"Euro" Bike Night at Mona Lisa Ristorante

Last Thursday the Mona Lisa Ristorante on Corydon hosted a "Bike Night" (formerly "European Bike Night", but this year everyone was invited ;-)

There were some pretty cool machines there, so I took some pictures.

Ducati PS1000 "Paul Smart Replica". Built on the late lamented Sport Classic platform with 1000DS twin-spark air-cooled v-twin engine, the PS1000 commemorated the famous victory in the 1972 Imola 200 race by English rider Paul Smart on a Ducati 750SS. (The silver paint and green frame of the PS echoes that of the original SS). The PS was a limited edition whose value sagged a bit in the first years after intro, but along with the rest of the SportClassic range, its value has been on the upswing of late.

Neat little DKW two-stroke single. This bike still carried "Auto Union" branding with Audi's famous four rings logo. Nerds like me can tell you the four rings represented the four brands that came together in the Auto Union - Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer.
 

Very cool 1980 Ducati 900SD "Darmah". A pretty original bike still carrying its California licence plate ;-)

This is the Daddy... Vincent Rapide. Liter-size v-twin engine, Girdraulic front forks and engine as stressed chassis member. Low, black and intimidating as Hell. It took the rider about eight kicks to start the thing and when he finally succeeded, the crowd broke out in spontaneous applause...

Aprilia Mille R and about 20 other modern sportbikes showed up. I like Mille's but this one showed that it had been ridden hard and put away wet... many times.

 Ducati 1098S race bike displayed by the event sponsor.

My pal Kerry's VERY trick Ducati Monster. Nice paint!

Super-cool BMW R100 cafe racer. It would have some stiff competition in the "cool custom Beemer" category by the end of the evening.

Laverda 750SF. The "SF" stands for super freni (super brakes). Check out that massive drum... impressive in the day, I'm sure, but downright marginal by today's standards.

Representing the J-crowd, a nifty 250... NSR250 Honda from the early '90s. Clearly a Japanese import as it had J-writing stickers all over it. No licence plate or temporary tag either...

One of my favorites... 1983 BMW R100 all cafe'd up. This one had a tail from a Harley Davidson XLCR but I personally prefer the tail on the other BMW cafe bike above, it looks more "BMW". This machine also had a cool digital instrument unit with integrated speedo, tach, and warning lights. Really cleaned up the look of the bike, kudos. It's also for sale, asking price is $8,500 which is about double what I'd pay. A nice stock example can be had for $3-5K at most and while slick looking, this one doesn't have $5K in upgrades.

So that was Bike Night! Hope you enjoyed the pics. I just noticed that my bike isn't in any of the pics but that's OK, I know what it looks like ;-)