTTOMLESS PIT OF TORQUE?That is the attitude of the new-age superbike freak. and I am one of them. On some days they are about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The Vincent just killed you a lot faster than a superbike will. A fool couldn't ride the Vincent Black Shadow more than once. but a fool can ride a Ducati many times. and it will always be a bloodcurdling kind of fun. That is the Curse of Speed which has plagued me all my life. I am a slave to it. On my tombstone they will carve. "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME. "SPECS:2007 1098 RED ON RED Fresh Full Service from Nichols including new belts. rebuilding of forks. valves. all fluids. carbon carbon carbon. upgraded seat. crg levers. tinted windscreen. upgraded shifter and brake lever. good tires. new lithium battery. new chain & sprockets. tires 80%. seat lock missing. rides great looks great. Bike is being ridden daily and mileage will increase. NO these are not stock photos they were shot in studio with a Canon 5D mark II 24mm lense three lights in a paper cove. hope ya like em. Only mod since shoot is I switched out cowl bolts to red anodized aluminum.

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