Ducks Unlimited

Ducks Unlimited

LEANINGS

Peter Egan

THE COMEDIAN CHARLIE FERGUSON, who used to read the news on the old “Hee-Haw” TV show, would sometimes open his broadcast with, “And now for the news: It’s the same news we had yesterday, but today it happened to a different bunch of people.”

An accurate view of world affairs, no doubt, but I’ve noticed that most of the news around here seems to happen to exactly the same people, over and over again. At least where Ducatis are concerned.

Take my friend Bruce Finlayson. Bruce is a former roadracer who ran a Ducati 250 back in the Sixties, and went on to race Hondas, Triumph Triples and Yamahas, later owning a wide variety of interesting streetbikes. But five or six years ago, he sold off a few of his modern bikes, took a stride backward into history and bought himself another Ducati, a 1974 750GT. He’d no sooner restored that to perfection than he picked up a very nice 1977 900SS.

This is where I came in. 1 met Bruce when Barb and I moved from California back to Wisconsin in 1990, bringing with us my own 1977 900SS.

Bruce and I did some riding together, yet within two years we had both sold our desmo Ducks. Bruce found he was riding the old 750GT more, and he wanted a traveling bike, so he sold off the 900SS to buy a clean used BMW R100RS. I, on the other hand, had fallen hard for the new-generation 900SS and sold my old one to justify the purchase.

In both cases, the line of reasoning was this: (A) We do not ride these bikes very often or for very many miles because they are neither comfortable nor very practical; (B) they can quickly be turned into ready cash; (C) we want to try something new; and (D) life is short.

And last year, following almost this same line of would-be logic, I sold my new-generation 900SS. I wanted to try something completely different, a fast, comfortable, mile-eating ZX-11 for my all-day solo rides into the back country. I was also in the grips of a reductionist phase, and had it in mind that perhaps I was headed for the ownership of just one all-purpose, doeverything road bike.

Bruce, too, was trying to cut back his moderate collection to just two bikes. “Fewer insurance bills,” we told ourselves, “fewer license plates and oil changes. Simplify!”

That worked for a while. Then we went to a monthly meeting of the Slimy Crud Motorcycle Gang and explained this ingenious plan of life simplification to a fellow Crud, Stu Evans. He nodded and said, “I recently considered selling off all my bikes to buy a new BMW RI 100RS. But then I realized it has never been my goal to own just one motorcycle.”

Hoo jeez. That got me thinking. And maybe Bruce, too.

How else to explain the events of the past four weeks?

First, Bruce ran across a terrific deal on an immaculate, low mileage tri-colored 1985 Ducati 750 Fl A and brought it home from Pennsylvania. We had a big bike-welcoming party, drank some good Italian rosso and filled Bruce’s garage with clouds of fashionably pungent cigar smoke.

Almost simultaneously, Bruce told me about a Ducati 250 Mach 1 project bike for sale in Chicago (see recent lengthy column) and I found myself hauling that home. We had another bike-welcoming party in which Barolo flowed like Chianti, or vice versa, and cigar smoke filled the workshop.

Then, only two weeks ago, I found myself standing in the showroom of Bob Barr’s local Kawasaki/Ducati shop (again), staring at a red, full-fairing 1995 Ducati 900SS SP. Almost like my old bike, but with a silver/gold frame, some carbon-fiber pieces, better brakes and a slightly better seat.

I sat on the SP, rocking it back and forth. Lord, how I missed having a light, narrow, 400-pound sportbike with the front tire feeding crystalclear messages through the clip-ons jnto the palms of my hands. A bike I could load into my own van (Daytonabound) without the help of two men and a small boy. Comfort be damned.

Averting my eyes from the lovely, costly 916 standing nearby, I casually inquired what kind of ZX-11 trade might land a new 900SS SP in my garage.

A very good trade, as it turned out. Same monthly payments, but a few more of ’em.

So, another Ducati 900SS landed in my garage last week. Another Crudfest transpired, with no fewer than four bottles of Italian red, many beers and enough cigar smoke to cast a Fellini-like haze of unreality on the whole proceedings. Milinov sang La forza del destino on the boom box. Destino, indeed. Forza, indeed.

Okay, are we done? No.

Yesterday Bruce called and-get this-told me he’d run across a deal on a rather tattered but complete 1974 Ducati 750SS in Chicago. The bike had been in a storage shed for 20 years with one carb and the valve covers off.

Unbelievable. The Holy Grail of bevel-drive desmo Twins. “Are you going to buy it?” I asked, naively.

“It’s in my garage,” Bruce said. “I used my income tax escrow fund.”

More wine and smoke.

If one more person buys a Ducati this winter, I’ll have to check into the Betty Ford Center and dry out for a week.

Four Ducatis in four weeks, new and old. Huge mountains of debt.

Did I mention that these bikes are slightly impractical and mildly uncomfortable? So why do we keep coming back to them?

I guess because they are beautiful, light and uncompromised in their purpose. And, for reasons we can scarcely understand, they touch off celebrations and parties, as if they’d been born rather than bought.

We don’t need them. But then we don’t need red wine, pungent cigar smoke or Italian opera, either.

What we need is to have our heads examined.