Ancient Italy, New Ducati

ANCIENT ITALY, NEW DUCATI

What better way to venture forth into the Alps than on a Lotus Tour with Ducati's new 900SS?

PETER EGAN

WHILE RIDING THROUGH THE Alps a few years ago, our intrepid group of thirsty sportbike riders stopped at a scenic little outdoor cafe in St. Moritz. The place looked inviting not only because the sun was shining down warmly upon its many Campari umbrellas, but because there were at least a dozen Ducati 916s parked nearby and the tables were crowded with people in full riding leathers. Our kind of place.

We sat down, ordered our usual non-alcoholic hyper-alert ness beverages (any variety of concentrated Italian coffee that is less than 4 percent water) and soon discovered that our fellow motorcyclists were American. "I'm Burt Richmond of Lotus Tours," a friendly, bearded gen tleman said, extending his hand, "from Chicago."

Chatting with Burt, I learned he was the official Ducati agent for Americans who take overseas delivery of their bikes. "We pick them up at the factory in Bologna," he explained, "take a one-week ride through northern Italy and the Alps, and then ship the bikes back to the U.S., to the new owner's nearest Ducati deal ership. You ought to come on one of our tours," he said, grinning. "We have a lot of fun."

I've kept in touch with Burt (who keeps a warehouse-sized col lection/museum of bikes in downtown Chicago), and this summer finally found the time and incentive to take him up on his offer. He called me up and said, "If you come along on our northern Italy tour next month, the Ducati factory will loan you a bike to ride-the new 900SS."

As a person who has owned three of the old bevel-drive 900SS models (one of which I still have) and two of the newgeneration 900SSs, the allure of trying out the third iteration of this famous line was as irresistible as a plate of lingua bol lito served by, say, Isabella Rossellini. Having some sort of vest ed interest in the progress of the 900SS family, I was duty-bound and genetically programmed to go.

Bologna is a lovely city from the air, with an ancient walled center of red-tiled roofs on cathedrals and tow ers separated by narrow streets and broad plazas. The more modern neighborhoods spread outward along the main roads, like spokes on a wheel. The Ducati factory is in Borgo Panigale, an industrial district just southwest of the city. --

Our group of 11, arriving at differ ent times and airports, bussed or cabbed into central Bologna to the Hotel Orlogio (Clock Hotel) and went out for a late dinner at a nearby restaurant. Interesting group: a mix ture of experienced riders with long Ducati ownership history, and a few others new to either Ducati, street rid ing or both. Ducati, like Harley, seems to have done a good job of drawing new recruits into the web of its legend.

All males, this time. A father and son duo, Jim and "Bingo" Gubelmann from New Jersey, the latter taking the trip as a high school graduation pre sent. Jim runs a vintage racing team called "Tropical Gangsters" for a hobby, and used to race Triumphs him self. His nephew, Wyeth Gubelmann, will join us later in the tour. -

Two dentist riding buddies from Mann County, California, Serge Glasunov and Ai (actual name) "Streak" Streaker, both with 916s at home, riding rented bikes, a new 900SS and an ST2. Two guys, an affa ble investment banker from Chicago named Jamie Adler and a pipe manu facturer from Florida named Billy Fine, both on ST2s, having their first ever Ducati rides.

Lotus Tours (1644 N. Sedgwick, Chicago, IL 60614; 312/95 10031) likes to sell you a bike for factory pickup, but the company can also arrange rentals from a Bologna agency. As a third alternative, you can buy a Ducati in Italy and then leave it in Europe, at Lotus' Nice, France, headquarters, where it will be stored and maintained, at a cost of $420 per year, poised for your occa sional use. One of the members of our tour, an executive from Connecticut named Perry Lewis, does just that.

If you don't buy a new Ducati, the cost of a Lotus tour is $4575 for an eight-day trip on the least expensive rental bike, a BMW F650, with an extra $400 charged for a private, unshared room. Upgrades in rental bikes cost $154 for a BMW R850R, S 157 for a Ducati Monster 600, $309 for a 900SS and $452 for an ST2 (Ducati 916s and 748s are not rented; body damage is too expensive if they fall down).

