Musings from a Former Magazine Editor

JUNE 2022: HYPER-WHAT?!
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

Ducatisti are familiar with the Hypermotard. It’s a legendary hooligan bike, as happy doing wheelies and stoppies as it is strafing apexes on a tight-and-twisty backroad or go-kart track. But even many of those in-the-know aren’t fully aware of where the concept—or the name—originated. Every time a customer asks, I take a deep breath, and tell the tale…
 
Flash back—way back—to the late 1970s and ABC-TV’s Wide World of Sports. Back in the days when televisions had “rabbit’s ears” antennas and just 13 channels—and there was nothing on half of those—motorcycle racing didn’t get much airtime. The United States Grand Prix of Motocross at Southern California’s Carlsbad Raceway was the only event that featured annually, so racers in all the other disciplines had to be content with sporadic coverage at best.

Meanwhile, the network had begun airing a series called “The Superstars” that pitted athletes from different sports against one another in competitions ranging from running to swimming to negotiating an obstacle course. It made sense, then, to do something similar with motorcycles, thus “The Superbikers” was born. The concept was simple: one race on a course that was equal parts asphalt and dirt to determine who was the best all-around motorcycle racer. Three heat races were held for roadracers, flat-trackers, and motocrossers, with the top few finishers in each advancing to the winner-takes-all final. 

What sort of bikes did they ride? That’s where it gets interesting. In the beginning, the flat-trackers rode their big (and heavy) Harley-Davidson XR750 V-twins, but most everyone else rode single-cylinder motocross bikes with 19-inch dirt-track tires and a roadrace-sized disc front brake. “The Superbikers” ran from 1979-1985 and the winners came from multiple disciplines, including dirt-tracker-turned-roadracer Eddie Lawson and motocrossers Danny “Magoo” Chandler, Kent Howerton, and Steve Wise. The latter perhaps fared best of all, as he was able to parlay his two wins into one-off flat-track appearances and ultimately a factory Honda Superbike ride, making him arguably the most well-rounded of the well-rounded.

If you want to go down “The Superbikers” rabbit hole, Google it up and you’ll find not only a “Race Watch” story I wrote for Cycle World magazine way back in 1991, but also a Facebook tribute page and a slew of YouTube videos that show how competitive the racing was. It will be an entertaining evening—promise!
 
Interestingly, after the TV show ran its course in the U.S., the French picked up the concept, translating the word superbikers into supermotard. Because dirt-track racing wasn’t (and mostly still isn’t) a thing in Europe, they substituted 17-inch roadrace rain tires, which made the bikes work slightly better on asphalt and slightly worse in the dirt. When supermotard made its way to English-speaking Great Britain and, ultimately, back to the USA, supermotard became supermoto. So yes, there are three names for the same form of racing!

Where does the Ducati Hypermotard fit in? As supermoto became increasingly popular, the manufacturers began producing not only bespoke racers, but also street-legal supermotos. Trouble is, single-cylinder motorcycles can only go so fast for so long on the highway before vaporizing their limited oil supply and/or vibrating themselves to death. A twin-cylinder machine has no such concerns, thus Ducati—led by famed South African-born designer Pierre Terblanche—set out to produce such a machine. And if a single-cylinder machine is a supermotard, then a twin-cylinder machine must be a hypermotard.

The Hypermotard debuted at the 2005 Milan Show and entered production in 2007. Originally powered by an air-cooled, two-valve, Dual Spark 1078cc V-twin, it was upgraded to EVO spec in 2010, losing two sparkplugs and gaining a boost in output from 90 to 95 horsepower. In 2013 the model was redesigned to accommodate an 821cc liquid-cooled, four-valve motor, and then in 2015 it grew to 937cc (say “939”). The most recent evolution came in 2019 with the current 950, which in spite of its nomenclature is no larger than its predecessor. Of course, there were SP variants with top-shelf Ohlins suspension, lightweight forged Marchesini wheels, and racier graphics. 

The latest Hyper 950 SP is clearly the one to have in terms of performance, but the air-cooled 1100s—like the first-generation Multistradas with which they shared their motors—have become cult classics. And of those, the 2010-2013 Hyper 1100 EVO SP is la crème de la crème.

I had a Hyper 1100 long-term testbike when I worked at Motorcyclist magazine, and loved that thing. The highlight of my “ownership” came at the end, when I fitted it with the bizarre tank-mounted accessory panniers, tail pack, California Cycleworks’ amazing 6.4-gallon gas tank, and a set of (sadly discontinued) Dunlop D616 tires. I then rode it from our offices in Southern California to the annual Ducati dealer meeting in Colorado, much of that off-road, which was memorialized in my first-ever Facebook post. Ah, the good old days before social media…

So, the next time someone wonders out loud what a Hypermotard is, you know what to tell them.

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MAY 2022: DAFFY DUC
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

We here at MotoCorsa have a reputation for our twisted sense of humor. Maybe that derives from our hometown slogan: Keep Portland Weird. Previous projects have included a dual-sported Panigale superbike dubbed the “Terracorsa”; a pink Scrambler Icon with a wicker basket and training wheels dubbed “Hello Scrambler”; and the viral “Manigale” calendar, which featured male shop staff in traditionally female pin-up poses.

So our latest build—a supermoto’ed Ducati Scrambler Desert Sled with a Looney Tunes-inspired paint scheme—continues that tradition nicely.

Except for one thing: The idea for this project wasn’t ours alone. The Desert Sled originally belonged to Martell Webster, an ex-NBA Pro who played for the Portland Trailblazers amongst other teams. Webster commissioned Eddie Slepicka of Bent Metal Customs to apply the custom paint—and yes, that’s paint, not decals or a wrap. Webster then had MotoCorsa install an Arrow megaphone exhaust and convert the standard wet clutch to a Kbike hydraulically actuated dry slipper clutch because he wanted that classic Ducati rattle-and-growl.

As for the Looney Tunes motif, Webster acknowledges the obvious Michael Jordan/Space Jam connection, but explains there is a deeper personal significance. “My grandma used to sit me down in front of the TV to watch cartoons, and that’s what kept me out of trouble,” he says.

Webster retired from the NBA in 2017, which partly explains Bugs Bunny’s tagline, “That’s all folks!” hand-lettered on the bike’s rear fender. He briefly used the 803cc Ducati V-twin to ride with his kids on their minibikes but ultimately found a Zero electric bike worked better for that. He then consigned the Sled for sale at MotoCorsa’s Turn Two, where it sat ... and sat ... and sat. Onlookers were amused by the paint scheme but a dual-sport bike with a dry clutch and a loud exhaust didn’t resonate with a buyer.

By this time the 2022 One Moto Show was fast approaching, and we needed a custom bike to display at the MotoCorsa booth. We already had a V2 Panigale painted yellow with white wheels to replicate a ‘90s Supersport Superlight in the works, but supply chain issues were delaying its completion, and the deadline loomed.

We then thought, “Why not do something special with the Looney Tunes Desert Sled?” After all, it already had custom paint and some nice parts on it. So the decision was made to purchase the bike from Webster and turn it into a supermoto. What could possibly be “loonier” than that?!
 
The 2018 Desert Sled came with gold-anodized rims in 19-inch front/17-inch rear diameters. We considered sourcing a gold 17-inch front to match the rear, but there were none available, so we opted to install black Excels at both ends. Southern California’s Dubya USA laced up the wheels using the stock hubs in just 2 weeks, and did so at very reasonable cost.

The original plan called for levering on a set of roadrace rain tires for that old-school supermotard look, but those aren’t DOT-approved for street use. A quick Google search for “street-legal supermoto tires” turned up Dunlop’s new Mutants in 120/70 front and 180/55 rear sizes, which fit the bill on both fronts.

While the wheels were away, the Sled had its rear subfender/license plate hanger removed, cleaning up the look and shedding a couple/few pounds. These parts were replaced with a New Rage Cycles fender eliminator kit with LED turn signals that tucks the license plate underneath. Diminutive Ducati Performance LED turn signals replaced the chunky stockers at the front, while a pair of Evotech handguards protects the purposely mismatched red and black CRG billet adjustable levers. The bar-ends were capped with similarly mismatched CRG mirrors at one point, but these were removed to give the bike a racier look. 
 
The Sled already had the aforementioned Kbike dry clutch, but to keep dirt out it was shielded behind a red-anodized Ducabike cover with a transparent plastic window meant for a wet clutch. Seeing as how the supermoto would be ridden primarily on the road, this was replaced with a ventilated Speedymoto billet aluminum cover that shows off the red-anodized pressure plate while letting out that classic dry-clutch rattle. Likewise, the cambelt covers were removed and replaced with a set of Speedymoto pulley covers, leaving the belts exposed. A Speedymoto countershaft sprocket cover complements those bits on the opposite side.

