I haven't posted anything on the forum in probably a year or two but couldn't resist tossing in a couple of pix today. Temperature was in the mid-70's (not bad for February) and the Ducati wanted to go for a ride. I grabbed a Canon G11, stuck it in my pocket and shot about 50 photos during the hour and a half outing. The two images below are both taken within a few miles of my home. I had great fun cruising the main street while cracking the throttle to set off all the car alarms.
When I ride the BMW and do that, alarms don't go off but every refrigerator in town wants to meet my bike.
Tomorrow the thermometer is likely to drop back into the 60's and down to below freezing at night. I can live with that, particularly after flying back east in mid-January IFR most of the way and landing on snowy, icey runways at almost every airport there and back.

hey rob a great bike and a great way to spend a warm day. we are still in the 50's here in sussex in the UK but ive been riding near every day. rain or shine. roll on the summer.

a bike that pulls. and a bike that pulls. fantastic.

no personality and a cold, technical design ?
Although I must say this changed in the past decade

G.

...got it!

Actually, every refrige in town wants to meet my BMW because when I crack the throttle, the BMW sounds like the compressor in a supercharged, double-door, 27.5 cubic foot icebox just kicked into afterburner.

Well, maybe not that bad but still...the bike just doesn't have the visceral throb of a big, twin-cylinder engine with performance pipes.

Back in '86 when I bought my first BMW K-bike, my Ducati/Harley/old English scooter buddies all made fun of the way the machine purred. OK, so did I. However, I accumulated more than 150,000 miles before I sold it and bought the '98 K12 which now has just under 90,000 on the odometer. Only major maintenance on the K12 was 15 hours work installing a new clutch and rear main seal but that beat hell out of paying the dealer $2500 (or more).

Yeah, I love the sound of the Ducati and the Norton and the Harleys (the H-D's are now gone because sound I about all I could love about them) but the refrigerator doesn't destroy my hearing on a cross-country ride nor has it left me on the side of the road cursing its lack of reliability.

Different tools for different jobs...