Zamora's hapless Ducati must...
Zamora's hapless Ducati must fend off lunatic motorists when it's not at the track.
Miles Ridden: 3300
Modifications: Sprockets, frame plugs, radar detector, carbon fiber fender
Finding cheap upgrades for a Ducati isn't easy, but this month's mods turned out to be a lot of bang for the buck.
For starters, I installed a smaller front sprocket that seemed to cure my ailing sixth gear woes. For under $20, I completely regained use of top gear. Instead of twisting the throttle only to be greeted by a bogging motor followed by a downshift, now at highway speeds I'm right in the hotspot of the rev range. I didn't notice too much of a difference in the other gears, but I'm needing to make more fuel stops. Overall, it's been a great mod for very little money. I wasn't able to replace the rear sprocket simply because I didn't have the right tool.
Another quick and easy mod for under twenty bucks was a set of Sato frame plugs that look trick and went on in just a few minutes.
Next on my list of minor gripes was the look of the front fender. The stock one looks like a cheap Chinese toy. Carbon fiber is the rich man's chrome and I don't want to get caught up replacing every piece where there's better places to reduce weight (like my gut). The front fender was an exception, and the new fender squashed that small gripe.
My driving record is about as clean as a Mexican pig slaughterhouse so I added an Adaptiv radar detector for my daily commute to hopefully keep me from personally paying off the stimulus package through speeding tickets. The kit includes an LED mounting pod, speakers for a helmet as well as a hardwired controller with fork mount. Once installed it doesn't obstruct the view of any gauges and can be easily removed when parked. The detector has simple, large buttons for ease of use when riding. Overall it's a nice kit designed by riders for riders.
Testing radar detectors is like testing helmets though-I really don't look forward to seeing if it fails. My record is as clean as the day it was installed and it has caused me to roll off the throttle more than once, so it seems to be doing its job.
Now that I've managed to turn a track beast into a street beauty, I realized I've neglected the other end of the spectrum. I've managed to square off the tires in all my freeway commuting so a new set of tires is on my short list of upgrades. I figured while the rubber is fresh, I'd head to the track to ride the bike where it was born.