A whimsical search for “Looney Tunes” on eBay Motors turned up a couple of fun items. First came a pair of Yosemite Sam valve stem caps; and then the piece de resistance: a Looney Tunes crossbar pad from a child’s 16-inch Huffy BMX bike that perfectly fit the Sled’s stock handlebars. Total cost: $12.

The desert sled-cum-supermoto was completed a few days prior to the One Moto Show, where both it and the V2 Superlight (also completed in time) greeted attendees near the entrance. Following the show, the bike was paraded in the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, and then got its 15 seconds of fame via a photo/video shoot in the hands of local racing hero Andy DiBrino at the Pat’s Acres kart track. Check out the feature BikeEXIF.com did on the Daffy Duc.

Don’t forget to bring your sense of humor.

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DECEMBER 2020: AN ENTRY-LEVEL DUCATI?
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

We see lots of smiling faces here at The Happiest Place on Earth. Motorcycle Edition, but every once in a while we make someone sad. We don’t do it on purpose—au contraire!—but I cannot tell a lie, and the truth is Ducati does not make a proper entry-level motorcycle.

The Italian factory does offer the 400cc Scrambler Sixty2, but that’s largely aimed at overseas markets with tiered licensing where learners are limited to small-displacement motorcycles. Back when “two-smokes” ruled the earth that was commonly a 50cc moped or a 125cc motorcycle, but in today’s four-stroke era that usually means 400-500cc. Physical size has very little to do with it.

Thing is, the 400cc Scrambler Sixty2 is exactly the same size as the 800cc Scrambler Icon and its ilk, with the same seat height, reach to the bars, etc. And, truth be told, it’s actually a few pounds heavier thanks to cost-cutting measures such as a steel swingarm and traditional right-side-up fork. So while the Sixty2 is fine for beginners of a certain stature, it’s too big and heavy for smaller riders, many of whom are women.
 
I like to joke that the #54 on the Scrambler Café Racer’s side plates—an homage to legendary Ducati racer Bruno Spaggiari, who finished second to Paul Smart in the 1972 Imola 200—stands for 5’4”, as in You Must Be This Tall to Ride. But that’s not really funny, because it excludes a fair number of would-be riders from the joys of full-size motorcycles.

The current Ducati with the lowest seat height is the XDiavel at 29.7 inches, but with 152 horsepower on tap, that ain’t no beginner’s bike! Plus the reach to the wide bars and forward-mounted foot controls is far, even in the nearest position, even for me—and I’m 6’1” tall. The Scrambler Sixty2’s seat measures 31.1 inches from the floor, and this can be reduced to 30.7 inches with the accessory low seat. Assuming you don’t weigh very much, you can get another few fractions of an inch by minimizing shock spring preload. But beyond that, there’s not much you can do.

We here at MotoCorsa have talked about building a project Scrambler with a custom-made seat and internally shortened suspension; maybe even a custom Café Racer that actually says 5’4” on the sideplates. But so far it hasn’t progressed beyond the talking stage. That’s too bad, because I feel there’s a need for such a bike.

The knock against the 400 is riders quickly outgrow it, its 40 horsepower feeling inadequate sooner rather than later. And sadly, aside from an accessory Termignoni slip-on exhaust that mostly just sounds better, there isn’t much in the way of performance upgrades available.

Theoretically, with some clever machining one could bolt the 800’s cylinders onto the 400’s crankcase and the resultant 88mm bore and 49mm stroke would boost displacement to 596cc. That could conceivably yield somewhere in the vicinity of 60 hp, but the bore/stroke ratio would be so radical that the motor likely wouldn’t even run with the standard two-valve heads. In fact, it would be so vastly oversquare that it would rival the Panigale twins, whose high-revving engines are literally named Superquaddro—Italian for “Supersquare.”

The other path to a lightweight that would truly be light in weight would be to remove one cylinder, as Ducati did with the vaunted Supermono roadracer back in the 1990s. Buell did the same with its entry-level Blast in the 2000s, lopping one jug off a Harley-Davidson 883 Sportster to create a 492cc single. (I recall seeing a similarly modded Sportster at Costa Mesa Speedway back in the day, appropriately piloted by a proud patriot who routinely sang The Star Spangled Banner before the evening’s festivities.) Ducati’s first motorcycles were powered by single-cylinder engines, after all, so there is precedence.

I don’t see Ducati Singles making a comeback, however. Instead, we will get the forthcoming 2021 Monster. This new model shows promise as it is reputed to weigh just 366 lbs. (40 lbs. less than the Monster 821) and to have a 32.3-inch seat height (or 30.5 inches with the optional spring kit, which I really wish Ducati would offer as standard in a Monster Low edition). True, the 111-hp, 937cc twin from the Hypermotard and Supersport is kind of a lot for a beginner, but thanks to variable ride modes that output can be reduced to just 75 hp (same as the 800cc Scramblers) in the Urban setting, plus it will have traction control. The biggest deterrent for a beginning rider might well be the price, as MSRP is expected to start at $11,895.

If that all sounds like a bit much, there is one much more modest alternative. The nearest thing to an entry-level Ducati currently isn’t even manufactured in Italy—it’s the Chinese-made SSR Razkull 125. Nothing so much as a miniature knockoff of a Monster 696, its air-cooled single-cylinder engine makes a paltry 8.3 hp, but it also weighs a mere 225 lbs., has a 29.5-inch seat height, and retails for just $1999.

Start on one of those and you’ll be ready to move up to a real Monster in no time.

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JUNE 2020: SUMMERTIME BLUES
BY BRIAN CATTERSON
 
In the somehow-not-yet-immortal words of David Lee Roth, “Heard you missed me, I’m back!” I won’t need a pencil, though, nor something to write on, man, because I recently treated myself to a new-to-me MacBook—one of the very many things I did on my summer vacation.
 
“Summer vacation?” you ask, and you would be right to question that, because technically it was neither summer nor vacation. It was spring, and I—along with a handful of my fellow MotoCorsa employees—was furloughed due to this damn pandemic. Now that things are back to “normal” (say “new normal” one more time…), I’m back at my old desk—or more accurately, the one across the room from my old desk. You just might not recognize me behind this mask.  
 
So I had the 12 weeks from March 24 to June 22 off from work. In any other year that would have been financially ruinous, but this is 2020, and with the federal stimulus I made about the same money on unemployment as I did working. First time tapping into that “socialist” program, for the record.
 
Now that I’m sitting here staring at this computer screen, I’m flashing back to those back-to-school essays we had to write in elementary school. So here in 1000 words, more or less, is What I Did On My Summer Vacation: COVID-19 Edition...
 
Once the ignominy of having been deemed a “non-essential” employee wore off, I vowed to make the best possible use of this unexpected windfall of free time.
 
At first, I checked off various items on my To Do list. I hung clotheslines and a bird house, fixed a broken dresser drawer, shampooed the living room rug, cleaned out the basement and the garage, organized my toolbox—you know, household stuff.
 
Then I went through my closet and created a Goodwill box. It’s mystifying how much some of my clothes shrank just hanging there. Not to mention my old roadrace leathers.  
 
Having bought the aforementioned laptop, I spent a few evenings digitizing my files, scanning old photos, downloading CDs to iTunes, and that sort of thing. Cleared out a couple drawers of a file cabinet while I was at it. Typed a chapter of a book I’ve been meaning to finish, too.  
 
I then resolved to be a better cook. Having devoured countless delicious spaghetti dishes in Italy during my travels, I finally learned to use the Marcato Atlas 150 pasta-maker I bought at a garage sale forever ago. I upped my coffee game, too, alternating between my Bialetti stovetop espresso and cappuccino makers and French press. Frittatas became my new go-to breakfast.  
 
And I decided to try being vegetarian again. I’d done that twice before, but only while living with vegetarian women. Even then I was what is more accurately called a “pescatarian,” as there’s no possible way I could ever give up salmon—or sushi! Finally, in an effort to incorporate more fresh veggies in my diet, I planted a garden in the flower bed alongside the driveway.  
 
That was all in the first week.
 
Entering April, I swore off alcohol—which wasn’t easy because I enjoy a glass of wine with dinner and the occasional beer with the boys after work. I’ve never been big on gyms, but I dusted off my old dumbbells and started lifting regularly. My dogs Mulder and Scully enjoyed our suddenly much longer walks, as well.
 
Then I got on my bicycle—and didn’t get off. Though I’ve commuted to work by bike for 3 years now, I hadn’t ridden much recreationally. That changed when I found a deal on a vintage Italian road bike at a moving sale. Much lighter in weight than my commuter with its touring accoutrements (rack, fenders, lights), that celeste-green Bianchi Sport SX introduced me to many of Portland’s fine cycling routes. My Facebook friends were soon bored of my posts about riding to Boring, eastern terminus of the 21.5-mile Springwater Corridor. That's 43 miles round-trip, for the mathematically-challenged. 
 
