This month, the Member Spotlight shines on Alan Wilzig, who is the owner of MH900e #0642/2000.  For those of you who don’t have the privelege of knowing Alan personally, he was involved with Ducati North America for several years and his business relationship with that company fostered his interest in Ducati motorcycles and, indeed, all types of fine machinery!

Explaining the acquisition of his first Ducati, Alan explained, “I was the banker for Ducati North America at the time and I asked them to donate a 750 Monster and a 900SS ie to a charity gala auction I was hosting.  They graciously agreed.  I turned out to be the high bidder on the Monster, which was the only Ducati I wasn’t scared of, since my only riding experience before that time was on dirt bikes.”  Alan went on to buy the 900SS when the high bidder reneged on his bid after several weeks of excuses.

Alan’s ownership of MHe #0642 began when Ducati NA remodeled their offices in 2003.  Alan wrote, “When Ducati NA were cleaning up the lobby in their NJ place they decided to liquidate both an MH900e and a Supermono that had been displayed there.  I offered them $8750 for the MHe, which they accepted, and $50,000 for the Supermono, which they refused.  I did a LOT of banking for them, in particular setting up programs for dealers with no credit so they could buy parts and things, so their acceptance of my offer for the MHe was a particularly nice “Thank You” gesture from DNA.”

Alan then displayed the MHe in his office because, “It was a great conversation starter; Impressive to new prospective clients because I could casually mention I was the banker for Ducati North America.”  Alan related one story where the MHe helped in his business dealings:

I remember one time I was a little anxious meeting an “old time” client of the Bank after my father’s retirement.  The client was a 72 year old former Minister turned real estate developer, who was also an avid student of history.  He was enthralled listening to my Father’s stories of European history, especially World War II and his experiences as a survivor of Auschwitz.  For the first time in my career I thought, “What the hell am I going to have in common with this gentleman to break the ice and begin a relationship with him independent of my Father?

He arrived at my office five minutes before I walked in, and was poring over the MHe when I arrived.  “Boy, this brings back memories”, he said.  “When I was sixteen years old I brought an old NSU home and my Mother made me sleep in the garage with it until I sold it the next week.”

From that meager beginnig we became great friends.  We had breakfast together monthly until I sold the Bank four years later.  Of all the people I ever dealt with, this was the man I believed would think I was some immature “lucky sperm club” member who was so cavalier about business that he kept a stupid motorcycle in his office.  This relationship alone made the MHe a valuable asset!

Shortly after acquiring his MHe, Alan developed a serious case of motorcycleitis, which caused him to begin a buying spree of epic proportions.  Alan averaged buying a new motorcycle every twelve days for a period of three years from 2003 until 2006.  He explains, “… being married to a moto-friendly Belgian (Alan’s fabulous wife, Karin) certainly helped, as did selling my company in 2004 and embarking on my plans in 2005 to build the highest spec private use road racing circuit in the world.”

After a five year battle with local activists, weather, zoning authorities, building inspectors, paving contractors, and even more local activists, Alan’s “driveway” is finally finished.  Not a subtle character, Alan is having no less than the Brothers Bostrum come to his New York home to break the facility in right!

If you want to find out more about Alan, you can find lots of pretty pictures at www.wilzigracing.com or at Team Wilzig on facebook.

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

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