Buying a bike (sold at suggested manufacturer's retail), rather than rent ing, gets you $600 knocked off the price of the tour. Crating and shipping back to the States is free, but you pay setup and delivery fees at the dealer ship, as well as the usual state taxes and licensing.

In other words, basic cost of the tour with a shared, two-person room if you buy a Ducati is $3995. If you elect to rent an ST2. for instance, and have a private room, it can cost as much as $5439. Breakfasts and dinners are paid for; you buy your own drinks, gaso line and lunches.

As guided tours go, Lotus is among the most expensive, but Richmond is unapolo getic. He likes good food and good hotels and likes to travel with people who are willing to pay a little extra for first-rate accommoda tions. Which, as I would soon discover, we would surely have.

Friday of our trip was what I call a "transport day," picking up the bikes and hitting the autostrada to get out of the city and within next-day striking distance of the Alps. While waiting for some of our bikes to be readied, we took a tour of the brand-new Ducati Museum, which is a truly impressive display of all the important factory racing bikes, set in a huge, circular room with a helmet-shaped auditorium in the cen ter. The great Singles, the Paul Smart Imola 750SS, one of the Hailwood Isle of Man bikes, the latest genera tion of World Superbike champions-they're all there, beauti fully lighted and displayed.

There's also a gift shop, where you can buy way too many stickers, posters and T-shirts, which you will have to carry around for the rest of the week-or at least store on the Lotus Tours baggage van, which fol lows the group, cheerfully absorbing our excesses.

Late in the afternoon, factory work ers brought my new yellow 900SS around from the prep area, and we were on our way, headed north to our hotel in Bassano de Grappa.

Initial impressions, in the parking lot and on the road:

First, the styling. The elegant and classical simplicity of the old 900SS has given way to a more aggressively styled set of body panels, with more swoop and fluidity of line, overtones of the Supermono. Part of the lower fairing is rounded outward to cover two new air ducts that feed air to the cooling fins of the rear cylinder. The bottom of the fairing features a flam boyant, forward-thrusting tusk with shark-gill louvers.

"Late in the alter 110011, factory workers brought my flew yellow 900SS arollild from the prep area, aild we were on our way..."

People seem to either love the new body or hate it. I told Ducati Marketing Director Andrew Whitney that I per sonally know six owners of the old 900SS, none of whom is thinking of buying a new one because they like the looks of the old one better. He said the new design may appeal to a different group of buyers and, in any case, Ducati is swamped with orders for the new bikes, based only on early pho tographs released to the European press. He also said, "Ride the bike and live with it a while before you make up your mind."

nd ride we did. My first long, fast run up the autostrada left me with mixed impressions. Gone is the relaxed, all-day GT-bike seating and handlebar position of the old 900SS. The clip-on bars have been dropped a good two inches and are farther forward, putting the rider into an uncom promising race-bike position. After 45 minutes on the fourlane, my hands and wrists were asleep from carrying the full weight of my upper body, and my neck had a crick in it. On the plus side, the seat is significantly more comfortable than the old one (which had to be replaced instantly with a Corbin product), and suspension compliance is much improved.

The steel-tube trellis frame under the new bodywork doesn't look much different, but subtle and useful changes have been made. Wheelbase has been reduced to 54.9 inches from 55.5, rake angle has been steepened 1 degree, trail reduced .1-inch, shar ing its dimensions and design with the 916.

At the rear, the single Showa shock now has a longer stroke, and is set-up with more sag to give the rear tire a better "reach" under heavy braking and weight transfer. On the road, both ends of the bike feel less stiff and jittery, more compliant over bumps and better planted in corners, more civilized in general.

Another immediate and obvious improvement is a new front master cylinder with a different bore ratio. Instead of that slightly vague, crush your-own-fingers gooshiness of the old 900SS, the new one feels, well, normal (at last!), with excellent sensitivity at the lever and superb stopping power. The new-generation Brembo calipers and rotors, shared with the ST2 and 916, have wider mounting points for more stiffness, higher polish on the pistons for freer movement and revised hydraulic channels. Big improvement.