Keeping an eye on Craigslist, I began buying and selling bikes in a slow-but-steady scheme to not only upgrade, but also to sample as many different makes and models (and frame materials) as possible. As a lifelong moto-journalist my knowledge of motorcycles is fairly encyclopedic, and now I was filling in the gaps in my bicycle wisdom. 
 
So obsessed with cycling did I become that at one point I modified an automotive bike rack to work on my Vespa scooter! Got a few funny looks, a bunch of thumbs-ups, and was even tailed by the PoPo for a few blocks, but it actually works really well. Road bikes only weigh like 20-25 lbs., after all.
 
Meanwhile, back at MotoCorsa, my estranged co-workers were selling damn near as many motorcycles as usual in spite of the pandemic. And doing so with fewer employees, which kept everyone hopping. I’m sure my name was taken in vain whenever one of them saw one of my posts on Facebook. Or Strava, which I inevitably joined, logging nearly 1000 miles by the end of my furlough. And those are just the rides I recorded; the actual total was closer to twice that distance. Naturally by then I had lost enough weight that I was cursing myself for creating that Goodwill box!
 
All that bicycling didn’t leave much time for motorcycling. And it didn’t help that the only streetbike I own nowadays is a Ducati 999S, which mostly gets ridden at track days. But I did borrow a pre-owned Aprilia Caponord from Turn Two to explore the Willamette Valley—shame all the wineries were closed.
 
And that, in a nutshell, was the theme of my summer vacation: I suddenly had all the free time in the world, but wasn't free to do whatever I wanted. I certainly could go places or do things, but I couldn’t do both because all the hotels and bars and restaurants and what not were closed.

Remember those endless summer days as a schoolkid when there was absolutely nothing to do? It was kind of like that.
 
Of course it also offered a glimpse of what retirement might look like someday. In which case I say bring it on: Turns out I’m good at not working!

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MAY 2020: GO FOURTH
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

Pop culture currently recognizes May 4th as Star Wars Day. “May the Fourth be with you” and all that. The Mandalorian! Baby Yoda! Yadda, yadda, yadda…

Musicians have another name for it. As a post on my high-school buddy Jim Bacchi’s Facebook page proclaims, 5/4 is Dave Brubeck Day. If you don’t know what that means, ask a jazz aficionado to explain it to you.  

But it was a blog posted by my former Cycle World magazine colleague Jon F. Thompson that reminded me of the real significance of May 4th. Fifty years ago on that day, National Guardsmen opened fire on a group of unarmed students at Kent State, a tragedy memorialized in Neil Young’s classic song “Ohio.” 

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming …  four dead in Ohio. 

Those students were protesting the Vietnam War, which seems apropros in these Coronavirus Times, as over the weekend preceding May 4th the U.S. death toll from the virus surpassed that of the Vietnam War: 66,000-59,000. On top of that, Friday, May 1st, saw the highest one-day death toll to date: 2909 souls, or roughly the number lost in the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11.    

Clearly, COVID-19 has left its mark on 2020. 

Oregon is doing better than most states, to the point that Governor Kate Brown is considering lifting the stay-at-home order as soon as May 15th. Unfortunately, that’s only in rural areas. Urban parts, such as Portland, will have to wait a bit longer—the governor herself has said it could be as far away as July 6th. That’s a lot of chillaxin’! And don’t be surprised if, even after we are allowed to go places again,  face masks and social distancing become the new norms. 

Sigh. That’s a lot of doom-and-gloom for an editorial on a motorcycle shop’s website. But the good news is that there actually is good news! Even for motorcycling. 

Surprisingly there has been a huge uptick in the use—and sales—of two-wheelers, both motorized and human-powered. With citizens still largely permitted to exercise outdoors, many are dusting off their old Schwinns and hitting the local bike paths. Those who didn’t already own bikes apparently have been buying new ones, to the point that many bike shops reportedly are sold out of sub-$1000 models. These people not only are rediscovering the simple joys of cycling, they’re also realizing that they can actually go places on a bike—maybe even to work. And without having to deal with mass transit, which has become a scary prospect of late. 

Similarly, sales of scooters and small commuter motorcycles are reportedly booming in big cities. One shop in the greater Portland area even reported having a record month in April. That’s great news for the motorcycle industry.   

Sales of more expensive motorcycles such as Ducatis haven’t seen the same increase, but the situation isn’t as bad as it could be. MotoCorsa’s sales for the month of April were roughly comparable to a year ago. And that’s in spite of the Ducati factory in hard-hit Italy being closed for a few weeks. It is now back up and running, so the supply line of new motorcycles should be flowing again very soon.

This isn’t the first time Ducati has overcome adversity. In fact, you could even say the motorcycle division was built on it. Founded in 1926 as a manufacturer of electronics (radios, razors, and the like), and a supplier to the Italian military in World War II, the Bologna factory was a target of repeated Allied bombing. Ducati Museum curator Livio Lodi once showed me a black-and-white photo, taken through the bomb bay doors of a U.S. bomber, that clearly showed ordinance falling on what is now the company cafeteria. 

With no more demand for their military wares after the war ended in 1945, and citizens needing low-cost transportation, Ducati—along with other Axis suppliers such as Aermacchi and BMW—turned to motorcycle manufacture. Ducati joined forces with SIATA to offer a simple 48cc motor (four-stroke, non-desmo) that clipped onto a bicycle frame, creating a sort-of DIY moped. It was called the Cucciolo (Italian for “puppy”) and some 200,000 examples were sold.  

By 1952 Ducati was producing complete Cucciolo-powered mopeds, ultimately increasing displacement to 65cc and adding a three-speed gearbox to become a proper motorcycle The rest, as they say, is history. 

So yes, times are tough right now. But they could be a lot worse, and they are getting better. That light at the end of the tunnel? That’s you on a motorcycle.

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APRIL 2020: UNPRECEDENTED
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

You don’t know what quiet is until you’ve been to a motorcycle shop on a snow day during a pandemic. Not literally quiet—music blared from the speakers as always—but figuratively. The commute to work on Saturday, March 14th, felt post-apocalyptic as the streets were deserted save for a few homeless folks shuffling around. The snowflakes could have been radioactive fallout and the scene wouldn’t have looked any different.  As for work that day … crickets. It was The Day the Earth Stood Still minus the flying saucer on the lawn. 

The previous Wednesday was a banner day, as I worked 8 hours at MotoCorsa and then went to see Tool in concert at the Moda Center—just me and 20,000 of my closest, potentially coronavirus-carrying friends. The very next day, however, Oregon Governor Kate Brown banned public gatherings of more than 250 people, forcing Tool to call off their show scheduled for that evening in Eugene, among many other such cancellations. And then, on the following Monday, Governor Brown went a step further, banning all gatherings of more than 25 people and ordering all bars and restaurants shuttered for 30 days. A week after that she issued an open-ended statewide stay-at-home order, and most “non-essential” workers have been Netflix-binging ever since. Currently there is no end in sight. 

Retail stores such as MotoCorsa are allowed to stay open, and like most other businesses we have ramped up our cleaning protocols and are limiting the number of customers entering the shop at one time. Making an appointment is greatly encouraged. Inside, we are enforcing “B-group track-day passing rules,” leaving at least 6 feet between one another. 

I say “we” but it’s really more “they” at the moment, as I am one of a handful of MotoCorsa employees that were furloughed—so much for being “essential.” My paperwork says 12 weeks, but who knows how long it will really be? I am far from alone, as a reported 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment the same week I did, far surpassing the previous daily record of 650,000 set in 1982. The following week another 6.6 million filed, raising the total to nearly 10 million. And there will be more to come: Experts predict U.S. unemployment could reach 35 percent before this thing is over. The economy could take years to recover. 

It was dizzying to watch how quickly this health epidemic evolved, and to witness the ripple effects. Most public offices, including the DMV, are doing business solely online or are open by appointment only. Schoolchildren are not expected to return to class until after summer vacation. Virtually all forms of public entertainment, from movie theaters to music venues, are dark. Major league sports are on hiatus, including motorcycle racing. MotoGP held the opening round of the season in Qatar without its premier class (the Moto2 and Moto3 teams were already in-country for testing so circumvented the travel ban) and has since postponed subsequent rounds. One of those races was slated to be held at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, and between MotoGP and Indycar canceling their spring events there, that venue was forced to lay off its entire staff. Hopefully the Formula 1 race scheduled for October will go on as planned, along with the MotoGP race rescheduled to November. But if not, will America’s premier road course be able to bounce back? They’re not the only business wondering if they’ll survive. 

Italy has been the hardest-hit of all countries, particularly in the north, and Ducati is right there in Bologna. At first production carried on with new safety protocols, but eventually the factory was forced to shut down. Delivery of new motorcycles will no doubt be affected, but at this point it is unclear how.

