OK…so after a member recently posted a video of his exploits aboard his MHe, I promised to take similar video of the roads here in New Mexico and post them to the board.  To honor that promise, I purchaed a GoPro Hero HD Motorsports kit and took the following video….

MH900e on Sandia Crest Road

This should answer a couple of the questions raised by the original video:

Yes, the tach will climb above 5,000 rpm

Yes, there are twisty roads in America

No, I’m not Valentino Rossi….well….that wasn’t an original question, I just thought I’d point it out. 

Whilst I’m typing, I’ll share the excuse for my recent lack of blog updates.  The last two races at Sandia Raceway have been canceled due to inclement weather, so I haven’t really had much to write about.  During the practice sessions for the last race (before it was scrubbed due to heavy rain later) I met one of my personal goals of a 1:10 lap.  I guess I’ll have to set the bar a little higher and shoot for 1:08, huh?

I also recently acquired an Aermacchi/HD CRS engine, which will mean very little to many of you, but it’s a factory racing engine (for dirt racing…..it would be CRTT for a roadracing engine) that should push my efforts much further toward podium finishes.  The engine alone should be good for five seconds per lap, so maybe there’s hope of putting this bike in the sub-one-minute club before all is said and done.  Keep your fingers crossed!

That’s all I have for now.  If you have information that you’d like shared with the community, please forward it to my attention via email or a post on the Forum and I’ll see that it makes it way to this page.  If you’d like to see a story about YOU appear here, please let me know and I”ll put you in the “Member Spotlight”!

Greeting to all you, MH900e owners and fans alike.  This installment of the blog will be short and sweet, as I don’t have anything extraordinary to tell you, but I didn’t want to leave things untended for too long, so here goes.

I raced in late June, and though I placed an unremarkable fifth of sixteen entrants, it was definitely the most enjoyable day of racing thus far.  The Aermacchi ran beautifully for the first time this year, and I got to dice with two other riders for every lap of the race, which always makes it more enjoyable for me!  I won’t bore you with details, but I think I’ve maximized the bike’s mechanical potential, so now it’s time to start working on mine.  I’m currently 3rd in the points standings, but I expect that to slip somewhat as more bikes with substantial horsepower advantages have begun racing as the year has progressed.  I think my best possible finish barring failure by one of the faster bikes is fourth…..but I’ll keep hammering at it!

Chris Scherle, a member of our small band, is working on a sweatshirt/polo shirt/golf shirt/whatever kind of shirt you want to embroider upon design for the club.  We’re trying to make sure it’s kosher to use the MH900e logo, but I think we’ll find that we’re OK to embroider that onto shirts for our use.  See the forum for additional details, or to leave feedback/encouragement for Chris.

And, finally, happy Independence Day for those of you in the United States.  For those who don’t know, the 4th of July is a major holiday in the United States, as it’s the day the United States formally declared independence from Great Britain in 1776.  Be careful out there, and watch for drunk drivers.  I’ll be celebrating by taking a ride through Jemez, NM with the local Ducati Club.

As always, holler if you’re having problems with the site, or if you have suggestions or opinions, or if you just want to say “Hi”.

By the way, any MH900e owner is welcome to write a piece for submission to this blog page.  All you have to do is:

1)  Do something interesting

2)  Write about it

3)  Take a couple of pictures

4)  Send your story and pictures to me for editing, formatting, and uploading.

I’m sure lots of others would love to live vicariously through you, so write about your adventures and send them in.  Your submission doesn’t necessarily have to involve your MH900e as long as it’s about something important to you and interesting to others.

OK, for this week, the blog will trend back toward the MH900e corner of my personal attention span with a quick primer on how to get rid of the Autoretract Sidestand on your MH900e.  This procedure is very simple and took me a total of about 5 minutes including taking the photographs.

To undertake this modification you’ll simply need a pair of pliers and a new spring plate from Ducati, part number 82912602A.  The new spring plate cost me approximately $6 U.S., so it’s a very inexpensive part.

Replacement Spring Plate

 This part replaces the spring plate installed by Ducati at the factory.  The original piece is rather straight and interferes with the nut on the sidestand pivot bolt.  This keeps the sidestand spring from going “over center” where it would hold the sidestand down.

Original Sidestand Spring Plate Still Installed

 The replacement plate is curved so that it won’t interfere with the sidestand pivot nut.  Here’s a photo of the two pieces side-by-side.  The original bracket is the one with the springs still attached.

