[Ducati] Confessions

[Ronald Betts]

I was 15 and a half and had a Honda Super 90 with a cut off Blooey tube of 
an exhaust and a learners permit in my pocket. Had big fat Dunlops front and 
back and was a wheelie machine. I could go through the gears on the rear 
tire. There is a road here in Berdoo called E street and it ends at a long S 
curve up hill snake of a road that turned into Kendall Road. I had that 
piece of road down. I mean I could go up the S curve on the rear wheel ! 
Sooooo, one day I,m on my Super 90 and I come to that piece of road and like 
usual I pull the front end up and go through the gears on my way up the 
road.At the top I hear a siren and sure enough , there is a cop. I pull over 
and present my permit. Cop says, "I picked you up at the bottom of the hill 
when I saw you pull the front end up!" I asked him why he didn't stop me at 
the bottom of the hill and he says," I wanted to see if you could make it to 
the top." So I,m thinking ,this guy is cool and I,m OK, Not! My first ticket 
for exhibition. Didn,t look to good for my license but when I went to court 
my ticket somehow just dissapeared and I was released in The Interest Of 
Justice ! Ok so now I no longer do the wheelie up the hill, I do it coming 
down so I can see the cop that sits at the bottom of the hill. Man I wish I 
had kept that little bike......Sniff !


Peace...Ron"Desmohead"Betts 95 900 SP
I've learned that I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it!





>From: "Ted & Vicki Brisbine" <brisbine at charter.net>
>Reply-To: Ducati Owners Group <ducati at ducati.net>
>To: <ducati at ducati.net>
>Subject: [Ducati] Confessions
>Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 00:56:38 -0700
>
>
>
>First I see the Rollie Free photo link posted here and then my wife comes 
>home with the World's Fastest Indian DVD (Rollie's in the movie).   It 
>reminded me of a story I wrote a few years ago (Rollie's in the story) 
>about my two-wheeled experiences.  I've copied an excerpt here about a 
>certain Yamaha that got me into trouble in 1970.  Maybe it will bring back 
>memories for somebody.    Ted
>
>Ya ma ha's too hot
>
>With the street stuff striped from my Matador, I was left with no road 
>bike. This will never do. My friend Willy had a street bike. Funny thing 
>was, he was only fifteen and his parents didn't know he had it. He left it 
>at my house until he noticed a few too many miles gathering on the 
>odometer. Did I mention that it was a beautiful green 500 Triumph? I can 
>still feel that mellow, throbbing pony underneath me. I should have bought 
>a Triumph but instead fell for the allure of a bike I had read about in the 
>magazines. Yamaha had brought out a two-stroke, twin cylinder, 350cc 
>bombshell called the YR1 Grand Prix. What is a YR1, you say? It was 
>forerunner to the famed (or infamous) RD series. It had a chrome-sided gas 
>tank like the S90 but not quite so aesthetically pleasing. It was reputed 
>to be faster than Willey's Triumph so I was on the prowl.
>
>I found a local girl who had one and convinced her to let me take her (the 
>bike) out for a spin. By now Willy was riding legal and he led the way up 
>Stemilt Hill. I soon discovered this bike had a characteristic none of my 
>previous bikes had. The brakes actually worked! Unfortunately I made this 
>discovery on a decreasing-radius corner while trying to keep up with Willy. 
>Can you say "rear wheel lock-up and subsequent high-side crash?" As in, 
>flying off a steep bank into a rock-infested field. We had to chop the rear 
>fender off with a hatchet so I could limp home. The girl was not happy. 
>Turns out the bike was on long-term loan from her old boyfriend who was 
>still making payments, so he was happy to sell the bike to me. I fixed it 
>up and thus began a crazy year in the annals of my moto life.
>
>The Yamaha was rather manic in personality. The motor was a big bundle of 
>razzmatazz and loved to go fast. In fact, that's all it really wanted to 
>do. Willy's Triumph was a strong runner and our bikes ran pretty even in a 
>drag race but his didn't mind being ridden gently. I should have bought a 
>Triumph.
>
>When my friend Jim showed the slightest interest in getting a bike, I 
>pounced immediately and began feeding him tasty morsels of information 
>about another bike I had my eye on. Yes, the very one and only Bultaco 
>Metralla. This was not to be a good combination. But we were young and only 
>had our whole lives to lose. The best way to describe the Metralla is to 
>say that it felt like being astride a large razor blade. Bultaco had built 
>a championship-winning road racer and then decided to bring it out as a 
>street model with minimal conformity to civilized conventions. Actually it 
>was well mannered enough on the street but just a very, very effective tool 
>for carving a corner. For a 250 it would really honk too. And honk is the 
>right sound effect. Whip 'er the chocolate, as the Brits would say, and 
>that two-stroke motor would pull and honk like a big goose. My Yamaha would 
>beat it in a drag race for sure, but out on the open road Jim and I were 
>nothing but trouble.
>
>I hope the statute of limitations has run out for what I'm about to 
>divulge. Jim and I thought it would be fun, and perfectly acceptable, to 
>ride the forty miles to Lake Chelan at the greatest possible speed whilst 
>lying flat out on our bikes, Rollie Free style. If you've seen the photo of 
>Rollie setting the land speed record of 150 miles per hour on a Vincent, 
>you know exactly what I'm talking about. He couldn't get to 150 with his 
>clothes on so he stripped down to slippers, a bathing suit, and a bathing 
>cap and lay down over the bike with his feet straight out behind him, 
>hanging on like a one big handlebar streamer. I wonder if there was a Mrs. 
>Free? "Hi honey, I'm home." "How was your day dear?" "Oh, fine. Got a 
>little windburn though." Trouble is, I can't blame our antics on Rollie 
>because I didn't see this photo until later in life. There were a couple of 
>differences too. We wore clothes, and while he rode on the Bonneville Salt 
>Flats, we rode the entire trip on the highway centerline. That way there 
>was no need to worry about when it was safe to pass. Also, our average 
>speed to the lake was only 105, not 150. My friend Steve claims to have 
>seen me whiz past that day. But we didn't meet for another year, so I was 
>wondering how he figured that was me on the bike even before I told him the 
>story. "Who else would it have been," he said.
>
>The Yamaha motor used to say things to me, such as; "Do you want to speed 
>up or slow down? What's with all this in-between crap? Make up your mind." 
>In an ill-considered attempt to appease the unruly thing, I developed a 
>riding technique for city streets which went something like this. Open the 
>throttle a good bit and run up thru the gears, which resulted in fairly 
>hard acceleration. Said acceleration continued unabated until a corner or 
>stop sign called for a lower speed, where I then hit the brakes. This would 
>have been fine had I been the only living soul in town. After a year of 
>this sort of thing the statistical probabilities caught up to me . in the 
>form of a black and white police cruiser. Actually the cop said he had a 
>hard time catching up to me. I was sedately motoring up Crawford Street (a 
>25 mph zone) in my usual manner and didn't realize he was behind me doing 
>80 mph and watching me pull away from him. Lucky for him I needed to make a 
>right turn onto Okanogan Street. Well, the jig was up. In a case like this 
>they don't just write you a big fat ticket and drive away. After bailing 
>out of jail, appearing in court, and pricing high-risk insurance, I 
>tendered my driver's license and was back on a bicycle for the next three 
>years. This gave me plenty of time to think about my next motorcycle.
>
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