When this scenario first unfolded, many took it lightly. “Free case of Corona with every purchase,” joked one Facebook post. “Man with coronavirus seeks woman with lyme disease,” read another. And we all laughed about the run on toilet paper, epitomized by a meme depicting Gollum from Lord of the Rings clutching a roll of TP with the caption, “My Precious.” 

Now, it’s not at all funny. This is a world-changing event the likes of which our generation has never experienced. Some pundits have compared it to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, when 3000 Americans perished in the collapse of the World Trade Center. But medical experts expect this disease to take that many lives per day at its peak, and to ultimately claim more than 100,000 victims. And that’s just in the USA—the worldwide tally will be many times greater.

We here in Oregon are fortunate. As of this writing, there have been fewer than 1000 confirmed cases statewide and “only” a dozen deaths. Whether that’s due to effective social distancing, our state’s relatively low population density, or dumb luck is impossible to say. Let’s just stay the course, and count our blessings. 

And let’s please be extra careful while riding our motorcycles. Portland hospitals currently aren’t bursting at the seams like those in New York or Seattle, but medical personnel are stressing, and we don’t want to add to their woes. Let alone contract a potentially deadly disease. 

“Global pandemic” is a term I was hoping never to hear in my lifetime. Hopefully, scientists will develop a vaccine sooner rather than later, and we can all go on living our lives. And yes, maybe even stop for a beer with our buddies after a long day’s ride. 

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MARCH 2020: PORTLANDIA
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

Ever watched Portlandia? I hadn’t, but figured if I were going to move to Portland to work at MotoCorsa, I probably should. Then a friend who is a long-time resident intervened: “If you watch one episode, you’ll know everything there is to know about this town,” he said. 

So I did, and promptly learned that, “The dream of the ’90s is alive in Portland.” That dream? Basically to do nothing, as in sleep till 11, hang out with your friends, and work a few hours a week at a coffee shop. “Portland is a city where young people go to retire.”

Uh-huh. While that might have been true circa 2011 when that episode first aired, there ain’t no one paying Portland’s escalating rents on a slacker barista gig nowadays! Beyond that, however, the TV series pretty much nailed it. 

I’ve learned a lot about Portland since moving here from Los Angeles in May of 2017. And, drawing on my previous career as a journalist, I took notes. So here, in no particular order, are my completely random observations. Feel free to insert an old-man-shaking-his-fist-at-the-clouds emoji at any point.

How many nicknames does one town need? Bridge City, Bridgetown, P-Town, Puddletown, Rip City, River City, Rose City, Roseland, Slabtown, Stumptown … the list goes on. I have since learned that some of these nicknames refer to particular parts of Portland, fans of sporting events, and what not. But seriously people, pick one!   

“Potland” might be most appropriate, because is that a skunk or skunk bud I smell? Is it 4:20 24/7? Whichever it is, the dank stank is omnipresent, and not just outside the countless dispensaries. How long before the green cross finds its way onto the state flag? 

There are as many neighborhoods as there are nicknames, many with monikers appropriated from other ’hoods: Alberta, Boise, Brooklyn, Hollywood, Portsmouth, Richmond, Woodstock, etc. Even Portland itself was named after Portland, Maine, and legend holds would have been called Boston had a coin toss between the founders gone the other way. 

Speaking of which, who knew that Portland, Oregon is almost on the same latitude as Portland, Maine (45:30 vs. 43:40, respectively)? Having grown up in New York, I know how frigid New England gets in winter, so was pleasantly surprised to discover that it’s much warmer, if wetter, in the Pacific Northwest. One could even ride a motorcycle year-round, if one were hardy. And had heated, waterproof gear.  

The Portland Police really are the “Po-Po.” And—knock on wood—so far the ones I’ve met have been po-lite. 

Which is more than one can say about bicycle commuters. The moment of truth came when I witnessed a near-collision between two cyclists at an intersection and the one who ran the stop sign flipped off the other. The good thing about there being so many cyclists is it makes automobile drivers more aware of them and, by logical extension, motorcyclists, right? RIGHT?!   

Unlike cyclists, Portland motorists are almost too courteous. Never before have I seen a driver surrender the right of way to let another exit a parking lot. That said, the pedal on the right is the accelerator and the stalk on the left is for the turn signals. Please use them. 

Portlanders love to complain about traffic, but as a former Angelino, let me tell you: You have nothing to complain about! One might sit for a few minutes when there’s an accident, or a train crossing, or a bridge lift, but nowhere are there 12 lanes going 2.7 mph like the Sepulveda Pass at rush hour.

Mind you, lane splitting on a motorcycle is legal in California. And now in Utah. And nowhere else in the USA. But at least it’s being considered in Oregon. I wouldn’t be surprised to see local riders start “practicing” lane splitting before it’s legal here. But one practice I don’t like is motorcyclists riding along the shoulders, where all the debris ends up. If you really want to get a flat tire, keep it up—our Service Department thanks you. 

You can’t pump your own gas in Oregon, but you can pump your own diesel. Or fill up your motorcycle. Someone please explain that to me. As a Ducati/Vespa rider and Mercedes Benz Sprinter van driver, I feel discriminated against. But then I’ve never had my gas pumped for me anywhere else, so no biggie. 

Buses are big. Streetcars are bigger. The MAX is bigger yet. And the tracks are slippery. Especially when wet—which is more often than not. Bonus points for tracks that cross the street at acute angles. We’ve had a few test-ride tip-overs due to those. 

What’s with all the speed bumps? And in the middle of corners on Skyline and Germantown? Sinister, I say! How about the ODOT uses that asphalt to fill in some of the potholes around here instead? There’s one on Naito Parkway that gets me every time. 

Does anybody mow their lawn here? Is growing weeds somehow “green”? Are dandelions good eating? Or is having a jungle for a front yard perfectly acceptable provided you erect a sign designating it as bee habitat?  

Moss evidently doesn't only grow on the north side of trees. Because of that, my dogs Mulder and Scully and I got righteously lost the first time we went to Thousand Acre Dog Park. I blame them since canines are supposed to have a good sense of direction.   

I never thought I would appreciate the subtle colors and textures of the various types of lichen.  But on a misty day, with just the right amount of sunlight filtering through the clouds, it can be sublime.

It smells nice after it rains here. There’s even a word for that: petrichor. As opposed to petrochor, which I propose as a new word for the smell of gas, oil, and diesel spilled onto L.A. freeways. 

Ah, weather … I’d ask what the weathermen are smoking, but we already know the answer to that. Suffice it to say they seldom get it right, even if there’s a 50/50 chance of rain on the daily. 

I love that swap meets are still called “flea markets” here. But why are garage sales held midday instead of early in the morning? And what's with leaving unwanted stuff on street corners? Have Portlanders not heard of Goodwill? Or is that politically incorrect nowadays because not enough of the money makes it to charities?

Why is everyone so PC, anyway? And offended? Do we really need signs that say “Gender-Neutral Restroom”? It’s only when it says “Men” or “Women” that it’s not. 

And what’s with the lines in pubs? Whatever happened to bellying up to the bar and calling out to the bartender, every man/woman/person for him/her/theirself? I’ve done that my whole life and seldom failed to get overserved.  

I’m no paragon of style, but can we please stop trying to look homeless? Time was you knew who was crazy because they talked to themselves; now you’ve got to look for a Bluetooth headset. 

Also there are colors other than black. I went to closing night at the Tonic Lounge and the only colorful things I saw were tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. Then again, maybe the Doom Metal crowd isn’t the right sampling pool?  

Speaking of color, ladies, can we please talk about your hair? Pink hair looks great on Pink. But if you’re not actually a rock star, please refrain from dying your hair an unnatural color. 

Wait, I take that back: I kinda like pink hair on the right person. And blue is strangely attractive if it matches one’s eyes. But grotesque shades of green and orange and purple? Not so much. And silver? You’ll have plenty of time for that when you're older—although you’ll probably then color it to look younger. 

While I’m channeling Joan Rivers on the red carpet, let me just say that boy’s gym shorts and high-waisted jeans were bad looks even when they were new in the ’70s and ’80s. It’s not “what she wore” so much as “what the hell is she wearing?!”

Boomers love to complain about hipsters, but all I see are young men with lumberjack beards drinking $2 PBRs and yet somehow still managing to fit into skinny jeans. I’d like to know their secret. 

Favorite bumper sticker so far: “Keep Poland Weird.” No, that’s not a typo. 

Portland is weird. It’s like that lost dog on the flyer: “Three legs, blind in one eye, recently castrated … answers to Lucky.” It’s got a gruff exterior, what with all its skyscrapers and bridges and homeless camps. But inside there’s a lot to love. There’s great food (yay food trucks!) and drink and music and culture and one helluva motorcycle scene. Who would ever have imagined that a motorcycle shop in this cold, wet city of fewer than a million could be the number-one Ducati dealer in North America—not once but six times?  

Before I moved here, I told myself, “I did three years in Phoenix. I can do three years in Portland.” Well, it’s been 2¾ years now, and I have no plans to leave anytime soon. Can’t Portland be a place where old people go to retire, too?

