Hello, My name is Travis (24, happily married with 18 month old daughter), and I am from Puyallup, WA. I am a new rider, only have ridden a dirt bike a handful of times. Love the Ducati Monster, so I have made it a goal of mine to buy one. First bike purchased yesterday after much convincing to wife - 1999 Ducati Monster 750 Dark. Needs a few cosmetic things replaced, but otherwise a good bike.
Any tips, hints or suggestions for a new rider? I plan on taking a motorcycle safety course to get my endorsement.
Welcome -
ahh the venerable carby.
Well, I have a couple questions.
First- do you have the maintenance records for you new ride? There's a couple items that are particular to Ducs that have an age limit - like the cam belts. They are specd to be replaced at 2 years of service or 12k miles.
Other things like the brake and clutch (which is just brake fluid) should be replaced every year or so... etc etc. We've got a very good tech section - so if you should need a hand or just have questions, there's plenty of help. There's also a tutorials section that you might visit as it covers a lot of the basics.
And while I'm pimping site sections, there's a riding techniques section which is good aaaaand there's various local sections. Here's the Northwest one: http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?board=27.0 (http://www.ducatimonsterforum.org/index.php?board=27.0)
Obviously you've got a sense of self preservation (the MSF class) so [thumbsup] - have you given much consideration to (protective) gear? We've also got a lot of gear boffins - so if you haven't pop in there for suggestions. I'm guessing that with a little one you're on a budget - but that shouldn't precluded you from getting a solid set of gear. There's some relatively inexpensive stuff out there that isn't cheap (ly made)
1. Welcome to the family!!!!!
2. MSF or similar course
3. Good gear
4. Mod the piss out of it
5. Ride the wheels off it
if ever you have any questions about anything in regards to yer bike....someone here will more than likely have the answer!!!
oh and it ain't real without pics!!!!
that is all
nothing follows
This is my bike (over-excited cellphone shot). I'll get some better pictures this evening. It is raining outside, so right now the bike is a nice-looking garage ornament. I have done a little bit of browsing and I am excited to dive into the technical forums. Currently the bike has about 11,300 miles, so some of those maintenance checkpoints are coming up. The previous owner did not have any records and wasn't much help on information either because he hadn't owned it for very long. It has been down on both sides, I think the scratches on the mufflers are good indicators of that, but the frame and forks look true, and it runs well right now.
Previous owner also replaced broken headlight with a Kawasaki something because he did not want to spend $400 on a new one. That is obviously going to have to be fixed. I have the original housing but no glass. I see you can get BMW glass that will fit in the housing for about +/- $50?
Thanks for the tips!
(http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e102/mlbluesboy/20110327DucatiMonster.jpg)
In that case - I'd suggest you do things sooner rather than later. I'd wager that the belts are original - so 5-6x older than spec calls for. Also, you're not so far from the valve check interval. To properly check the valves one needs to take the belts off - so if a shop or you is taking the belts off, might to the valves while you're at it. But... swapping on new belts is a good bit quicker job and requires much less fussing than doing the valves too... hhhmmm.
The belts can be pushed to a longer age than spec'd, but I'm talking 3 years not more than a decade. The thing to watch for is belts that sit for a long time develop hard spots that can break down and fail. As you might guess a belt failing while the bike is running is a bad bad time.
other pretty easy things to do, that should be done would be to flush the brakes and clutch systems with new DOT4 fluid.