By the time we got to our hotel in Mussolente (which everyone naturally called "Mussolini," beginning our "mispronunciation of the day" tradi tion), I was pretty pleased with every thing except the bike's riding position. The next day, ascending into the spectacular white stone spires of the Dolomites, would tell. Into the curvy stuff.

Ever upward we climbed into cool er, cloudier weather on serpentine roads into the mountains, with small glaciers perched in the cols and val leys. Amazingly smooth pavement, switchbacks, fast uphill sweepers and Alpine vistas ever opening before you like the architecture of a vast and mighty Creation. Americans tend to remember the Alps as a small, com pact geographic zone, compressed by memory into a sort of Disneyland rid ing park. But they aren't small. They are mighty mountains, and they seem to go on forever.

Whenever I ride elsewhereCalifornia, New England, the Blue Ridge and so on-I tell myself~ "This is just as good as the Alps." Sometimes it is, but only for a few minutes or a few hours at a time. The Alps go on and on, all day, and for days there after. Weeks, if you wish. The scenery and roads are simply too grand to comprehend with a small human brain-or at least with my small human brain. Others may have better luck.

I ended up riding mostly with Serge and Streak, our two dentist pals from California, and they were both fast, smooth riders, the kind who keep your antennae humming, eyes wide open and your standards up. Perry Lewis, another fine rider, joined us on a few days, and so did young Bingo Gubelmann, who had never ridden on the street before this trip but was growing smoother and faster, showing remarkably good judgment in traffic. Ah, the adapt ability of youth.

There in the mountains, press ing on quickly, the new 900SS came into its own. Simply stated, it's a much better sportbike than its predecessor. It turns-in easier and more quickly, soaks up bumps better, brakes harder with more control, can be trail-braked into a corner with less upset, and changes direction faster. Essentially, it feels about 20 per cent improved in every functional category. The 900SS has been, in effect, more `Honda-ized" in a posi tive sense. It feels more - refined, smoother of touch, less stiff-legged and harsh.

_I Even the riding posi tion, which is so awful on _______ the open road, comes into its own in the mountains. The weight shifts and body motion of fast riding take the strain (and your mind) off your hands and wrists, and the bike becomes a useful tool for disposing of corners effortlessly.

art of the 900SS's smoother per sonality comes from its new Marelli fuel injection, replacing the twin 38mm Mikunis, and a few other engine modifications. It has new cams with longer duration, a redesigned shift drum and a higher out put alternator (520 watt vs. the old 350 watt). Peak horsepower arrives at 7800 rpm, 800 higher than before, and there's more of it (see "900SS by the Numbers," page 50).

Torque delivery is more seamless, with a little less sense of upper midrange rush, but the biggest and most helpful change is a smoother running engine at low rpm-as when cruising through a village or riding around town. The old bike was always a little unhappy and lumpy below 4000 rpm, chugging and chinking along as if loading and unloading its drivechain in stops and starts. The new one is smooth and tractable at low rpm, almost like an inboard marine engine by comparison, burbling serenely away beneath you. The exhaust note is somewhat sub dued, but it sounds better to me than the stock pipes on the old bike, less like a lawnmower, with more fullness and mellow nessoftone.

"itniwiingly smooth pavemeilt, switchbacks, fast uphill sweepers aild Mpille vistas ever opellillg before yoo like the architecture of a vast aild mighty Creatioll"

At one point on our trip, we stopped at a cafe a few thousand feet below Bernina Pass, and I parked my yel low 900SS next to an older, white-framed 900SS like the one I used to own. The owner, a Swiss rider, asked (using his English-speaking girlfriend as a translator) if he might take a ride on the new bike.

"Sure," I said, "if I can take a ride on yours." So we traded bikes and headed up to the pass. The instant contrast took away a little of my rose-colored nostal gia for my old bike; the early 9005S was more comfortable and (I still believe) more beautiful, but nowhere near as quick and agile-or as effortless to ride-on the demanding mountain roads. I was suddenly quite content to be on the new bike for the remainder of the trip.

