• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

Bike Shopping (Street)

jtemple

jtemple

Husqvarna
Pro Class
All these miles I'm racking up on my TE630 just riding around town are starting to concern me. I want to keep my 630 for a good long time, as I don't care for the replacement alternatives.

So, I may be buying a new street bike next year. I have finally convinced the wife that owning two bikes wasn't out of the question.

Here's the short shopping list:

Ducati Hypermotard 1100 EVO SP
Ducati Monster 1100 EVO
Triumph Speed Triple
Honda CB1000R

The Ducatis really excite me. What doesn't excite me is the maintenance complexity and frequency. I also don't know how well they stand up to many thousands of miles per year. My bike is my main form of transportation, weather permitting. The TE630 is the most labor intensive bike I have owned, and while I love it to death, I don't want another high maintenance money pit sitting in my garage. We have one local Ducati dealership and I have heard nothing but good things about them.

I like the Triumph a lot. However, I don't know anything about their reliability and parts availability. We have two local Triumph dealers. One of them is Triumph-only. I went there once and left with a bad taste in my mouth. The other dealer is the local big-box dealer. They sell Harley, Japanese bikes, and Triumph. For a high volume dealer, they are actually not too bad to deal with.

The Honda is listed last. I like it, and I'm sure it's a great bike. I like the way it looks, reviews of it are consistently positive, but it doesn't really excite me like the other ones do. Using my head, I know that Honda's are built like tanks and run forever. They are also everywhere, and parts availability should not be a concern. It'll likely be one of those bikes where you just keep fresh tires on it and fresh oil in it and RIDE.

If I use my brain, the Honda gets my vote. If I use my heart, the Hypermotard gets my vote.

Has anyone here owned a Ducati or Triumph street bike long term? Am I asking for trouble going with those?

I really don't want two bikes that I'm going to have to work on frequently. I also like to do my own work. Most Ducati owners I have met or read about have their bikes serviced by the dealership.
 
We have a Hyper EVO SP and love it. Great power, very smooth and brakes that make Husky brakes feel spongy. The stock mirror/handguards are terrible (IMO)...we replaced them ASAP. Its definitely a difficult bike for shorties like me (5'6") and I can only get the tips of both feet on the ground when the bike is standing straight. Its much taller than the older Hyper and regular SP. I'm hoping to find a shorter seat soon. Which brings up another point...accessories for Ducatis are expensive! haha. I do a lot of trolling on ducati.ms for partouts as I'm kind of a cheapskate and can't stomach some of the accessory prices. As for distance riding, it can get a bit uncomfortable as it has zero wind protection. I've seen flyscreens and windshields for the bike, but I can't imagine they would make a huge difference.

I'm not sure about maintenance as we've only done the first service which we negotiated and got thrown into the purchase. However, there is a lot of support on the internet in terms of finding manuals, torque specs, etc. We recently purchased a slipper clutch and installed it ourselves. I agree that most Ducati owners tend to take it to the dealer, but I almost feel like its more of an expectation that comes with owning a Ducati (snobs lol) rather than a necessity. If you buy a new one, just make sure you let the dealer do the things that may void the warranty (which seems to be a very good warranty). The guy that we bought our other Ducati from had the dealer install absolutely everything...right down to handgrips, seats, windscreens, etc. That just made me chuckle as I would never pay anyone to do that kind of thing, but it seems to be commonplace in the Ducati world. haha.

I rode the Monster at the dealer and loved it. Great ergonomics. Much easier going than the Hyper, but ultimately the same kind of hooligan feel. In the end, my husband talked me into the Hyper. haha. I can't help but think the Monster would have been better for longer distances, though, as the seat was shaped better than the Hyper.

I've never ridden a Speed Triple, but have known a few that have owned them. All seemed pleased. They seem to operate best on the back wheel, but I suppose that goes for all of your possible bikes. :) It was a bit tall and heavy for me.

I don't know much about that particular Honda, but I have owned two CBRs and you pretty much have to drop a nuke on them to kill them.

I know it wasn't on your list, but the other bike we bought at the same time as the EVO was a Ducati Multistrada 1200S Touring and you might at least look it up. The aesthetics take a bit to get used to, but the bike is absolutely the best street bike I have ever owned. You can ride it for hours on end and be completely unphased. We happened on a killer deal on the top-of-the-line model with the Ohlins suspension, but I had originally test ridden the base model and would be more than happy with that one. It has four modes - urban, enduro, touring and sport. The first three kick the engine down to 100HP and the suspension adjusts automatically. The sport mode (in which the bike stays most of the time) just rips. :) My favorite thing about the bike is that at first glance it looks big and heavy, but its really not, and it turns and maneuvers almost better than the Hyper. Both my husband and I approached this bike apprehensively (since the older Multistradas are...well...ugly and turdy) and were both swept off our feet after a test ride. Here's a little clip from a show called Ultimate Factories that was on NatGeo recently:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com...s/ultimate-factories-1/ngc-transformer-cycle/ that is all about the Multistrada.

The MV was mentioned above. I was absolutely IN LOVE with this bike until I rode it. I tend to think that there was something wrong with the one I test rode (dealer was shady and later went out of business), but it was really jerky...not very smooth. The seat position was similar to a Monster, but the tank is shaped in such a way that it kind of pokes out at you...which I would think would be a good thing for the guys. I did think it was a cool bike, though.

All in all, there is just something that feels really cool about owning a Ducati. I put them in the same class of cool as our Husqvarnas...like you are in on a little secret that other people don't know or aren't willing to take a chance on. Nobody ever rushed up to me and said ooooohhhhhhhhhhh that's a nice CBR F4i! The Ducatis almost always draw a crowd of admirers.
 
I do like the Tuono V4 that's coming. Aprilias are hard to come by around here, though. I already had to have one bike and parts shipped to me (the Husky), I'm not sure I want to do that again.
 
I have a Yamaha FZ1. It is a great, do everything bike. The insurance is cheap since it is classified as a standard bike. The Honda CB1000R is classified as a sportbike even though it is naked. The insurance was 3-4 times as high when I was shopping for a bike last year. Also, the FZ1 has two great forums dedicated to this bike with lots of info. Maintenance is super easy. I used to own a SM610 so I know how much maintenance this bike is for street riding. Valve adjustments get old real quick. If you like the naked look, the FZ8 is available or you can convert the FZ1 for about $500.
 
Same problem here. Think the only alternative that would be reliable, low maintenance and affordable would be .... Japanese. The Street Triple might be somewhere in between. But I have little use for a traditional street bike. With an SM, I can look over cars, the riding position ("sit up and beg"), the steering and the power/weight factor all make a single cylinder SM bike the optimum for city traffic.
 
MattR said:
I have a Yamaha FZ1. It is a great, do everything bike. The insurance is cheap since it is classified as a standard bike. The Honda CB1000R is classified as a sportbike even though it is naked. The insurance was 3-4 times as high when I was shopping for a bike last year. Also, the FZ1 has two great forums dedicated to this bike with lots of info. Maintenance is super easy. I used to own a SM610 so I know how much maintenance this bike is for street riding. Valve adjustments get old real quick. If you like the naked look, the FZ8 is available or you can convert the FZ1 for about $500.
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Insurance is a non issue. My insurance provider calculates their rates based on displacement, not style of bike. My ZX-10R wasn't much more to insure than my TE.
 
Ducati sevicing every 12000 kilos is great, What about the new Husky Nuda or a multistrada
 
Try an Aprilia Dorsoduro 750 or 1200. If the Hypermotards turn you on, the Dorso's will thrill you. I tried both Ducati hypers and couldn't stand the cramped ergos.
 
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