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FEBRUARY 2020: INTRODUCTORY ITALIAN
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

One day this past January, I got a voicemail message from a gentleman named Samuel Justice, Treasurer of the Oregon Norton Enthusiasts (with the clever acronym ONE). He had heard that some former magazine editor had relocated to Portland, and wanted to know if I would consider entertaining the attendees by speaking at the annual Oregon Vintage Motorcyclists (the less-clever OVM) banquet at the Elks Lodge in Milwaukie.

“Obviously this man has never heard me speak,” I thought to myself.

I hadn’t even had time to politely decline Samuel’s invitation when he turned up at MotoCorsa to ask me in person. Initially I was put off by the fact that he didn’t seem to know who I was, nor at which magazines I had worked, but we quickly put that behind us. While not particularly enamored of public speaking, I am somewhat experienced at it, having hosted Motorcyclist’s centennial celebration and presented numerous Cycle World Ten Best Bike awards. Sometimes one just has to put on the big-boy pants—along with a tie and jacket.
    
Anyhow, Samuel told me the featured marque at the banquet and the club’s annual show in Corvallis in May would be “Italian motorcycles.” I asked, “Which Italian motorcycles?” To which he replied, “All of them.” Hmmm … according to my dog-eared copy of Luigi Rivola’s Racing Motorcycles, there are no fewer than 21 Italian brands. And those are just the ones that went racing. If I were going to talk about all of them, we would be there all night! So I just told a few random stories about my early experiences with Italian bikes instead.

My aunt was once married to an airline pilot who owned an Ariel Square-Four and some sort of two-stoke go-kart. He had a subscription to Cycle magazine, and also to Playboy, so whenever we went to their house I would tuck an issue of the latter into the former to catch up on my “reading.” Although streetbikes didn’t interest me as much as dirtbikes (or girls) at that point, I found myself captivated by the tale of how “Mike the Bike” Hailwood returned to the 1978 Isle of Man TT after 11 years racing cars and won. That story, and the photos of the tricolore NCR Ducati 900SS he piloted, left an indelible memory on my teenaged self.

The bait was set.

Fast-forward to 1985, and having moved from my native Long Island to Southern California, I was contemplating buying my first Italian motorcycle: a Cagiva Alazzurra 650, basically a Ducati Pantah in Honda Interceptor clothing. I remember riding my Yamaha SR500 to European Cycle Specialties, and on the way there an airport cargo container fell out of a stakebed truck right in front of me. That was not the first, not the last time I dodged debris on an L.A. freeway, but it gave me pause: Did I even want to ride streetbikes? Of course I decided I did, and after also test-riding a Kawasaki Ninja 600R, I settled on the Cagiva. I thought that was an odd pair to be considering until the latest issue of CW showed up with those same two machines on the cover. I remember I paid $3743 for my Ally, which is about what you’d pay for a desmo service on a V4 Panigale nowadays.

J/K, as the kids say!

Before long I decided to race the Cagiva, and to make it look like the Ducati 851 I coveted, had it painted red with a white frame and “651 Superbike” hand-lettered on the side panels. It was with that bike in the back of my crappy blue Toyota pickup that I interviewed with then-CW Editor David Edwards in 1990. Ironically, a decade later Mark Hoyer parked an even crappier blue Toyota pickup in the same exact spot when he interviewed. A few years after that, I left to become Editor of MC while Mark hung in there to become Editor of CW. Clearly driving a crappy blue Toyota pickup is the key to success in publishing.

I had a lot of fun racing my Alazzurra at Willow Springs. And with the AMA having adopted a 750cc displacement limit for its new Pro Twins GP2 division, I decided to have my motor bored-out and do the West Coast Nationals. I had befriended Eraldo Ferracci while covering AMA Superbike races, and he said, “Send-a me your motor and I’ll make-a it-a fast-a.” So I did, and he did. Trouble was the AMA abruptly dropped the GP2 category just as our local club added a Lightweight Twins class with a 650cc limit. So overnight I was sentenced to race Heavyweight Twins against the much faster 851s and 900SSs! I never did trophy in that class, but I finished fourth more often than not. And I did win the Vintage Twins class fairly regularly, never mind that my Ally was only 5 years old. Credit the “like manufacture” clause in the rulebook.
 
With the Cagiva relegated to track duty, I needed a streetbike, and bought a most unlikely replacement—a 1977 Ducati GTL500—for just $700. The GTL, for those who don’t remember, was a Britbike-like vertical-twin with angular automotive styling resembling that of the 860 GT. Ironically its expired personalized license plate read “CA CAT,” but when I went to renew it, that plate had been re-assigned to a Hyundai! While I never did manage to register that plate, I still have it, and in fact bolted it onto a borrowed 851 to ride to my 10-year high-school reunion. Parked right out front, too.
  
Fittingly, the first story I wrote for CW involved racing a Fast By Ferracci Ducati at Willow Springs. A young racer named Fabian Cortez had won the inaugural AMA Pro Twins GP2 Championship aboard a 750 Sport, and Ferracci was offering a limited run of replicas. It was a good-looking bike, red-and-silver with 17-inch Performance Machine spun-aluminum wheels shod with Yokohama slicks replacing the 16-inch stockers. First time out I led the Heavyweight Twins race until the final lap, when I ripped off my right knee slider on the edge of the track cresting Turn Six. The ensuing tank-slapper gifted the win to Nigel Gale on his hot-rod Harley-Davidson 1200 Sportster. I held onto the 750 Sport until the following month’s races, and with a steering damper fitted led Nigel flag-to-flag. When he came to my pits to congratulate me afterward, he was surprised to see I was wearing a Nigel Gale T-shirt under my leathers! I had taken a cue from Barry Sheene, who used to wear a Gary Nixon T-shirt under his racing suit.

I spoke for nearly an hour at the banquet, and took questions afterward, so couldn't possibly recount it all here. But this is a good start. I'll save the rest for another time ... maybe.  

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JANUARY 2020: MONSTROUS
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

Customers never believe me when I tell them. They think I’m trying to sell them something—which, depending on our current pre-owned inventory, I may very well be. But I swear it’s the truth: “The 2010-2013 Monster 1100 EVO is my favorite Ducati streetbike ... for the street.”

Not for the racetrack: I’ll keep my 2007 999S Team USA Edition for track days, thankyouverymuch. But for riding around town and on tight, twisty backroads—in other words, in the real world—the Monster 1100 EVO ranks at the top of my list. Even better if it’s a 20th Anniversary Edition with the old-school mirrors and graphics. 

There’s something about a big, brutish motor stuffed in a lightweight, minimalist chassis. The Monster is the two-wheeled equivalent of a Shelby Cobra or, closer to home for me, a Sunbeam Tiger. (Get Smart, anyone?) My dad owned a Sunbeam—unfortunately the Alpine with the lowly Talbot four-cylinder engine—in which I did my formative backroad training. I vividly recall clutching tightly to the passenger handhold in the open glovebox while he explained to me the fundamentals of “the racing line.” Did I mention I was 6 years old at the time? Decades later my Cycle World magazine colleague Jon F. Thompson presented me with a “Doctorate of Roostology” diploma, so those early lessons obviously paid off!  

Designer Miguel Angel Galluzzi was onto something when in 1993 he stuffed the air-cooled SOHC two-valve V-twin from a 900 Supersport into an 851 Superbike chassis, and left off the bodywork. Thus Il Mostro –and the whole naked bike genre--was born, and it is a perennial best-seller. In recent years the Monster line has matured, sprouting liquid cooling, DOHC four-valve cylinder heads, and a whole bunch more power. But I still prefer the older models. Or, to be more accurate, the middle-aged ones.  

I first met Galluzzi at the 2000 Paris Motorcycle Show, which I attended as a guest of Kawasaki to witness the unveiling of the then-new Ninja ZX-12R. Never mind that we at Cycle World had already ridden the bike and were about to publish an exclusive road test. He was manning the Cagiva booth and we immediately hit it off over our shared love of Italian motorcycles and vintage motocross. Miguel grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina; studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California; and then headed to Europe to work for Opel and Honda before ending up at Cagiva (which at the time owned Ducati). There he worked alongside the great Massimo Tamburini (Bimota/Ducati/MV Agusta), along with fellow acclaimed designers Pierre Terblanche (Ducati/Norton/Confederate) and Adrian Morton (Benelli/MV Agusta). Today Galluzzi runs the Piaggio Design Center in Pasadena, where he dreams up new models for Aprilia and Moto Guzzi. I last saw him a year ago when he came to Portland for The One Moto Show, and stopped by MotoCorsa for the premiere of Gareth Maxwell Roberts’ film Oil in the Blood (https://www.oilintheblood.cc). 