Side-By-Side Comparison of Spring Plates (new one below old)

 To change the spring plate, begin by using a pair of pliers to disengage the two sidestand springs from their catch on the sidestand, then slip the spring plate off of its catch pin on the sidestand bracket attached to the motor.  Not lay the two brackets as show above and transfer the springs from the old bracket to the new one.  Now slip the new spring plate over its catch pin (with the elbow of the plate away from the sidestand pivot bolt) and reattach the springs to their catch on the sidestand. 

Sidestand with New Spring Plate

Voila!  Now you have a sidestand that stays put when you put it down.  You’ll notice in the final photo that the new plate curves around the sidestand pivot bolt nut, allowing the spring to extend “over center” to hold the sidestand in place when in the lowered position.  Be careful when riding your bike, as you might be more used to the autoretract feature than you realize….and nobody wants to put thier MH on the ground over something as minute as a spring plate.

Feel free to post on the Forum if you have any questions about this procedure, or anything else you might want to know.

Cloner in ABQ

Last time I took to the keyboard I told you, my loyal readers, of my intent to renege on my 20 year old roadracing retirement and head for the track.  I’m happy to report in this newest installment of the MH900e blog that I have fulfilled that intent and I’m both faster and slower than I could have imagined.  I guess an explaination is in order.

As background, I built my 1967 Harley Davidson/Aermacchi Sprint 250 from the bones of a bike I acquired in 1989 whilst helping a friend find parts for his parallel twin Indian.  We found a motorcycle salvage yard in Statesville, North Carolina that was going out of business and the owner was trying to clear his property for development.  The owner had staked out the entire yard in 1 yard square lots and his deal was $100 per square yard.  If you found anything you wanted, though, you had to take EVERYTHING in the lot!  Troy, my Indian mounted accomplice, found three lots with desireable parts in them, but they were mostly filled with HD/Aermacchi Sprint parts.  As payment for helping him load parts for nearly two hours Troy let me have enough parts to build a Sprint, plus a few spares.  From those meager beginnings my racer was born.

The only stock parts I’ve used are the engine (which is still mostly stock in the spirit of the class where I’m racing), part of the frame, and the swingarm.  The rest has been replaced by bits from various and sundry sources across the globe.  Betor forks from Spain.  Ceriani triple clamps, Tommaselli clip-ons, and Tarozzi rear sets from Italy.  Excel wheels and a Mikuni carburetor from Japan.  MZ-B Magneto electronic ignition from Germany.  Motion Pro cables and Glass From the Past bodywork from the U.S.A.  She’s an international beauty queen in my eyes, though she definitely has an Italian heart.

I told you that I went slower than I thought I would.  That was because the bike started out rich and the hotter it got the worse it ran.  I bought the carburetor from Ron Lancaster at Lancaster Aermacchi already jetted for my application.  It came with a 230 main jet and a 40 pilot jet, but at those settings the bike’s plug was black and the bike was misfiring in no time.  I jetted down throughout the day and ended up racing with a 200 main jet and a 35 pilot jet with the needle 2 slots up from its initial setting.  The bike was still a little rich during the race, but it pulled well for the first two laps, so I guess I’m getting closer.

I also told you that I was faster than I thought.  Well, the final tally is that I finished second in class!  I would have finished first without a doubt, but as the bike got hotter it pulled less and less, and by the final lap I could tell things would get tight at the line.  As I approached the finish line a ‘68 Ducati caught and passed me, beating my by 0.3 seconds.  Drat!!!  

As a side note, I should have been third, but the guy who blew both me and the Ducati away forgot to attach his transponder, so he was disqualified.  He was nearly a second a lap quicker than we were, but I think with a little practice and a little tuning I can hold his pace.  Heck, I’ll probably get half of it with proper jetting!  If I can shed a few stone I might even put him down a notch!!!  That’d be pretty cool considering he’s a national AHRMA series racer!

More to come in May.

Cloner.  SMRI #250

….for racing!  As MotoGP, World Superbike, and seemingly every other racing series in the world is kicking off a new season, I thought it was time to get back on track after a 20 year hiatus, so I’ve decided to go racing.  In fact, being an old racer, I figured I should race an older bike, so I’ve built a ‘67 Aermacchi to race in the local SMRI Historic Vintage Ultra Lightweight class.

The old girl is up and running, so I took her out to Sandia Raceway for the licensing class this past weekend.  A few adjustments are in order, but the bike seems strong enough to be competitive in its class, and if nothing else it should make for an entertaining summer.

This really has nothing at all to do with MH900e, but as the site administrator I’ve taken a bit of license in the hope that my adventures will, at the very least, be interesting to a few readers.

Look for updates throughout the upcoming race season!

