Some progress in garage!

So far so good.

I purchaced new rearsets from JTR Corse. Similar to these on the picture but completely black. Of course my rearsets are racing model with reverse shifting and short racing footrests. I also wanted to change the shift pattern to reverse because it feels better on track. My only consern now is how soon I will get used to push down the lever to shift to higher gear... I hope there won't be any missed shifts but you never know!

Quality to price is ok in these rearsets, but... There was a minor problem fitting these to 749 Biposto 2004 frame!!! These rearsets need D20,0 x D8,0 spacer with thickness of about 14 mm between rearsets and frame. Otherwise these won't fit!

Servicing and some nice bits

Last wednesday I had a chance to do some maintenance to my Duc again.






I completed valve clearance check and adjustment on vertical cylinder but Horizontal needs still some work. Allmost all clearances on both cylinders were allmost out of tolerance so I had to adjust clearances to nominal values. Of course I also changed all the half rings to new ones, I am not sure is it completely necessary but it doesn't cost much and it adds safety. I am riding much on a racetrack during summer so I have to be carefull...

As you can see I also have bought some nice new & shiny bits. This is a brand new pressure plate from German company MPL. Very precise machining and pretty good price to quality value. Very light also compared to original.

I also bought new front sprocet cover. It is much better looking than original - this is only for looks folks!

I also stripped the cluch completely and it still was ok. Of course it should be because the whole bike is only about 7000 km driven, but you never know how those dry cluches last...

Adding some special parts (part 1)

I purchased my first real Ducati in March 2004, I actually traded my 2003 CBR600F to my Ducati 749 Dark. But this wasn't beginning of my Ducati career, actually I have owned "allmost" a Ducati back in 1995 when I had a Cagiva C12R Freccia. After owning C12R I must admit I have been a true Ducati fan alltought I ownded 2 Yamahas, 1 Suzuki, 1 Kawasaki and a Honda before 749...



Afterall let's go back to my 749. The bike is very good to ride even on racetrack in standard form, there was actually only minor things I wanted to improve.



Rear sprocket

At first I replaced rear sprocket with Renthall product. Stock gearing is 14-39 with 525 chain. I replaced rear sprocket with aluminium 41-teeth sprocket and indeed there was huge improvement because now the gearing suited much better conditions on our local Alastaro racetrack. Also the bike felt better on street.



Steering Damper

I bought a Bitubo racing steering damper which was only for "normal" 749/999 frame. There is no bracket on "Dark" frame so and that time there was nothing else available than original Ducati performance steering damper kit available so I desided to design my own bracket and let a friend to manufacture it.



(I will ad some pics later on)



Adjustable ride height

749 Dark has only rigid bar instead of adjustable bar. So there is room for improvement. I bought a new adjustable bar from ebay and now this little improvement is reached. On the picture you can also see a custom made Bitubo FXF 11 Racing rear shock - an awesome piece of race engineering (more about that later)!

Links to interesting websites

Dragracing specialist Mr. Sarens web page: http://www.markosaren.com

Finnish motorcycle discussion board board: http://www.moottoripyora.org

Some pics from Summer 2006

Here I was at Alastaro racetrack last summer trainig racetrack riding. Excellent way to find out capabilities of yourself and if you are skillfull enough also limits of your bike (I am not =) )

This picture reminds me during very cold wintertime that the spring is finally coming. Today was one of the coldest days of winter, it was almost -20 degrees Celsius this morning, hrrr...

First post to my brand new blog!

Hello friends and other folks!

I finally managed to set up my own blog about my hobby - owning, riding and servicing a Ducati 749.

You can see my awesome bike on the picture. The model I have is the most cheapest model of year 2004 Superbike-models, but it still is a genuinen Ducati Superbike-model with 4 valve Testastretta-engine.

I'll try to update this frequently, but sometimes it is hard to find time...