At 6-foot-6 Galluzzi is a giant of a man, which partly explains the naked bike’s inception—he simply wouldn’t fit on a sportbike! Speaking of his stature, at the press introduction of the Moto Guzzi California 1400—a seemingly bespoke outsized cruiser—he told me a funny story: On one trip to Italy, he requested a Fiat 500 rental car. He had seen them around and was curious to drive one. Arriving at the rental counter, he was told they didn’t have one available. They did, however, have a Smart car. “I don’t want a f*cking Smart car,” he complained. But with nothing else available, he took it … and enjoyed it so much that he bought one. He swears the Smart car is roomy inside, but watching him exit … it’s a one-man clown car! 

While the original Monster 900 garnered rave reviews—and inspired my buddy John Burns’ “Monster Story” (https://www.cycleworld.com/2013/10/25/ducati-monster-m900-feature-story-by-john-burns/), inarguably the zaniest article ever published in a motorcycle magazine—it was pretty raw. The subsequent fuel-injected 1000cc variants—particularly the 2005 S2R, another favorite—were more refined, and the new-from-the-ground-up  2008 Monster 1100 took that a step further. Essentially a Monster 696 with a 1078cc motor, the 1100 elevated performance considerably. The crowning glory came in 2010 with the introduction of the Monster 1100 EVO. Fittingly, Ducati introduced that model to the press in Sicily, where the ride went to the top of Mount Etna—an active volcano.   

EVOlution meant replacing the dry clutch and underseat exhaust with a wet clutch and side-mounted silencers. Along with the single-sided swingarm, these two disused features were Ducati hallmarks, and faithful Ducatisti voiced their disapproval. (“Loud clutches save lives,” reads the T-shirt.) But these changes were forced by increasingly stringent noise standards. And, at the risk of kicking the hornet’s nest, the wet clutch really does work better.  

More significantly, the EVO birthed the Ducati Safety Pack with anti-lock brakes and traction control as standard. True, both are primitive compared to today’s multi-adjustable systems—TC has just four settings instead of the current eight, and ABS is on or off—but they’re there, and they work. I remember once gazing at a Mercury space capsule at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and thinking it was a lot like sending a man into orbit in a washing machine. “State of the Art” is fleeting.

Pierre Terblanche once told me his “perfect” motorcycle would produce 100 horsepower and 100 lb.-ft. of torque, and would weigh 100 kg (220 lbs.). That’s a tall order—and that weight is frankly preposterous—and so I suggested 100/100/200 would be more realistic. The Monster 1100 EVO comes remarkably close to ticking those boxes at 100 hp, 76 lb.-ft. and 189 kg (416 lbs.). Coincidentally my dad’s Sunbeam Alpine also produced 100 hp, albeit in a vehicle that weighed 2185 lbs.—five times as much as the Monster. 

At the 2013 EICMA Show the Bologna factory introduced the liquid-cooled Monster 1200, and one year later the 821, at which time company brass proclaimed there would be no more air-cooled Ducatis. Of course they then promptly introduced the air-cooled Scrambler 800 line, followed in short order by the Monster 797. And now the 1078cc engine is back in the lineup in the form of the Scrambler 1100, which boasts more advanced ABS and TC along with variable ride modes. It’s a bit choked by emissions controls in stock form—86 hp from an 1100, really?—but bolt on an aftermarket exhaust, re-flash the ECU, turn down the TC, and it starts to feel like my old favorite. It just looks different. 

Might we someday see the return of the Monster 1100? I, for one, sure hope so!

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DECEMBER 2019: GET DIRTY
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

“Adventure Season? That’s horseshit … but it’s clever horseshit.”

So sayeth the former Ducati Multistrada owner cometh to pick up his consignment check.

Okay, that was one too many eths. “The sign of Eth is rising in the air” (Rush, “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” ©1975). Forgive me my cryptic rock lyric references.

So where were we? Right, at Turn Two, nee MotoCorsa Pre-Owned, nee Portland Used Bikes, in the big gray, nee yellow, nee red corrugated-steel shed across the street from MotoCorsa proper. “Tin roof … rusted.” I don’t need to tell you what song that lyric came from.

I’m not sure who to blame, er, credit for the phrase, but in the hopes of extending the motorcycle riding—and, to be blunt, the selling—season, we at MotoCorsa dubbed autumn Adventure Season. And why not? Off-road riders traditionally celebrate the wet winter months as a wee bit of rain helps keep down dust and makes for epic traction. Since a big part of adventure biking happens off-road, it’s logical to conclude that a little precipitation would also benefit adventure bike riders. And it does—to a point. More on that later…

The thing about adventure bikes is not everyone takes full advantage of their bike’s adventuring capabilities. Call it Range Rover Syndrome. Ducati Multistrada 1200s may not be as renowned for their off-road prowess as some other makes/models, but they are remarkably proficient in the dirt—especially the latest Enduro variant.  The Multistrada 950 is no less competent, and has the added (or subtracted?) benefit of weighing less. As does the Scrambler Desert Sled—who says you need an adventure bike to go adventuring? Scramblers have been the off-road standard-bearers since before dual-sport bikes were a thing; in fact, motocross was called “scrambling” in English-speaking countries well into the 1960s. 

So to give adventure bike and scrambler owners an opportunity to “Get Dirty,” we invited them to an off-road ride day at Washougal MX Park. To be as inclusive as possible, we opened up the event to all brands and offered demo rides on the aforementioned Ducati models—hey, conquest sales never hurt! Entry fee: free. Although we didn’t use Washougal’s world-famous motocross track, our course did cross the ’cross track twice, so participants could tell their friends they had ridden on it if they didn’t mind stretching the truth.

Why a private motocross park and not some public forest roads? First, it was a controlled environment, without fear of vehicles coming in the opposite direction. Second, years ago I attended a KTM dealers meeting at Washougal and they had an awesome off-road loop. I recalled those trails being fun and not particularly difficult, but then it was summer and we were on lightweight EXCs, not autumn on heavyweight ADVs. 

That latter point was driven home when my co-workers Taylor Ramsauer and Jarrod Weiss and I headed out to Washougal on a sunny-yet-muddy Wednesday to scope things out and shoot some promotional video. Taylor got some great stuff, and while his drone-flying skills improve day by day, we did have a couple close calls. I know I need a haircut, but couldn’t we just use scissors?   

While we waited for the early-morning fog to lift, I jumped into a UTV with groundskeeper Mike Bell (no, not the legendary “Too Tall” MXer) to scout a route. We barely got 100 yards into the woods before I realized it was going to be impassable on an ADV bike—the uphill was just a little too steep, the dirt a little too muddy, the knee-deep leaves way too wet and slippery. An expert rider might be able to make it, but that wasn’t the point of this exercise.  We tried running that section the opposite way to see if it would be any better going downhill and it was even worse, ending in a sharp turn bordered by a tree that might as well have had a target painted on it!

We did have to get to the other side of the motocross track, however, which is when Plan B emerged: cutting across the infield. That let us connect the grass parking lot (with the UTV track we also hoped to use) on the east side with the trail network on the west side. It was the perfect loop for an event like this: challenging for newbies, fun for more experienced riders, and just 2 miles around. Think track day with dirt trails instead of pavement.  

Ride day dawned cold and damp, but still some 30 riders turned out astride everything from a fully farkled BMW R1200GS to a humble Kawasaki KLR650. There were a few KTM Adventures and Enduros, a Suzuki V-Strom or two, and of course lots of Multistradas and Scramblers; one attendee even braved the course on his Hypermotard with street tires!

At the morning riders’ meeting, I asked if anyone had never ridden off-road. Three hands went up, so as the rest headed out on their sighting lap, I took the trio aside and showed them a few drills I’ve learned over the years: standing on the footpegs doing circles and figure 8s at a snail’s pace, slipping the clutch in second gear to keep the rear tire from spinning—that sort of thing. 

"Go forward, move ahead.” I’m not going to tell you want song that line is from either. 

Unfortunately our infield shortcut turned into gorilla snot after it rained. Jarrod and another of our co-workers, Brent Kasemeyer, did a reconnaissance lap first thing in the morning and, despite both being skilled off-road riders, pronounced that section barely ridable. A few guests sliding off during the sighting lap confirmed that, and resulted in some spontaneous re-routing. Net result was we lost access to the west-side trails, although it was still a fun (albeit shorter) layout.

So while not a perfect event, a few attendees declared that it was, everyone had a blast, and no one got hurt. Even our demo bikes emerged largely unscathed, a bent brake pedal, broken handguard, and some scuffed-up bodywork the full extent of it. Best of all, everyone and everything Got Dirty! 

Naturally, even before the day was over, there was talk of doing it again. Our GM Jason Wilson suggested making it an annual event, but I don’t want to wait until next fall. With drier weather the uphill through the woods would be passable, which would give us access to an even larger trail network. Track manager Ryan Huffman (yes, that Ryan Huffman, former AMA Pro MXer) said they have had loops as long as 6 miles around—imagine that! 

