Retro beauty

 

While sportbikes normally hold no attraction for me,
I couldn't help being drawn to the gleaming black
naked Ducati Sport 1000 parked at a mall.

   What nudity is beautiful as this
   Obedient monster purring at its toil;
   These naked iron muscles dripping oil
   And the sure-fingered rods that never miss.
   This long and shining flank of metal is
   Magic that greasy labor cannot spoil;
   While this vast engine that could rend the soil
   Conceals its fury with a gentle hiss.

     -- "Portrait of a Machine" by Louis Untermeyer

A quick Google search found more info on this classy machine.
Including the following site, showing a beautiful retro-styled bike
with a single big round headlight. Something deep in my psyche
stirred, with the thought that *if* I should ever happen
to want a cafe racer, it would be something more like this than
today's styled creations with their weird angles and pointy creases:
http://www.onewheeldrive.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/ducati_2007_sport_1000_s_12.jpg

Here's a closeup of that big round headlight and fairing:
http://www.onewheeldrive.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/ducati_2007_sport_1000_s_10.jpg

More pix and review at:
http://www.onewheeldrive.net/2007/07/25/2007-ducati-sport-1000-s-the-paradox-machine/

Styling aside, the main reason I dislike sportbikes is well put
by the writer:

   Using the Sport 1000 S for commutes or highway drones? To put it
   delicately, the aggressive ergonomics offer evidence of a Ducati
   family history stretching back to the inquisition – for whom they
   surely designed instruments of torture. The low drop bars place
   an impossible amount of weight on your wrists. The laid-out seating
   position with high, back set pegs strain your lower back. And there's
   remarkably little legroom despite the 32.5-inch seat height.
   Heat roils off the rear cylinder located between your thighs roasting
   them and the bits between.  It’s the motorcycle equivalent of a hot
   yoga class consisting of 8 hours of "downward-dog" accompanied
   by draining vibration.  Except you're dressed in leathers and craning
   your neck to see ahead of you, as if your life depended on it…
   Oh, wait, it does.

However --

   Hit 120kph (75mph) and the wind changes everything; air flows clean
   over the screen, pushing against your chest and lifting the weight
   on your wrists. The air-cooled engine receives its due, streaming
   heat behind, rather than onto, you. Hit the sweepers, gain some
   speed and the Sport 1000 S is transformed into bliss, the payoff
   for your in-traffic anguish. If only these roads were more
   convenient? If only there wasn't a city between this bike and
   its utopia?

   Out on the straights you slip upwards though the gears using the quiet
   wet clutch with moderate effort at the lever and positive refined feel
   at the shifter.  The Sport 1000 S sings upwards to 215kph (133mi/h),
   while you keep an eye for the blue-and-reds in the surprisingly
   functional rear-views. On a litre bike that speed feels like a segue
   to the "real" riding, but to the L-twin's pompone accompaniment
   hitting such marks is truly satisfying. It a pace I’d never dream
   of on the unfaired Sport 1000, but the tucked behind the S's fairing
   you realize this is a legacy of the 70s that works well beyond
   visual charm.

Another reviewer's article with similar thoughts:
http://www.ridelust.com/perfection-the-ducati-sport-1000/

   I’ve been obsessed with the various Ducati SportClassics for a while
   now. I’ve always been a fan of the café racer style bikes; those lean,
   stripped down “naked” bikes with open frames and big engines and
   the utilitarian look. But the new Ducati Sport 1000 is so much more.
   It’s a work of art.

   So this weekend, I finally did some test riding. I needed to get
   on one. Luckily, the good people at DeSimone Motorsport on route 73
   let me take out the 2008 Ducati Sport 1000 biposto. There is no going
   back now. Right up until this afternoon, I was perfectly content
   to have a Triumph Bonneville or Thruxton and just dream about
   the Ducati. No longer.

Now if only there were a roadster version of this machine...

However, maybe I'll go for a hoon for two when I get the Thruxton
working, before converting it to the Bonneville configuartion.

BTW there's a second, darker verse to Untermeyer's poem:

   It does not vent its loathing, does not turn
   Upon its makers with destroying hate.
   It bears a deeper malice; lives to earn
   Its master’s bread and laughs to see this great
   Lord of the earth, who rules but cannot learn,
   Become the slave of what his slaves create.

SQ

 



Since my 1973 Ducati 750GT (yes, we called them 750 and 860 and 900
GT's and GTS's then, not GT750's as all the magazines seem to, these
days) was the best single motorcycle I've ever owned, I share your
enthusiasm for the neo-classic styled, 2v, aircooled, Ducatis.

However, my current dream streetbike is a GT1000 with Ohlins
suspension and brakes from the Paul Smart Replica 1000 Sport with BST
carbon fiber wheels and the motor from the Monster 1100S.  Whoa; now
*that* gets my imagination firing on all cylinders!

 

tomorrow@erols.com wrote:

Lest any misunderstanding arise, the above are not my words,
they're c&p'd from the review. I've never in my life put riding boots
to any Ducati pegs (but who knows what the future shall bring?)


For the moment I can only gaze on it in admiration of its Italian
beauty. If Leonardo da Vinci had a bike to ride, it might be this one.

SQ