The Swiss rider came back ecstatic and said, according to his girlfriend, "Super! Better for the sport riding!"

He was right, of course. All the changes have made the new 900SS an almost ideal Alpine companion, flow ing along the mountain road, blasting past the occasional tour bus or cruising through the picture-postcard villages of the Tyrol. Of which we did plenty.

urt Richmond does not mess around when he designs a route, and we hit virtually every major pass in the Alps-Timmelsjoch Pass, Stelvio and Bernina, plus a trip over the famous Grossglockner Pass in which we felt our way along in the fog and missed seeing the Grossglockner glacier, mistaking it for a different one. Ignorance is bliss.

Lotus Tours also delivers on its promise of better hotels for the extra expense, and they got better and better as the trip progressed. We stayed at a 15th-century castle at Kitzbuhel, the spectacular Castle Labers in the wine country around Merano and then a final descent out of Switzerland back into Italy, down to the shores of Lago de Garda, where we stayed at the famous Villa Cortine Palace Hotel (which really is a palace) out on the tip of a peninsula at Sirmione.

To reach this hotel, we had to cross bridges over two different moats, the latter with a genuine drawbridge, iron gate and tower for pouring down hot oil upon invaders (perhaps an all-sea son 10w50). I told Burt, who has had his Chicago dwellings twice burgled, he should take note. "We're coming to this in American cities," I explained. "The moat and drawbridge are the wave of the future."

Food? It's hard to get a bad meal in Italy, and we never succeeded in find ing one. Even the Austrians and the Swiss prepared wonderful dinners for us in sumptuous surroundings. Management of trip details and minor problems was also excellent. Richmond is one of those born tour leaders; he can keep 30 facts in his head simultaneously, successfully operate telephones in three languages, tell jokes, stay calm, arrange flights, gently twist the arms of hotel managers when need be-and ride his faithful yel low 907ie as fast or slow as anyone on the tour cares to go. He was assisted in all this by the equally capable David Hessel, who swapped luggage van driving duties with Burt every other day and also pho tographed our trip.

And, as usual, we had a great bunch of guys to travel with. I looked around the table at our typically hilarious farewell dinner and thought of that old saying about the pioneers and cowboys who settled the Old West: "The faint of heart never left, and the fools perished along the way."

Motorcycle tours have a little of that same filtration process built into them. Only folks with a sense of adventure-and the ability to keep it on two wheels for a week-ever sign up for these trips, and they are by nature a lively bunch.

One rider in our group, Billy Fine, the owner of a small pipemanufacturing plant in St. Petersburg, had never ridden a Ducati before, never been to Italy and had only ridden a Yamaha XT350 on the street. Yet he found a Ducati dealer ("All my friends had Harleys, but I wanted something different."), signed up for European delivery of a silver ST2, bought himself an airline ticket to Italy and took an Italian cab to our hotel in downtown Bologna. He loved the bike, rode well and had the time of his life. Not, in other words, among the faint of heart who never left. It's these impulses, acted upon, that make such trips fun.

nd, in conclusion, the new 900SS? Nine steps forward and two steps back, is how I would characterize it. The bike's styling did not grow on me much as the week progressed, nor did its more severe riding position on the first and last long days of autostrada disposal. The classic Grand Touring character of the old bike is gone. But in its place is a real sportbike whose sporting func tion has been improved in almost every way. Its revised chassis and engine are living proof that time marches on, and after nearly a decade of the old 900SS, it was time to refine the old girl.

Ducati perhaps believes-or hopesthe new ST2 sport-tourer will draw those riders who hope to cover long miles on a Ducati, freeing the new 900SS to concentrate on twisting roads and shorter rides, bringing it more in line with the latest genera tion of Japanese and European sport bikes. This may be a smart move. Time will tell.

"Burt Richmolld does lot mess about Whell he desigus a route. We hit virtually every pass ill the Alps-Timmelsjoch, Stelvio aild Berilina, plus a trip over the lamous Grossglockller."