Subject: Re: [Ducati] Longest, First

[Justin]

Hahaha, with everyone talking about how they've been writing since the  
Fillmore administration, I can't help but say I bought my first bike  
about three weeks ago!  I just rode it for the first time about a half  
hour ago.  The last time I rode anything motorized was 20 years ago  
when we had dirt bikes at summer camp, so I took the MSF class last  
fall and spent most of the winter looking for a 748 and bought a  
yellow 2001 748S in late April.  I was out of town at the time so my  
brother picked it up for me and it's just been waiting for me in the  
garage.  It's obviously well maintained, and the previous owner did a  
clean install of a manual switch for the cooling fans which was  
basically the only modification I had any interest in.

I took it out for a spin since the weather is nice today and it's  
going to rain most of the week.  I didn't leave the neighborhood since  
it's not tagged yet, but got it up to about 35-40 on a couple short  
turns of the wrist.  Goddamn, this thing is a rocket!  I didn't even  
let it get into the real power band from about 7k to 10k rpm and it  
was pulling like w00t!  I can already tell this is going to be a hell  
of a lot of fun once I get it registered and get some practice in.  I  
imagine it's going to take some time being careful but I had that in  
mind when I decided to get a sport bike for my first throw.  I'm  
hoping that around the end of the summer I'll be comfortable enough to  
try some track instruction.  It's been a hoot in cars all these years  
and this just seems like it will be fantastic.

It seems like most of the motorcycle class stuck, I am very glad I  
took it.  I had no problem riding it, turning it, and stopping it  
though I barely dented the bike's envelope in any respect and had no  
desire to attempt such.  I did manage to honk the horn a few times  
when trying to turn off the turn signal.  Braking is extremely  
aggressive compared to the bikes from the class and I found myself  
moderately surprised every time by how much load I had to soak up with  
just moderate squeezes of the brake lever and pedal.  Handling is  
extremely crisp, and the bike was nothing but confidence inspiring in  
the turns - even if my low speed u turns at the dead ends left  
something to be desired in terms of elegance.  I need to get used to  
the clutch and shifting, none of my shifts were very smooth, though I  
managed to avoid anything terribly ugly as well.

As I anticipated from finding one to sit on in a local shop and  
reading about it online, the riding position is completely, totally,  
and in all other ways uncompromising.  Trying to ride it semi-upright  
rather than completely hunched over it applies a ton of pressure to  
your forearms.  My forearms are weak enough after about 15 minutes of  
tooling around that my typing is suffering.  Too bad I lost an auction  
for risers last night, I suspect that would have made upright riding a  
lot more survivable.

Previous owner left me with a set of stock pipes, but the ones on the  
bike are cored out stock.  It sounds glorious.