Which begs the question: Can’t spring be Adventure Season, too?

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NOVEMBER 2019: HIGH TECHNOLOGY
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

Way back in my college days, I worked summers at a company that sold Computer Cable and Products. In fact, that was the name of it (thus the capital letters), which was my first lesson in brand transparency. Years later when I began traveling internationally, I learned that many of the lyrically titled businesses I spied from Italian roadways were likewise simply named; they just sounded fancier in a foreign language (e.g. Cavo per Computer e Prodotti).

But I digress.

At one point my employer announced that it was setting up a West Coast office, and solicited volunteers. Consequently I landed a job as warehouse manager, earning myself a one-way ticket from Long Island to Southern California. There I worked with an immigrant named Tony Ruiz, who claimed to have been a bodyguard for the President of Guatemala before being forced to flee the country in a hurry. (Coups were a regular thing back then.) A dubious claim, I suspected, until I attended a party at Tony’s house and spied a framed photo of him with three other men, one of whom was clearly President Jimmy Carter.

I digress, therefore I am.

Anyway, Tony was a driver for the company, and never could quite grasp the mysterious inner workings of the materiel we proffered. Asked to explain something technical, he routinely shook his head and said, “It’s high technology, man!” 

I mention Tony because I often want to pirate his reply when asked about the new Ducatis we sell at MotoCorsa. Modern motorcycles have gotten so high-tech that I regularly find myself talking about a bike’s electronics instead of its mechanics. And looking at where motor vehicle technology is headed, that’s not likely to stop any time soon.

Previously in this space, I declared that my pet customers are the mostly younger “newbies” who come to the shop eager for knowledge.  But there’s another category of mostly older customers that I also enjoy engaging, and that is the “re-entry rider.” These are folks who have been away from motorcycles for a period of time, many for reasons beyond their control. The most common is the birth of a child, which oft times prompts mom to inform dad that he is going to have to give up riding for a while. (In fairness, I have also met moms who have taken extended maternity leaves from motorcycling.) From what I’ve heard, that length of time can vary dramatically. The best-case scenario was “as soon as she was done breast feeding.” Which is what, 9 years nowadays? J/K, it’s more like 12 months, right?  The worst case was “when the youngest of my four daughters graduated from college.” Which that long-suffering fellow calculated as Twenty. Eight. Years.

Moment of silence, please.

With the exception of a scant few who stayed up to date via magazines (remember those?) and the Internet, each of these “re-entry riders” invariably wants to know what happened while they were away. My favorite was the very senior citizen who told me his last bike had been a 1969 Honda CB750 (betcha he wishes he still had that now) and wanted to know which new Ducati was comparable.

I pondered that for a few moments before ultimately giving him two seemingly contradictory answers: 1) The CB750 was the superbike of its day, which today is a Panigale V4R; but 2) the Honda weighed 481 lbs. and made 68 horsepower, which pales in comparison even to today’s entry-level Scrambler 800s.

That blew him away even before I told him about all the electronic rider aids: cruise control, traction control, wheelie control, slide control, rear-wheel-lift mitigation, lean-angle-sensitive anti-lock brakes, hill-assist, up/down quick-shifter, cornering lights, semi-active suspension, and variable ride modes, most adjustable via the miniature color TV behind the dash.

I lost him at fuel injection.

I admit when ABS debuted on bikes in the late ’80s, I was skeptical. Not only was the developing technology somewhat clunky, as a racer I had worked hard to develop my riding skills and didn’t want some “dumb computer” managing braking for me. To wit, I attended the press introduction for the original BMW K100RS ABS at an airport in Berlin, and after stopping uneventfully on wet and gravel-strewn taxiways, the most-asked question by journalists was, “Where’s the bar?”

Then I had an epiphany. While riding one of those early K-bikes on a rain-slickened New Jersey Turnpike, a tractor-trailer slewed sideways in front of me. Panicked, I snatched at the brake lever, stomped on the pedal, aimed for a gap barely big enough to pass through … and emerged on the other side upright and unscathed as cars crunched sickeningly into one another behind me. That made me a convert, because without ABS I very likely would have gone down. Or worse. 

Fast-forward to 2015, when I had an opportunity to test the latest Ducati Multistrada 1200S with Cornering ABS and TC at Bosch’s proving grounds near Detroit. It was pouring cats and dogs that day, and I thought for sure we would be rained out. But one of the engineers laughed at this suggestion and told me, “We’ve ridden in far worse; in sleet and even hail.”

After experimenting with the limits of acceleration and braking on a soaking-wet skid pad, with and without outriggers, I became a true believer.  Not long ago, such technology would have been the stuff of science fiction—and it kind of still is.

Then I look at the self-balancing concept bikes that both BMW and Honda have shown (think Segway scooter with the wheels front-to-back), not to mention all the technology that’s currently available on cars and will no doubt trickle down to bikes: adaptive cruise control, lane-departure alerts, auto-stop/start (to boost fuel economy), and so on.

Don’t even get me started on electric vehicles. Or autonomous ones: The Luddite in me wonders if someday we all will be stranded on the side of the road toggling “Cntrl/Alt/Del.” More likely we’ll be whisked effortlessly to our destinations, like some sort of magic carpet ride.

How will that work?

“It’s high technology, man!”

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OCTOBER 2019: BACK STORIES
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

If I had a nickel for every time a customer asked me this one question while checking out one of our pre-owned motorcycles, I’d be rich. Or at least have enough dosh to afford a 16-oz. latte down the street at Dutch Bros.
 
“Why did the previous owner trade it in?”

That, friends, is a loaded question—and one I quickly learned to stop asking. Or answering.

Remember that old Rod Stewart song “Every Picture Tells a Story”? Well, every used motorcycle at MotoCorsa Pre-Owned (a.k.a. Turn Two) has a back story. I don’t profess to know them all, but there have been some memorable ones. And they’re not all suitable for sharing, especially in a public forum.
 
I recall, my first week on the job, a Monster 796 with the tricolore Isle of Man bodywork kit turning up with 664 miles on it.

“Why would someone trade in a bike with so few miles on it?” I naively asked my co-worker Jason Wilson.

“Ha! That was the second owner,” he replied.

The story went that the first owner bought the bike to display above his bar, and the second owner bought it for his lady friend, who never quite caught the riding bug. Those scenarios might be difficult to fathom for those of us who Live to Ride and Ride to Live, but they do happen.

While a Monster 796 would not typically be considered one, there are certain Ducati models that are collectible and thus tend not to be ridden much, if at all: Desmosedicis, Superleggeras, R-model Superbikes, specific SportClassics (Hailwood Evoluzione, Paul Smart Replica), and the various anniversary and designer special editions—some of which, like artist’s proofs, are numbered in a series.

Case in point: We recently sold a 2014 Superleggera to the third owner, still with just 5 miles on the odometer. One might assume that’s a unicorn, but a quick perusal of Cycle Trader turned up a number of similar low-mileage examples for sale—although none at more than the original $65,000 asking price. Motor vehicles, as our former GM Arun Sharma likes to say, are not investments but depreciating assets. Rare is the vehicle that actually goes up in value, and if you’re waiting for that payoff, you’d best have the patience to play the long game.
   
As for the scenario involving a significant other, that’s one of the leading causes of low-mileage trade-ins. We’ve had a slew of like-new Monsters and Scramblers come through our doors because a well-meaning individual bought the bike for their partner who then a) dropped it; b) scared themselves; or c) dropped it and scared themselves. Not all of these are unappreciated gifts, however. We once sold a cherry Monster 695 to a woman who spent a ton of money lowering the suspension and the seat, only to meet the man of her dreams and promptly sell the bike back to us before jetting to Paris to get married.

And then there was the 600-mile Monster 696 that sat for a decade in the corner of a woodworking shop because the owner’s boyfriend frightened her with horror stories of Ducati maintenance. Never mind that the bike wouldn’t have been due for a valve adjustment for many thousands of miles. Once it was in our hands, we simply blew off the sawdust, changed the oil, the cambelts, and the tires (due to age, not mileage), and it was good to go.

At one point last summer, we had no fewer than three pre-owned black Scrambler Café Racers, all with just a few hundred miles on the clocks. One was our previous year’s demo; one belonged to a certain famous athletic shoe designer whose garage reached X+1 status; and the last belonged (briefly) to a young man whose parents basically said, “Not while you live under our roof!”

Which brings me to what I call the “Law of Attraction.” As in, we often get two or more of the same model motorcycle at a time. When I first started here, we had two Harley-Davidson Dynas—both the same exact year, model, color; they even had the same aftermarket exhausts. Shortly thereafter we had two purple Triumphs; when have you seen one purple Triumph, let alone two? We’ve had two BMW R nineT Urban GSs. two Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R Anniversary Editions. two Husqvarna Vitpilen 401s, two KTM Duke 390s … the list goes on.

