About Me

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Stockport, United Kingdom
Spud is obsessed with all things wheeled, both with an without engine's. 2006 Open class uk champion at Boardercross racing mountain boards, his knee's have since given up and he spends more time on his bikes both with and without engines.

Wednesday 25 January 2017

Scrambler update

Its been while again, diy and being a dad are the main culprits to the lack of toy time but I've not been completely idle.
As per the last blog the Ducati Scrambler won in my search for a new bike and I collected it at the end of October,  awesome just in time for winter.

Here's a quick update on my Ducati

Everything is as expected, the suspension is lacking, and the seat, oh dear god the seat, why oh why haven't they done something about the seat yet. Its such a pain in the ass, literally, you can push your thumb into the foam all the way to the base, all because of that stupid scoop for the worlds smallest tool kit, that by rights should be living in the rear (tool ?) storage compartment thus negating the need for pain inducing ass crippling recess in the base.

But fret not, I have a plan, and will be addressing the seat just as soon as I've made my new front mud guard mounts and got it fitted.

As I plan to ride my bike through winter and would like to stop as much filth as possible being cannoned at the front of the engine, I have been making some support struts to fit an aluminium mudguard I already had that was originally for another project. After a great deal of cutting filing bending welding and grinding plus more test fits than I would of liked it was done.


I've damaged the guard a little bit during some of the test fits where I was clamping it, but you live and learn and they aren't too obvious. This bike is no show pony tho so I'm not too fussed, and my original paint on the supports was far from perfect as it was being a dick and I ran out of time to faff with it as the crap weather was upon us and I just wanted the guard fitted.

I managed to get my first service out of the way after 3 weeks of ownership. They fitted the low bars that should of come on it from the factory and fortunately I was able to pick the new bar clamps and clock mount before fitting to get them painted black, the black bars and silver clamps just weren't going to work for me.

Wow, what a difference the low bars have made, looks aside, the bike steers easier and its more comfortable to ride. The lower bars must have altered my riding position to pull me forward a bit and take some weight off my coxix as the seat is now marginally less painful over the same ride. I still think the seat is awful and have a second seat that's a work in progress.

My bigger front guard is working well but the volume of filth that comes back at the front of the bike off the front tyre is staggering, never in all my years biking have I had this. It musr be the tyres.
I'll be changing them soon so will report back if there's a difference.

Other comfort related news, there's an M shock waiting to be fitted as soon as I can pin down a willing volunteer to help me.