Hello From Cheltenham

Hi folks,

My name is Oli and I'm from Devon, although I now live in Cheltenham where I work with an existing member on here, NickJ, who pointed me in the direction of this forum.

I've had bikes since I was 14, starting with a Yamaha DT 125 MX, air cooled and as old as the hills, even back then in 1994, but I loved it. I had a Yamaha YZ 250 motocross screamer after that for a while, then had a period of some years without a bike until doing my direct access at 25 and buying a 1 year old Yamaha R6 with just 600 miles on it.

After nearly 2 years of fantastic riding and 14k miles I was unfortunately involved in a very nasty, no fault accident which due to my injuries, ongoing surgery spanning almost 4 years and then a lengthy recovery meant I was unable to ride for a long time.

So after another long break from biking, I decided to ease back into it slowly and purchased a 2003 CCM R30 Supermoto, 644cc single thumper. This was used mainly for my commute to work but was also nice to throw around at the weekends!

After about 8 months of owning and enjoying the CCM, I happened to came accross a very nice, genuine, standard example of a Monster 620ie in Ducati Corse guise, which was for sale at a car show I was at, 9500 miles, FSH. Now I'm not afraid to say I knew nothing about Ducatis prior to this. I'd always liked the Monster and quite fancied the idea of some shiny Italian metal in my garage. So after firing a few questions at NickJ about them, digging through info on the internet and a test ride I was hooked and I ended up buying it on a bit of a whim, but I have to say I do love it (I wasn't even looking for another bike, ooops!!).

I've been lurking a bit on here until now, but I've already found lots of useful information and links to helpful sites, how to's etc. On day 2 of ownership, I noticed the clutch was slipping, which I hadn't noticed on the test ride Turns out the owner had used fully synth in an oil change, which thanks to info here I learned this is a bad thing. So it was a simple fix after removing the clutch, cleaning the plates, reassembling and new semi synth oil and filter

Next thing I did was remove the OE cans for some lovely looking and sounding carbon ones with removable baffles from SP Engineering. I can't recommend these guys highly enough, the quality is superb, as is their customer service and a fraction of the cost of Akrapovic or Termignoni

Next was the addition of a colour matched belly pan to tidy up and enhance the looks. Then I swapped the 60 profile front tyre for a 70 since I hate the lack of confidence I get with a 60. The bike feels much better for it IMO.

Next job is to re-paint the casings and it will look mint.

Apologies, this has somehow turned into a bit of an essay! Anyway if your still reading, thanks. Here are a few pictures.

Cheers,

Oli.

As I bought it:



New cans and belly pan: