Sports: Re: [DucatiST] Ducati Monster, not for touring

--- In st2_owners@yahoogroups.com, "Eddy" <edgrew@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Nick,
> I hope you enjoy your day at the NEC Bike Show. I went on Monday and had an enjoyable day sitting on things that I am unlikely to ever buy or ride.
> I saw nothing that would make me rush home to sell all the bikes I have to fund a new purchase.
> As an overall comment I thought that there were hardly any beautiful bikes, a few handsome bikes and an awful lot of ugly ones. Is it heresy to include the Ducati stand in this comment?
> Style and looks are a personal thing and for me the current trend seems to be towards angular, almost grotesque, adventure comic cartoon images.
>
> Regards,
>
> Eddy

I absolutely agree with you, Eddy! If it isn't flashy, angular and styled to shock, its grotesquely fat and bulky! Gone are the days of taste and minimalist styling. The KTM stand must surely have induced epileptic fits with the appalling grahics and in-your-face ORANGE, which is definitely more upsetting than Ducati's red.

Nothing I saw on the Japanese stands was remotely interesting, and such exotica as MV, Bimota or Benelli were absent or tucked away too well for me to find 'em. And what is so different with the larger stretched Guzzi California that gets everyone so excited? I came away thinking I really shouldn't bother again with the new bikes but should go to old-bike shows instead. Oh and I'd say that not one of the bikes I tried had as comfortable ergos as the ST4 or any other of the ten old bikes in my garage. All the Ducatis, except the Diavel, would need major revamps of seat and bars to suit me, and I'm a very average-shape person. Either you sit up too straight or you lie down flat: nothing inbetween. Fittingly, the Monsters appear to require gorillas to ride them. One small pleasing point about the air-cooled Monsters is that Ducati have even cast new heads and barrels with more attractive finning on them, in their attempt to shed the industrial look.

NickW, UK