And those are just the non-Ducatis. Naturally, duplicate desmos are more common considering that’s our specialty, but two Diavel Titaniums? Two Scrambler Italias? Two Paul Smart Replicas? Two Xerox 999Rs?  Two 959 Corses? At one point we even had three Multistrada 1100Ss, all black with luggage. I’d like to say we’ve had more than one Desmosedici at a time, but I’ve only seen that in our Service Department.

We typically have around 50 pre-owned motorcycles on hand, and the answer to why the previous owners traded them in are as varied as our inventory. Some make sense, such as the typical sportbike-for-adventure-bike or naked-bike-for-cruiser—as riders age, they tend to want to sit more upright. But for each of those scenarios I’ve also seen the inverse. One customer recently traded in a Harley-Davidson Electra Glide on a Ducati Multistrada 1200, which wouldn’t have been so odd if it hadn’t been his second time!

Smaller bikes obviously tend to get traded in with relatively low mileage as their owners move up to something bigger. Some of these we have sold multiple times. But at the opposite end of the spectrum we’ve taken in bikes with quite high mileage. Forget about the Multistrada with 38K or the Hyperstrada with 46K—those were 5-year-old touring bikes—at one point we took in a 1-year-old Harley-Davidson Road Glide with 30K on the odo. Turns out it was a rental. Damn straight it’s hard to sell bikes with high mileage—that Harley sat around until it was nearly 2 years old, at which point 15K miles per year must have been easier to rationalize.
 
Trade-ins are one thing, but consignments and purchases are something else. Almost no one sells their motorcycle because they want to. They usually have to, for reasons they would just as soon not disclose.  These can vary from career changes (including relocation and unemployment), to family issues (new baby, college tuition, marriage, divorce) to health issues (illness or death), and, increasingly, because riders are “aging out” of the sport.

That latter scenario sounds scary for the future of motorcycling, and perhaps you’ve read reports of how motorcycle sales are down, particularly for Harley-Davidson. Those are sales of new bikes, however, and I’m here to tell you used-bike sales are doing just fine. If you don’t believe me, stop by the shop on a busy Saturday and see for yourself.

Just please don’t ask me that one question, m'kay?

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SEPTEMBER 2019: OLD AGE AND TREACHERY
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

One of my favorite poems was written by one Theodor Geisel…

        How did it get so late so soon?
        It’s night before it’s afternoon
        December is here before it’s June
        My goodness how the time has flewn
        How did it get so late so soon?

In case you didn’t know—and didn’t guess by the use of the made-up word “flewn”—Geisel went by a pen name: Dr. Seuss. Given that the good doctor is renowned for his comically illustrated, rhyming children’s books, this poem ain’t exactly in his wheelhouse.

Nor is this one, attributed to one of his chief characters, the Cat in the Hat…
 
        I cannot see
        I cannot pee
        I cannot chew
        I cannot screw
       My memory shrinks
       My hearing stinks
       No sense of smell
       I look like hell
       My body is drooping
       I have trouble pooping
       The Golden Years have come at last
       The Golden Years … can kiss my ass
 
I don’t think the Golden Years have quite come to me, or I to them, but alas they are fast approaching. I remember when I turned 50 one of my younger friends asked me what it was like. “It’s better than not turning 50,” I replied. God knows I had ample opportunity, what with all the riding and racing motorcycles lo these many decades. 

Old age does come with some perks, however: discount movie tickets, for one, and 10 percent off at Goodwill on Tuesdays. And then there’s this job: When I started at MotoCorsa in May 2017, then-GM Arun Sharma could have thrown me to the wolves and made me a new-bike salesman working on straight commission. But he showed mercy and put me in charge of the Pre-Owned showroom across the street from the main shop.

MotoCorsa has a fine tradition of having humorous Italian titles on its employees’ business cards, and given my former career as a motorcycle journalist, mine became Vecchio Redattore, or “Old Editor.” I briefly considered Vecchiaia e Tradimento—“Old Age and Treachery”—but in hindsight it should have been Vecchio con le Vecchie Motociclette, because what I really am is the “Old Guy with the Old Bikes.”

I’m perfectly okay with that. While the younger guys across the street log in to the Ducati intranet to memorize all the stats on all the latest models like they’re cramming for a mid-term, I’m over here accessing my cerebral data banks. The ROM is still there, even if the RAM is kinda fuzzy nowadays. I try to keep the personal anecdotes to a minimum, but once in a while I admit to falling down the rabbit hole. I mean, c’mon, have you ever ridden a Desmosedici at Valencia? Not the production model, I mean a real Desmosedici MotoGP racer? How about a 999 at Misano? A 1098 at Jerez? An 1198 at Portimao? Yeah, I’m that guy.

Every so often, a customer recognizes me from my magazine days and asks about my past life. I’m perfectly happy to reflect on any of the many stories I’ve written—and I do have some interesting backstories—but I’d just as soon live in the present.

Or look to the future, because truth be told, my favorite customers are the ones who are new to motorcycling. There’s a classic quote about old age and treachery always beating youth and exuberance, but I honestly enjoy “edumacating” these newbies. We get, on average, a few Team Oregon graduates (or undergraduates) per week, and it’s great fun to help them zero in on what style of bike they want. Often our shop is their first stop, and with some 50-plus used bikes here at any one time, it is a bit like a pop-up picture book of motorcycles. It doesn’t hurt that it’s staffed by a walking encyclopedia of otherwise useless motorcycle trivia. As an ex once told me: “You’re like an idiot savant; a Rainman of motorcycling.”

I’m think she meant that as a compliment...

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AUGUST 2019: WELCOME TO MOTOCORSA
BY BRIAN CATTERSON

Even if you’ve been to MotoCorsa a hundred times, you’ve probably never noticed the red Adidas dangling from the power lines out front. In the mean streets of most major cities, that might signify where a drug dealer lived or a gangbanger died. And while one could argue that Ducatis are addictive and Ducatisti are a gang (more like a club, really), no laws are being broken at MotoCorsa.  Well, none beyond the occasional speed limit, anyway.

So what’s the significance of those kicks? Well, another thing you might not have noticed is that all of MotoCorsa’s employees wear red shoes. In a way, that makes us a club-within-a-club; call us the Red Shoe Crew. And while no one has claimed responsibility, the pair dangling from the power lines likely belonged to a former employee who tossed them there as a parting gesture. Urban legend holds that this unsub got the shoes to hang from the wires on the first attempt, and that there’s video. But this Cat ain’t no rat; right, Christian Hansen?

I have to admit that when I accepted a position at MotoCorsa and then-GM Arun Sharma told me about the dress code, I was taken aback by the red shoes. Then again, this is the same shop that produced the infamous Manigale calendar. Sure glad I wasn’t around for that!

“Red shoes … on the first date?” I joked via text.

“Yes, you’ll be hot,” came the reply.

Welcome to MotoCorsa.

For those of you not familiar with my name, for 25 years I worked at various motorcycle magazines (Cycle World, Motorcyclist, Cycle News, American Roadracing). More than a few of my former readers have asked why, after having been a globetrotting moto-journalist, I would want to work at a lowly motorcycle shop. People asked Brenda Buttner a similar question when she left her plush gig as a financial analyst at CNBC to join the staff of Cycle World. Her rationale:  “I always wanted to work at a motorcycle magazine.”  Well, I always wanted to work at a motorcycle shop. Aside from a high-school summer internship at Cycle Haven in my native Huntington, New York, I never have. And if I were going to work at a motorcycle shop, why wouldn’t it be the #1 Ducati dealership in North America—five times?

The mindset isn’t that different. Throughout my journalism career, I endeavored to produce content that was entertaining yet informative.  Readers relied on road testers like me to help them make informed decisions before purchasing a new motorcycle. The difference is at the magazines I did that via the mail monthly, whereas at the shop I do it face-to-face, in real time, five days a week. Where’s the shame in that?

I remember back in the aughts, then-Ducati North America CEO Michael Lock said he could count on me to write positive reviews of Ducatis because I “bleed red.”  (And what color do you bleed?) Thing is, none of that praise was undeserved: Ducati has made huge strides since I first began reporting on its products circa 1988, progressing from a boutique manufacturer of sporting twins to a global powerhouse in the motorcycle industry and world championship roadracing. To this day I meet riders who claim they bought their bike because of something I “said” in print. At least now I get paid commission!

If you click on the Meet the Corsa Crew tab on our website, you’ll see that each employee filled out a questionnaire. The final question is, Why MotoCorsa? My answer: “Because if I talked about Ducatis all day anywhere else, I’d get fired.”  Well, I’ve been talking about Ducatis all day, every day, for two years now, and I haven’t gotten fired yet. Much has changed in that time, not least of which is MotoCorsa has now been named the number-one Ducati dealership in North America six times. Also, there are now two pairs of sneakers hanging from the powerlines.  But that’s a tale for another time…