Topic: Let's see your non-SOHC4 on the road

[Alan F.]

Yesterday at 7:30am out on the western side of of Massachusetts Rt2 about 108 miles into a 404 mile day. I had all of Rt2 to myself.

Did you go beyond Greenfield(intersects I91 N&S),then on the way past Shelburne Falls? 
That's a peaceful ride.

Yep, all the way out to Rt7. More info in the 25 rides thread.

I agree it's a great part of the state, very timeless.

[newday777]

Yesterday at 7:30am out on the western side of of Massachusetts Rt2 about 108 miles into a 404 mile day. I had all of Rt2 to myself.

Did you go beyond Greenfield(intersects I91 N&S),then on the way past Shelburne Falls? 
That's a peaceful ride.

Yep, all the way out to Rt7. More info in the 25 rides thread.

I agree it's a great part of the state, very timeless.

I went as far as Shelburne Falls on Friday on my buying spree and it is a beautiful area.

[grcamna2]

Yesterday at 7:30am out on the western side of of Massachusetts Rt2 about 108 miles into a 404 mile day. I had all of Rt2 to myself.

Did you go beyond Greenfield(intersects I91 N&S),then on the way past Shelburne Falls? 
That's a peaceful ride.

Yep, all the way out to Rt7. More info in the 25 rides thread.

I agree it's a great part of the state, very timeless.

I went as far as Shelburne Falls on Friday on my buying spree and it is a beautiful area.

I lived in MA. for 15+ years,but never went West like that on rte.2,and I imagine that old road is wonderful. Does MA. keep-up with road maintenance ?

[simon#42]

it was the annual two stroke holiday last week . top of the stelvio pass , italy . my kawasaki avenger a yamaha 350lc a suzuki gt500 and an rd400 although barely recognisable as one

[MauiK3]

Smoke screen!
Very cool

[Stev-o]

it was the annual two stroke holiday last week . top of the stelvio pass , italy .

That must have been an incredible ride!

[simon#42]

It’s great but has got very commercial up there and very busy . I was very surprised how bad people were riding . I don’t mean fast just bad . Very large BMW’s seemed to be the worst . One clipped me then flattened some poor bloke on a bicycle , not clever . Wasn’t like that when I first went up . that was 45 years ago though .

[grcamna2]

It’s great but has got very commercial up there and very busy . I was very surprised how bad people were riding . I don’t mean fast just bad . Very large BMW’s seemed to be the worst . One clipped me then flattened some poor bloke on a bicycle , not clever . Wasn’t like that when I first went up . that was 45 years ago though .

The bicyclists pedaling up there.. that's Some Good workout.

[Alan F.]

I lived in MA. for 15+ years,but never went West like that on rte.2,and I imagine that old road is wonderful. Does MA. keep-up with road maintenance ?

Yes the roads out there are beautiful.

[jas67]

Got the CB450 K1 out for a little ride this evening.

[Don R]

 I rode over the Burlington Northern switch yards in Galesburg today, when I was a pipefitter, I installed the large fiberglass drainage pipes on the drains under the bridge. We had a close call when RR workers failed to protect us when we needed to use our lift to install a pair of pipe hangers over the tracks.

[Terry in Australia]

The weather has been really crappy lately, Spotty and I almost froze to death in his garage working on the GPZ1100 on Saturday. I was looking around for something to do at home last week and I remembered that the Ducati 916 S4 desperately needed new fork seals. Now I've probably done 50 fork seal changes on conventional forks over that many years, but until now, I've never done upside down forks with internal damping rods and adjustable rebound.

I didn't have a workshop manual and of course, no special tools, but ignorance is bliss, so I very carefully raised the front of the bike and used a couple of car stands and a long socket handle to hold it in a slightly less precarious position, then removed the wheel, fender, fork legs and brake calipers, that were both soaked with fork oil, and dropped the complete calipers  into my ultrasonic cleaner. Disassembling the forks was a PITA, as was reassembling them, requiring some redneck engineering (tie down straps to compress the springs worked really well)

Ducati fork fixing by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Ducati fork fixing 5 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

And I also had to machine up some fork seal drivers as you can't just replace the fork seals on these forks with the tubes out, like you can do on conventional forks. Happily, it worked.

Ducati fork fixing 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

So after 3 days of farting around with them, I reassembled the front end, gingerly lowered the bike after cleaning the calipers, blowing them out with compressed air, flushing them with brake clean, and finally bleeding them. The weather yesterday was cold and overcast with rain threatening, but I had to go for a ride to make sure that everything was working fine. It did, and I had a magnificent ride. After riding my VMax I was thinking that the power of the little 916 engine wouldn't excite me, but it was quite the opposite, I hit 220 KPH (140 MPH) a few times, and found myself going around corners at 20-30 MPH faster than I would on most of my other bikes.

Ducati Monday 2 September 2025 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

All up I did just under 120 miles, and only really turned around when my fingertips started to go numb. Great day!      

Ducati Monday 2 September 2025 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[MauiK3]

Nice CB450
Nice Ducati
Beautiful scenery, including the rail yard.

[Don R]

 Here's a far away pic at the airport, the Stearman fly-in is getting under way here.