Fall Time, 848 in Review and New PCA Newsletter

Wanted to post a couple pics from autumn. We don't get too much in the way of variety of Fall colours, but if you like "red" you're in luck. Here are a couple shots of the 848 and R1 on Red River Drive south of the city.

I suppose I should probably post some thoughts on the 848 as it's been nearly a year since it joined the stable. I did ride it some this summer and I have a few thoughts...

First off, as you can see from above, it's beautiful. I think Ducati took the best of the 916 and modernized it for the 1098/848 generation. It's not only great looking, it's unmistakably a Ducati. Somehow, even though it's modern, it avoids looking samey.

Second, it's great to ride. Even though torturous to most, I don't seem to mind the riding position, although I only tend to ride for an hour or so at a time :-)  Power is ample and accessible (especially after the front sprocket swap to lower the gearing a smidge), handling is well up to whatever I throw at it in my sedate rides, and as you can imagine, it sounds fantastic with the Termignoni cans.

Downsides? Well... it's uncomfortable on hot days. Very uncomfortable. With the twin exhausts snaking below the seat, the old crotchal area becomes roasty-toasty in short order. Preferred attire definitely includes my leather Dainese sport pants. It's also somewhat impractical for daily use - pillion riding is nigh-impossible with the high tiny seat, and my magnetic tank bag won't stick on the plastic tank. Certainly if I had to run multiple errands on two wheels I'd be likely to grab the keys to the Yamaha before the 848's. Also, the 848 had a strange starting issue that I think I've just cracked. It has been hard starting this summer - I mean extremely hard nearly-drain-the-battery-cranking-it hard starting. It would catch for a couple of revs, then die. Eventually it would finally catch and run fine. Once it started it restarted easily.

One day for some reason I decided to try to start it with the fuel cap open. Voila, started first try, no problem. Wha? I guess that maybe there's an issue with tank ventilation and a vacuum of some kind may be restricting or preventing fuel flow. I resolve to have it looked at next Spring, but for the rest of the riding year this year I just opened the cap, started the bike, then stopped it, closed the cap and rode off. Worked fine that way.

What else... well, the new issue of Red River Ramblings has been out for nearly a month. Here's a link: http://www.redriverpca.org/newsletters/

Now the Porsche is put away after being driven a ton this Fall (GTI broke down and was in shop for a month, but that's another story) and everybody else is tucked up tight. Can't wait till Spring...