Last night a friend of mine, Nic Rosato from Long Island, came over so I could help him repair a leaking fork seal and do a little routine maintenance on his ‘97 Monster 900.  Nic showed up around 6:30 and we got him squared away and out the door around 9:30 after repairing the leaking seal, changing the oil in both fork legs, changing his engine oil and filter, and adjusting his chain.  During the three hours we shared, Nic repeatedly thanked me for helping him while he was away from home and was sincerely thankful to have a place to work on his bike 2000 miles from his Long Island garage. 

Nic’s visit started me thinking about the community we all share, and how thankful I am to be a part of it.  During my years of riding I’ve seen motorcyclists treat each other with attitudes ranging from disdain to admiration, from callous to charitable, and from enmity to solidarity.  I bought my first Ducati in 2000 and immediately became acquainted with a different riding community.

In my experience, Ducati riders tend to treat each other with a little more respect, a bit more brotherhood, and a ton more enthusiasm than the riders of other marques.  A Ducatista rarely refuses another any reasonable request, and often goes out of his way to help another in need despite significant costs in time and resources. 

Shortly after I bought my first Ducati, a ‘95 Supersport, a fellow Ducati owner, Buddy Turner of Intrepid Cafe Racers fame, took me under his wing to show me the “ins and outs” of Ducati ownership.  When my Supersport spat its chain 40 miles from home, Karl Zaster loaned me his brand new 1098 so I could make a parts run.  When I wanted to buy a bike in San Francisco, Kevin Kachadourian volunteered to drive 50 miles out of his way to take a look at it and give me an honest evaluation of its condition.  If this was all I could relate, then my anecdotes might be considered random acts of kindness.  However, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceburg, and the number of these acts that I’ve been party to or witnessed is such that it would take me hours to type them all here!  I’m glad that I could contribute to the list.

Maybe it’s because we’re generally older, and realize that nobody can easily get along without a little help.  Maybe it’s becasue we’re more experienced, and realize that what goes around comes around.  Maybe it’s because we’re just nicer people who, for some unknown reason, are drawn to red paint and basso profundo.  Whatever the reason, I’ll wager that “you meet the nicest people on a Honda Ducati.”

Cloner:  ABQ, NM

If a picture is really worth a thousand words, then Phil Aynsley’s new book, Ducati:  A Photographic Tribute, is the most descriptive Ducati biopic ever published! 

Ducati: A Photographic Tribute

Phil has taken a look at Ducati’s history, from it’s Electronica roots to the latest Desmodromic masterpiece, and has documented it in rich photographic detail for all dedicated Ducatisti to behold.

For we MH900e owners, there are several MHe shots to tickle the fancy as well as various photos of motorcycles from Cucciolo to Desmosedici, and everything in between.

The photos in this article are copyright protected and may not be used without explicit permission from Phil Aynsley Photography.  These particular photos and are taken from Phil’s extensive catalog (not from the book).  For a look at more, you can visit Phil’s website at www.philaphoto.com.

Cloner:  ABQ, NM

Wow!  After nearly 2 weeks of administering the site, I’ve now experienced my first crash, and I’ve learned more about the innerworking of bbPress and WordPress than I ever wanted to know. 

The good news is:  The site is now up and running, so you can all jump back in and continue swimming

The bad news is:  You’re still stuck with an admin on the steep part of the learning curve

I hope you’ll all continue to be patient with me, and will trust that I’m doing my level best to keep our shared community together and moving toward a fulfilling experience together.

Cloner

After a few months of hiatus, the MH900e Owners Club is finally back.  Far from finished, but ready to serve the community of loyal Ducati MH900e aficionados.

I’m Brian De Groodt, and I guess I’m now president, ring-leader, or something official here.  In any case, it doesn’t really matter to me.  I’m just happy to put the community back together and get our group served with information and conversation about the MH.

This site is definitely still a work in progress.  I have literally gigs of information from the old site (Thanks JohnC!) and will be uploading it over the coming days, weeks, months.  If you have a specific request, please email me and let me know.  If I have it, I’m happy to share it and put it to the front of the line.

For now, here’s what we have right now.  We have this blog/main page.  We have the Forums page for all things considered.  What we don’t have right now is direct integration between MH900e.org (blog) and the forums.  So if you post a comment on the blog, you won’t need a password, but you also won’t automatically be logged into the forum section.  Everyone needs to register to participate in the forum.  It’s easy.  I think the forums give us a little more functionality than we had previously, but are still pretty basic. If there’s a reason to move to something more advanced in the future, we’ll discuss it as a group and figure out what makes sense.

I’d really like to see us get back to the same or better level of participation we had previously.  That includes owner registration, which I’ll start working on as a next step.  Ideally we can record the whereabouts of all 2,000 units.

Finally, welcome to your home! If there’s anything you’d like to see, I’d love to hear it.

That’s all for now. 

BD #760