October 2008 Monster of the Month

[Pedro]

From Crust...



Sometime towards the end of the last century I was sat in my transit van in a street in London and a bike cut through the traffic and disappeared, right then I knew I had to have one.

At the time I had a Moto Guzzi Le Mans and a tuned BMW, I was into punchy european twins and this was the ultimate. Unfortunately I was skint.

Fast forward a few years and I'm working in a factory, living a monk's life in a rented spare room and saving every penny I could for a house.

Mick the facory manager suggested a walk round the corner for a kebab. As we past a small second hand bike shop he said he wanted to pop in to chat to the owner so I followed him in, and there it was.

Surprise, surprise, a test ride had already been arranged, "you can work saturday mornings to earn the overtime to pay for it, I've spoken to the owner and you can leave it in the factory at nights." Ok I guess thats a deal then.

So for the first two years of my ownership it lived at work, including a spell in my department on the first floor, Carole Nash even accepted that as 'garaged' after a bit of discussion.

Since then its been to the France a few times, Italy, Belgium, The Alps, Scotland, done trackdays at Brands, Mallory and Donnington, green laned the length of the Ridgeway, all without ever letting me down, in fact its only breakdown has been blowing fuses at World Ducati Week and that was my fault for positioning the fuse box too close to the new stainless undertray. Cheers for spotting the problem, Ped.

The best mods have been the suspension upgrades, Ohlins rear and full Racetech fork upgrade, brings the suspension up to the quality of the frame, and FCR carbs.

Other mods have mainly been courtesy of UKMOC ads or home made, apart from an OCD moment on the fasteners when I got carried away and replaced the lot with stainless.

I cant see me ever selling it, even now ten years on it still impresses me with its handling, one day I might even get around to fitting the 944 kit.