Michael de Koster is the first MH900e site member to be illuminated by our blog spotlight, and I’m happy to report that said light has shown no glaring blemishes.  Michael posts on the Forums as “boywonder” and has been a member since February of 2010. 

Michael is a 33 year old accountant from Amsterdam with too many hobbies, one of which is bikes.  He currently has four of them, including the latest addition to his stable, MH900e #0114/2000.

Michael said, “I saw one last year when I was in Rome with my girlfriend, sitting in a bus on the way back from the Vatican.  When I was sitting in the bus, I saw a glimp of someting red with two wheels.  I dragged my girlfriend out of the bus and into a posh Ducati kind of lunchroom with bikes everywhere.  I sat down next to the MHe and couldn’t take my eyes from her, the Ducati that is.  I had never seen one and thought that it must be a limited edition bike, and yes it was.  This one looked standard apart of the Termi’s.” 

Michael's MHe

He continues, “When I got home a few days later, and my girlfriend was geting tired of my continued talk about the Ducati, I jumped online and started searching for one.  I found out all about the bike and, of course, I wanted one.  I start looking for one in Holland, but there are only a few ( I think 5) of them in Holland so I start looking in Germany.  I found ten of them, but the best one was for sale in Dorsten.  I went to Dorsten with my father and my grandpa and made a family trip out of it, since Dorsten is just a few miles across the border with Germany.”

“The seller was the first owner and told me all the love stories he had with this bike and that he had to sell her because of his financial situation.  Because she didn’t have a numberplate I couldn’t do a test ride, but I bought it anyway.  I was in love with it instantly.”

“Two weeks later I picked it up with a trailer.  A few weeks later I got my plates and could ride it.”

Apparently, he’s been riding it ever since!

Michael’s bike has a full Termi system, black aluminium Marchesini wheels, an aftermarket clutch cover, Ducati Performance levers, mirrors, belt covers, and air filter, and Ohlins suspension front and rear.  A perfect rider, indeed!

Michael intends to install an Ohlins steering damper in the future.  At the time he wrote me last the bike had 17,000 km on the clocks.

Livingroom Queen? I think not!

Michael’s other bikes are all Honda’s

Honda nsr 250 mc21 sp from 1993 in Rothmans colours, only 1,500 made

Honda RVF 400 nc35

Honda VTR 1000 sp1 / RC51

If you want to be the next member “In the Spotlight”, just send me a few details, preferrably along with a few pictures, and you can appear here, too!

The 2010 SMRI racing season is at an end.  The final race of the year was anticlimactic for me, as the bike ran poorly, but I ended up finishing fifth in the championship, so I’ll consider the season a success!  Next year, with the addition of the new motor, should be even better.

On the MHe end of things, due to your urgings I’ve started compiling an owner’s registry.  I hope to have it in a publishable form by the end of the year so that our community can continue to build a strong identity and provide good provenance for these machines for years to come.  If you have any suggestions for the registry, or if you’d like to be included in it, just send me a note via the forums and I’ll see that your thoughts are considered and/or included.

One final bit of news to share.  Stuart Baker, of Flight Cycles, and I have decided to jointly form a new business to provide independent maintenance for New Mexico Ducati owners.  Our new venture is called Desert Desmo, and we are already booking appointments.  I know none of you are close enough to take advantage of our services, but what the heck…..I just thought I’d throw it out there! 

As always, if you have news that might excite or interest the group, or if you just plain want to say something here, please drop me a line and I’ll see if I can accomodate you.

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.

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

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