MOTO GUZZI OWNERSHIP - V7 CLASSIC AND BREVA 1100.

DUCATI 851.

Home
ROYAL ENFIELD 65 TRIALS
MOTO GUZZI BREVA 1100.
My Breva Pictures.
MOTO GUZZI LE MANS.
MOTO GUZZI V50 MONZA
MOTO GUZZI V50II.
MOTO GUZZI SINGLES, SIDECARS,TRACKBIKES/RACERS AND SPECIALS.
DUCATI 851.
A BMW FLIRTATION - R850R
THE OTHER PASSION MUSIC
USA - WEST COAST MOTORCYCLE TOUR
USA TRIP PICTURES 1.
USA TRIP PICTURES 2.
USA TRIP PICTURES 3.
USA TRIP PICTURES 4.
USA TRIP PICTURES 5.
USA TRIP PICTURES 6.
USA TRIP PICTURES 7.
USA TRIP PICTURES 8.
USA TRIP PICTURES 9.
USA TRIP PICTURES 10.
USA TRIP PICTURES 11.
USA TRIP PICTURES 12.
CONTACT ME.
MOTO GUZZI V7 CLASSIC.

Upon receiving an inheritence I did the sensible thing and bought another bike!!!
 
At this point I was down to my Le Mans. The sensible thing to do would have been to buy a nice tourer of some sort?
 
No I bought 2 year old very low mileage Ducati 851. The last series of the 851 series before the 888. The Ducati was wonderful to ride. Evocative and animal like the way it moaned, groaned and roared.
 
Slightly on the tall side for my short legs. So I had to carefully mount the bike and had to be  circumspect when stopping as to where I put my foot - note foot, there was no way in the world I could put both feet down. In the 3 years I kept the Duke I only had one very low speed tumble when following an indecisive friend who decided at the last minute we were going the wrong way and the u-turn caught me out. Only minor scratches resulted fortunately. I had a recurring problem for a while whereby the bike would become almost unrideable. I had been told by the previous owner that he had problems with the fuel filter clogging. I informed the Ducati specialist (s) I went to about this but they were both adament that that wasn't the problem and did various things, which never really cured the problem. So I changed the fuel filter myself (not a particularly easy task being in the tank (as was the BMR850Rs' but that was easier to do) and the problem never recurred. I read later that this was  aproblem with the last batch of 851s and was due to the paint in the tanks not being sealed properly.
 
As wonderful as the Ducati was to ride it's impracticallity reduced the sorts of annual mileage I  was used to doing and I realised I wasn't touring at all. So I decided to sell the Ducati - would have been wonderful to have kept it but I couldn't afford a more 'usable' bike without selling it.
 
So the Ducati was sold and from the sublime to the ridiculous a BMW R850R bought!! 

duc1.jpg.jpg

A little inheritance(and the house finished - ish!Who needs a non - leaking roof?) a few years back saw a Ducati 851 added, a 1993, final 851, model. I had the Ducati for 4 years and although I covered some 11000 miles on the bike in that time, more than many do on Ducatis, and it was a passionate machine to own, thrilling to ride and just wonderful to listen to - friends' could feel me arrive before hearinmg me -  I realised that due to the uncompromising nature of the modern sports bike and my expanding physique (I don't mean that kindly!), I wasn't really riding or more especially touring as much as I had/should be. So, much as I liked and would have loved to keep it, I decided to go for something more practical. The only problem I ever had with the bike was a clogging fuel filter. By all accounts this was quite common on a late batch of these machines with paint flaking off the inside of the petrol tank where the filter lived. The fact that a very expensive major service was just about due as well hastened it's departure I must admit.

duc3.jpg