Ducati Story - Kasutamu

Quite cold morning. Autumn 2021, sitting next to coffee table in my kitchen and showing my wife nice Ducati what I just found on local market. Finding your first bike is quite a huge challenge and finding one for your wife is even bigger.

Okay lets scroll back few months to explain. July 2021, somehow, still don’t know how, managed to talk my wife into making license to drive motorcycle. Few months in school, motorcycle season has come to an end and winter is approaching. And now we are trying to find a motorcycle to her.

Don’t remember anymore why I stopped on Ducatis but I did and very first one what we went to see was 2007 Monster 695 witch was sold in few days I tooked to think about it. And now we are sitting next to coffee table and telling about 2011 Monster 796. Same day went to see it and immediately came clear that this bike doesn’t suite for my wife because it was too big. But still I tooked test run (didn’t had license back then :D) and almost crashed it thanks to wet asphalt :D. Few days to think, and arrangements were made to shake hands.

So, here it is- my very first motorcycle.

As usually it is reasonable to make maintenance to the vehicle when you have no history at all. So, sneak peaks to maintenance table and to do list got quite long quickly plus some extra problems.

So, what was done:

Oil change with filter- installed K&N-153 filter with Castrol Power 1 Racing 4T SAE 10W-40 oil
Air filter changed- this time my wallet didn’t bent to buy K&N air filter so bought something cheaper (don’t remember brand)
New NRG iridium sparkplug installed
Valve clearances checked
Changed brake fluid at rear and front – Castrol DOT-4 used
Changed hydraulic clutch fluid- same fluid as in brakes
Chain tension checked
Rear tyre changed
Brake pads checked with brake disks- installed new pad at rear
Throttle cable play checked and adjusted
Cambelt change
Font shocks had to be refreshed due to leaking seals

All those things are quite straight forward except cambelt change. Things are getting even more strange when you try to find answers from workshop manual. Belt tension is like mystical animal in the jungle who you have find by yourself. And even google didn’t want to spit out answer right away. First I read about playing guitar 😀 – you download app what can detect sound waves and when the sound is right, you are golden! Have no freakin idea how people can put so much trust to some kind of phone app- I tried and throwed out of window this option. Finally came across simple and easy method to make it happen- just stick allen key nr5 between tensioner and cambelt, tighten the tensioner and you are good to go!

And for this moment there was only front shock oil seals left to change. Felt like straight forward thing but according to manual you need handful of special tools to make it happen. So, I screwed them off and tooked them to local Ducati dealership who cleared this problem for me.

Meanwhile we where able to find motorcycle to my wife at beginning of year which was 2007 Ducati Monster 695.

Winter left and spring came what tooked us back on saddle to learn. Thanks to my father motorcycle license we where able to make conductor papers to him and free lessons came quite handy before examinations.

After few lessons it was clear that my wife doesn’t like the way her bike drives and we had to find something better. Right after that came in 2019 Yamaha MT-03 and she love it!